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DeSantis, Florida officials move to have lawsuit over Martha’s Vineyard migrant flights dismissed
The Florida governor took credit last year for an operation that flew 49 migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.
Last fall, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other officials from his state organized the transportation of 49 migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in a shocking move that made national news.
Now, DeSantis and his team have filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought against them in the aftermath of the flights.
The class action lawsuit was filed in September by Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights on behalf of some of the migrants. At the time, the group said that the operation to move the migrants was “fraudulent and discriminatory.” It was filed against DeSantis, Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, the State of Florida, and other “accomplices.”
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In legal filings, Florida officials argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the Massachusetts federal court does not have jurisdiction and because migrants were told where they were being flown, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The woman who the migrants said recruited them for the trip, Perla Huerta, also filed a separate motion Tuesday to dismiss the case, the Journal reported. The defendants asked that the case be transferred to a federal court in Florida.
When first filing the lawsuit, LCR alleged that the migrants were made to cross state lines under false pretenses and that they were specifically targeted.
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Florida operatives focused on migrants that had recently been released from shelters, LCR alleged. They were lured with fake promises of work opportunities, education, and immigration assistance, according to the organization.
Some of the migrants said afterward that they knew they were going to Massachusetts, but did not specifically know that they would be dropped on Martha’s Vineyard. DeSantis’ operation came at the end of the tourist season, meaning that work opportunities were drying up on the island. Local leaders said they were not notified in advance, and the Vineyard lacked the capacity to accommodate the migrants long-term.
“This cowardly political stunt has placed our clients in peril. Numerous laws were brazenly violated to secure media headlines,” said Oren Sellstrom, the Litigation Director of LCR, in a statement at the time.
Defendants argued that the migrants were told they were heading to Massachusetts, and cited a form that each migrant signed before their trips. The forms were written in both English and Spanish, but did not specifically say that the migrants would be brought to Martha’s Vineyard, the Journal reported.
This week, Florida officials argued that the move was necessary to mitigate problems experienced by states that receive a large number of migrants, like Florida and Texas.
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“For the overwhelmed states and localities, transporting migrants to other parts of the country that don’t bear the brunt of this problem alleviates the stress, spreads the burden, and provides better living conditions for the migrants themselves,” the filing from Mr. DeSantis and other state officials said, according to the Journal.
Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, Executive Director of LCR told the Journal that the move by Florida officials is simply an attempt to avoid culpability.
“It is not surprising that Gov. DeSantis and his co-defendants are throwing up every procedural argument they can think of, in a desperate attempt to avoid facing the music for this callous political stunt,” Espinoza-Madrigal told the Journal.
The operation is also the subject of a criminal investigation led by Javier Salazar, Sheriff of Bexar County, Tex. The city of San Antonio is in Bexar County.
“They were promised work, they were promised the solution to several of their problems. They were taken to Martha’s Vineyard, from what we can gather, for little more than a photo op, video op,” Salazar said during a September press conference. “Then they were unceremoniously stranded in Martha’s Vineyard.”
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