On Monday’s broadcast of San Francisco NBC affiliate KNTV’s “NBC Bay Area News Tonight,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) reacted to migrants being flown to the state of California by stating that the Statue of Liberty “doesn’t say, everyone bring us your poor, tired, huddled masses, except for the State of Florida. Everyone is supposed to participate in the support for the newcomers that have built our country, make us who we are.”
Host Raj Mathai asked, “The bigger issue here, perhaps, is should other states, not just border states, help by taking in migrants? Are we getting into that?”
Bonta answered, “That hasn’t been part of a specific policy discussion that Florida or Texas has engaged in with us. We’re a border state, of course. We live and thrive with immigrants who lead our state in every place and space where progress is made, including having an immigrant who’s the California Attorney General. And so, states who have newcomers, asylum seekers, immigrants come to their state, should treat them with compassion and humanity and care, give them dignity and respect, and provide them that support that they need, rather than treat them with cruelty and inhumanity, deceit and lies, and hurt and harm. And so, it’s obvious, it’s clear, we are one United States of America. We have a Statue of Liberty that says bring us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses. And it doesn’t say, everyone bring us your poor, tired, huddled masses, except for the State of Florida. Everyone is supposed to participate in the support for the newcomers that have built our country, make us who we are.”
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