Updated with clarifications from 10:47 p.m. The State Department has been asked for clarification by the website Marketwatch:
“The Department of State is not facilitating evacuations from Puerto Rico, as it is a U.S. territory,” said Ashley Garrigus, press officer at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs.
Garrigus directed MarketWatch to the Department of Defense, which did not immediately respond. The State Department’s website references Puerto Rico, saying that U.S. citizens don’t require a passport to travel from Puerto Rico to other parts of the U.S., as long as they have proper identification.
Other U.S. citizens being evacuated from the region are subject to the promissory loan requirement. One woman who was evacuated from St. Martin has launched a petition to remove the requirement.
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Though he is taking some evacuees every last cent, future earnings and passports, as The Hill reports:
The Trump administration is reportedly forcing evacuees from Puerto Rico and Dominica to sign promissory notes ensuring full repayment for transportation costs and is keeping evacuees' passports as collateral...
The same report says the government is calculating billable evacuation costs at:
“the price of the last commercial one-way, full-fare (not discounted) economy ticket prior to the crisis.”
Newsweek ran a similar story this morning.
Have you ever bought a last-minute, one-way, full-fare plane ticket? Try that without cash, a high-probability of modest-to-meagre resources to begin with, then a freshly-wrecked home, washed-away employment, plus kids and grandparents in tow also without food or water or medicine.
What kind of monster is this, and what kind of country is he leading?
