The deceased migrants who were sprinkled with steak seasoning and abandoned in a sweltering hot semi-truck in San Antonio, Texas, may not be identified for possibly weeks, The Washington Post reports. Officials have “potential identities” for 34 of the victims, the report said. But for a dozen others, officials have no idea of even their nationality.
“There are no names," Archdiocese of San Antonio spokesperson Jordan McMorrough said in the report. “That’s one of the tragedies of the situation, is that no one has a name.” The death toll, initially at 46 people, is now 53 people.
It is a gutting, overwhelming tragedy. Yet Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wasted no time turning it into anti-immigrant campaign fodder, immediately pinning the deaths on President Joe Biden and “open border” lies. If there were truly “open borders,” 53 people would not have paid smugglers to leave them to die in a container.
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"A review of Mr. Abbott’s Twitter account shows he commented little about migrants and immigration during the Trump years,” The New York Times reported. “His approach has changed since Mr. Biden took office." That’s definitely one way to put it. While Abbott blamed Biden immediately following reporting Monday night, he did not blame the insurrectionist former president when 10 migrants died in a tractor-trailer in 2017. Nor did he tweet about it, the report said.
Yet Abbott and his defenders were apoplectic when they were confronted on gun violence following the horrific mass shooting in Uvalde that took the lives of 19 schoolchildren and two of their teachers. Why was he being confronted? Because Texas has loosened gun restrictions, even after another mass shooting in the state, at a Walmart in El Paso in 2019. Abbott has in fact been a vocal proponent of violent gun culture, tweeting in 2015 that he was “embarrassed” that the state was not No. 1 in gun purchases.
This hypocrisy isn’t solely an Abbott thing, either. Presidential wannabe Ron DeSantis has tried to gin up controversy over flights that have routinely transported asylum-seeking children and others, including during the previous administration. But only now has DeSantis decided that its controversial, and (along with his degenerate press secretary Christina Pushaw) lied about not being informed of the flights.
”I’ve been on these flights, including a late night one,” CBS News’ Camilo Montoya-Galvez tweeted earlier this year. “There’s nothing clandestine about them. On board are children—many of whom just endured traumatic experiences—who are anxious, eager to reunite with family and talk about ordinary things like soccer.”
It feels futile to be bringing up these examples of hypocrisy when 53 people are dead, and DeSantis and Abbott know they’re hypocrites but don’t give one shit about being hypocrites. Does it own the libs? Good enough. Pointing out they’re hypocrites is not going to help identify these men and women any faster, it’s not going to help ensure they’re laid to rest, and it won’t bring some semblance of peace to their loved ones. What we can do is implement humane immigration policies and get rid once and for all of hateful policies like Title 42, to ensure this sort of tragedy never happens again. Abbott is quick to blame, but he’d never be quick to fix.
“Gov. Abbott’s obscene initial response, filled with finger pointing and lies about ‘open borders,’ reminds us that dehumanizing those who seek a better life to score political points is despicable,” Texas-based America’s Voice campaigns director Mario Carrillo said. “Our elected leaders should engage in a serious reevaluation of a failed set of policies, not in cheap political mudslinging.”
