The decision of Governor DeSantis of Florida to send to Martha’s Vineyard migrants from the border may end up being more largess than liability for residents and leaders on the tony Massachusetts island.

Even with the summer high season winding down, the island of about 15,000 residents has one the tightest job markets in the region. Dozens of businesses in the villages of Oak Bluffs and Vineyard Haven have help-wanted signs in their windows even long after the summer crowds that swell the island’s population to about 60,000 have retreated to the mainland.

While locals were telling out-of-town reporters Wednesday that there are no jobs on the island during the winter, the Vineyard Gazette has more than 230 help-wanted ads in its classified pages this week. The ads seek everything from housekeeping staff at the YMCA to custodians at the airport; some landscaping jobs come with year-round housing. Many of the positions would be more than suitable for even low-skilled workers with limited English proficiency.

About 50 migrants, some of them carrying exhausted children, arrived on Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday aboard two planes paid for by the taxpayers of Florida. The move is part of a coordinated effort by Republican governors to bring the border crisis to the doorsteps of America’s largest, Democratic-led cities from Texas and Arizona.

Mr. DeSantis apparently chose the island enclave — homeowners there include President Obama and President Biden’s climate tsar, John Kerry — because it is one of many self-declared sanctuaries for illegal immigrants around the country. Early in the Trump administration, several of the towns on the island joined a growing national movement to designate their cities as “sanctuary cities” that would not cooperate with federal efforts to enforce immigration laws.

“We are not a sanctuary state, and it’s better to be able to go to a sanctuary jurisdiction, and yes, we will help facilitate that transport for you to be able to go to greener pastures,” Mr. DeSantis said during a news conference Thursday. “Every community in America should be sharing in the burdens. It shouldn’t all fall on a handful of red states.”

Mr. DeSantis did not give details about the status of the people on those planes, but local reports said many of them were Venezuelans who were seeking asylum from the left-wing autocrats back home. The Biden administration’s policy toward asylum seekers is to process them and release them pending a hearing on their cases. In some instances, hearings could take years to materialize.

If, as reported, many of those arriving on Martha’s Vineyard have formally sought asylum, then they are automatically allowed to work and remain in the United States until their cases are resolved. They would be eligible, in other words, for any job openings on the island. 

The labor shortage on Martha’s Vineyard is not new, but has gotten worse since the pandemic. At the beginning of the 2022 season, the Gazette carried 247 column inches of help-wanted ads in the classified section. In 2019, the paper carried 85 inches of help-wanted ads during the same week.

Things were so bad on the island earlier this summer that a company operating ferries between it and the mainland was forced to cut the number of sailings during the Memorial Day weekend because of staffing shortages.

The situation has been the same among many of New England’s coastal tourist towns. One reason is the decline in the number of J-1 visas since the start of the pandemic. Previously, the towns relied heavily on foreign college students who could easily get visas that allowed them to work seasonal jobs for short periods of time. The program was severely disrupted by the pandemic, and has been slow to recover.

Thursday, it appeared that the residents of Martha’s Vineyard were making good on their promise to welcome any and all comers. Residents were gathering clothes and other essentials for the newcomers, and local churches set out to find shelter for them. The migrants, they said, seemed appreciative.

The director of a local shelter, Lisa Belcastro, told the Gazette that townspeople were doing everything they could to help.

“Every single person has come up and said they want a job; they are not looking for a handout. Some of these people have been through horrific things. They need a break. They need help,” she said.