Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis is facing increasing opposition from faith-based organizations over anti-immigrant legislation that targets asylum-seeking children and other migrants.
“The hallways of Florida’s Capitol are bustling with advocates who oppose the bill,” Miami Herald reports. “Their messages carried on children’s postcards to lawmakers and in coordinated campaigns led by faith leaders from South Florida and across the state.”
Among them are Ignite Life Center Associate Pastor Nicole Gomez, who said her church has assisted hundreds of unaccompanied children. “We sit across from them,” she said in the report. “We know their stories and we have been blessed by them.”
DeSantis has already faced a blistering rebuke from Archbishop of Miami Thomas Wenski, who condemned the right-wing governor’s despicable claim that it was “disgusting” to compare Central American kids arriving to the southern border in search of asylum with Cuban children who arrived to the U.S. through Operation Pedro Pan in the 1960s.
“Children are children, and no child should be deemed disgusting, especially by a public servant,” Wenski said. But DeSantis is no public servant, serving only his bobble-headed self and extremist ideology. To make the point, rather slithering away in shame after the archbishop’s castigation, the Roman Catholic's spokesperson, taxpayer-paid troll Christina Pushaw, accused Wenski of being a liar.
Miami Herald reports that the anti-immigrant agenda is now, unsurprisingly, being quickly advanced by Republican lawmakers. The senate president is allowing the bill to skip another committee step and go straight to the floor. Bill sponsors have also claimed that they’ve altered the legislation in response to criticism so it won’t affect unaccompanied kids, or immigrants with temporary protections like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or Temporary Protected Status.
”The tweak has not been enough to satisfy concerns from immigrant and religious communities, including Catholics and Evangelicals who plan to protest the measure at the Capitol on Thursday,” the report said.
Don’t be fooled: DeSantis’ anti-child agenda is more than clear, following his so-called emergency order targeting facilities that shelter unaccompanied minors. That action was condemned by members of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Our Governor has children himself,” Dr. Lisa Gwynn, a pediatrician and organization member, told ABC Action News late last month. “I just can’t imagine how this decision could be made knowing kids can’t speak for themselves, they need to be protected.”
In an open letter, faith leaders wrote that DeSantis’ anti-child agenda is “outrageously vile and contrary to the sacred trust granted to certain officials elected officials. It attacks the well-being of all children who enter the United States in hopes of finding a new life free of fear, and open to new opportunities.” Separately, a Florida Republican also sought to force the outing of LGBT children through an amendment that has since been withdrawn.
“For many, crossing an American border is an act of faith and courage, a matter of survival,” the faith leaders continued in the letter urging DeSantis to halt his war on vulnerable children. “As such, we call on Gov. DeSantis to abandon this law rather than abandon children already marginalized for not being U.S. citizens. As a nation of immigrants, could we not do better?”
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