DeSantis team blasts Miami archbishop for lying about governor's immigration stance

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office took to Twitter on Tuesday to blast the head of the Sunshine State’s Roman Catholic Church for allegedly lying last week when he publicly spoke out against the governor’s executive action that targets shelters housing unaccompanied migrant youth.

The Miami Herald first broke this story.

“Lying is a sin,” said Press Secretary Christina Pushaw in a tweet referencing Archbishop Wenski’s Feb. 10 press conference at the Archdiocese of Miami where business and religious leaders -- along with immigration advocates – publicly criticized DeSantis’ immigration policies.

This is the group that made the ad with false claims about @GovRonDeSantis.

Lying is a sin. https://t.co/FR4nKoUHz4

— Christina Pushaw 🐊🚛 (@ChristinaPushaw) February 15, 2022

Shortly after publishing her original tweet, Pushaw once again took to the platform to clarify that her last tweet was posted in direct reference to Wenski’ saying “I pointed out that he lied about what @GovRonDeSantis said.”

Last week, the archbishop stated that, “children are children, and no child should be deemed disgusting, especially by a public servant.”

The comment was made in reference to a Feb. 7 round-table discussion, in which the Republican governor said it was “disgusting” to compare Operation Pedro Pan -- a 1960s relocation of thousands of Cuban children to South Florida -- to the Biden administration’s resettlement of unaccompanied minors, a move which DeSantis has repeatedly called a “human-smuggling operation.”

Felice Gorordo, a board member for both the American Business Immigration Coalition and a son of a former Pedro Pan participant, said it was “absurd and hypocritical” for the governor’s spokesperson to claim the archbishop was lying.

“I think it’s clear who has the moral authority in this matter, and I applaud and appreciate the Archbishop for his steadfast leadership in pushing back and standing up to politicians like DeSantis trying to weaponize these innocent children,” he said.

On Tuesday, Gorordo’s organization released a Spanish-language ad blasting DeSantis for his new shelter rule, which mandates state regulators to not issue or renew licenses for shelters that house unaccompanied migrant children through partnerships with the federal government. The campaign will be played across multiple AM and FM radio stations throughout South Florida.

The blistering radio spot is titled “Disgusting?,” a reference to the comment DeSantis made last week when criticizing comparisons to Pedro Pan youth from the 1960s to unaccompanied minors today.

“Disgusting? Disgusting is that Gov. DeSantis is trying to benefit himself politically by attacking innocent immigrant children who are only seeking refuge,” the ad’s narrator can be heard saying.

The six-figure campaign further describes Miami as “Florida’s own Ellis Island,” while also blasting the governor for positioning Pedro Pan youth as “more worthy of help” than minors fleeing financial hardship and violence in their home countries today.

“Children are children, whether they are escaping the oppressive Castro regime or violence, socialism and dictatorship in Venezuela, Haiti and Central America. None of these children are disgusting and caring for them is an act of humanity,” said Mike Fernandez, a Cuban exile and co-chairman of the coalition that paid for the ad.

After the ad was released, the governor’s team was quick to push back, warning that the radio spot was “false” and characterized it as a “blatant example of Spanish-language misinformation.”

“Gov. DeSantis didn’t call unaccompanied minors ‘disgusting,’” Pushaw said.