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I don't think so. It's all voluntary.

A lot of the migrants have friends and relatives in other places. What they don't have is money to get a plane or a bus or a train to the Northeast, where they might be wanting to get to anyhow. Greg Abbott, and now Ron DeSantis, are offering them free trips. And the migrants are going voluntarily.

Not all of them are unsophisticated, either. I'm sure some are clueless about where they are heading or what it is going to be like. But a lot of them know the cost of living in New York or D.C is really high, and some of them were hopping off the buses along the way (in red states, and now those people are pissed at Abbott), or they hop off the bus and figure they have just gotten themselves that much closer to whatever final destination they are actually trying to get to. Many of these people who have trudged thousands of miles, some through the jungle or through gang territory in Mexico. Hopping off a bus in Tennessee and hoping they can then make their way to a relative in Ohio or Pennsylvania has got to be much less daunting than the shit they have already been through.

 

Not at all.

It's just that people automatically assume that "They are being forced onto buses." And that isn't entirely true. My bet would be that the politicians behind the shittiness have actually gone to lengths to document that it's all been voluntary.

I have no idea if there have been people who have been told by the workers from the "refugee organizations," "Yeah, go there, lots of jobs there!" I wouldn't be surprised by that either. A lot of people are acting really miserably and treating these people like they are a nuisance, not people in need. But I also know for certain that there is a different story playing out, too. What Abbott was counting on was that offering a free trip to New York or D.C. would get plenty of volunteers. They offer them an asylum hearing, tell them they are free to go while they wait, and oh, by the way, we have buses to the Northeast (where a lot of the migrants wanted to get to anyhow, because they know people there) free of charge.