Boston Group Sues Gov. DeSantis Over Martha's Vineyard Migrant Flights

BOSTON, MA — A Boston legal advocacy group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after the Republican shipped two planeloads of Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard last Wednesday.

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed the suit on behalf of about 50 Venezuelans involved in the flights, and Alianza Americas, a network of migrant-led organizations supporting immigrants in the U.S. The lawsuit names DeSantis and Secretary of Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, and called the flights "inhumane and morally repugnant."

The suit says the Florida officials arranged a "fraudulent and discriminatory scheme to transport nearly 50 vulnerable immigrants, including women and children, from San Antonio, Texas to Martha’s Vineyard without shelter or resources in place."

The lawsuit was filed nearly 24 hours after a sheriff in Texas announced a criminal probe into the Sept. 14 flight. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, a Democrat, said the migrants were lured from an immigrant resource center before they were flown to Florida, and then Martha's Vineyard.

Salazar said the Venezuelan migrants were in the U.S. as asylum-seekers, and were therefore legally allowed to be here.

“For the Governor of Florida to cynically use recently arrived immigrants who have applied for asylum in the U.S. to advance a hate-driven agenda intended to create confusion and rejection throughout the country, is not only morally despicable, but utterly contrary to the best traditions of humanitarian protection embraced by most Americans,” Alianza Americas’ Executive Director Oscar Chacòn said in a news release.

According to the lawsuit, DeSantis used about $615,000 in taxpayer dollars to charter the flights to Martha's Vineyard, and told the migrants they would arrive in either Washington, D.C., or Boston. The suit also says the migrants were lured into planes with the promise of benefits, including $10 McDonald's gift cards.

Even with the lawsuit and a potential criminal probe, DeSantis may be preparing another migrant flight. A flight tracking website Tuesday showed that the same company that transported the migrants to Martha's Vineyard was preparing to fly on Wednesday to Rehoboth Beach, Del., near where President Joe Biden has a vacation home.