California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom sent thousands of homeless people out of the state when he was the mayor of San Francisco.
However, he is accusing Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott of kidnapping illegal immigrants for transporting them to blue cities.
Liberal Governor Got Rid of Homeless People
As DeSantis sent two planes of illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Newsom sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to investigate whether the Republican governors broke kidnapping laws or not.
After Newsom’s letter, DeSantis claimed Newsom’s hair gel was hindering his brain functioning, which is urging him to take such weird actions.
Furthermore, Abbott also fired back at Newsom, stating he is well aware of kidnapping laws and all the migrants voluntarily traveled from Texas to the blue cities.
The heated exchange between the governors came after two decades of Newsom’s own attempt to bus homeless people out of California.
When Newsom was the mayor of San Francisco, he launched a bus service to transport homeless people out of the city and mostly even out of the state of California.
Who in the press is going to ask Newsom about how when he was mayor of SF in 2004, he had a program called "Homeward Bound" that "gives unsheltered San Franciscans a one-way Greyhound bus ticket out of town and asks them to please never come back"?https://t.co/WqRLql7Scn
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 17, 2022
Back in 2006, Newsom stated homeless people who are wandering the streets of San Francisco do not belong to the city.
As all homeless people have some relatives in the United States, they can easily get assistance from their relatives; so they need to be sent back to their families, Newsom continued.
Newsom Still Defending Deportation of Homeless People
In 2019, Newsom asserted an overwhelming majority of homeless people in San Francisco came from Texas, a claim which was later busted by famous fact-checker PolitiFact.
PolitiFact also established that 80% of homeless people were bussed outside California, while only 20% of them were transported out of San Francisco.
As Newsom claimed he was sending the homeless people back to their relatives, he only sent 6.7% of those people to Texas, which is far away from his claim that most of the homeless people originally belonged to Texas.
2006
Newsom wanted to bus homeless out of SF …
"the vast majority of people … are not from SF originally, and they all have some contacts somewhere…," Newsom argued at the time. "And those are the people…that can help turn their lives around."https://t.co/xdSychoiOJ
— i said what i said (@caliconsnews) September 19, 2022
However, Newsom’s office is still defending his attempts to deport homeless people.
According to the communications director of Newsom, Erin Mellon, the actions of Texas and Florida governors cannot be compared with Newsom’s actions to transport homeless people out of California.
While the San Francisco administration helped people to get back to their relatives, Republican governors were kidnapping people for their political needs, Mellon added.
In addition to that, Mellon noted, Republicans lied to the immigrants about the drop-off locations of the buses and planes and provided no support to them.
On the other hand, all the homeless people transported to their relatives under Newsom’s leadership boarded the buses voluntarily, which is not a violation of the kidnapping laws.
The Newsom administration provided shelter, free food, and financial assistance to homeless people until they reached their relatives, Mellon argued.
This article appeared in TheDailyBeat and has been published here with permission.
