A Boston-based legal group filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that alleges a “fraudulent and illegal scheme” to transport nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Massachusetts violated Constitutional rights and federal law.
The lawsuit comes nearly a week after migrants landed on Martha’s Vineyard on two planes that originated in San Antonio, Texas, a trip for which DeSantis claimed credit and renewed a contentious national debate over immigration policy. The suit was filed in Massachusetts federal court by Lawyers for Civil Rights on behalf of some of the migrants and Alianza Americas, a network of organizations supporting immigrants in the United States.
Lawyers for Civil Rights said the migrants were “targeted and induced to board airplanes and cross state lines under false pretenses” and alleged DeSantis and his transportation secretary, Jared Perdue, “interfered with the orderly administration of the federal immigration system.”
“Defendants and their unidentified accomplices designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting this vulnerability for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests,” the lawsuit reads. “This scheme involved the unidentified doe defendants, acting in concert with the named defendants, identifying and targeting class members by trolling streets outside of a migrant shelter in Texas and other similar locales, pretending to be good Samaritans offering humanitarian assistance.”
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DeSantis Communications Director Taryn Fenske said in a statement that “it is opportunistic that activists would use illegal immigrants for political theater.”
“If these activists spent even a fraction of this time and effort at the border, perhaps some accountability would be brought to the Biden Administration’s reckless border policies that entice illegal immigrants to make dangerous and often lethal journeys through Central America and put their lives in the hands of cartels and Coyotes,” Fenske said in a statement.
The lawsuit refers to five unnamed defendants who allegedly helped “target” the migrants and “induce” them onto flights to Massachusetts. The first defendant is described as a woman named “Perla” and the second “Emanuel” while defendants three through five “either participated in the inducement” of the migrants to “travel, coordinated and/or supported this scheme.”
Related Story: Texas sheriff investigating DeSantis says Americans should ’embrace’ migrant surge, give them jobs
The lawsuit alleges the unnamed defendants offered the migrants gift cards to gain their trust.
“After luring Plaintiffs by exploiting their most basic needs, the Doe Defendants then made false promises and false representations that if Plaintiffs and class members were willing to board airplanes to other states, they would receive employment, housing, educational opportunities, and other like assistance upon their arrival,” the lawsuit reads.
The unnamed defendants put the migrants in hotels for free, the lawsuit says, “sequestered away from the migrant center, and from the possibility of actual good Samaritans finding out how the class members were being abused.”
Florida public records show the Florida Department of Transportation paid $615,000 to Vertol Systems Company Inc. for a “relocation program of unauthorized aliens” a week before DeSantis claimed credit for flying migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.
The lawsuit alleges the migrants were told they were either flying to Boston or Washington, D.C. “which was completely false,” the suit says.
“These immigrants, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the United States, experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country,” the lawsuit says. “Defendants manipulated them, stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the federal government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda.”
Fenske said the immigrants were transported to Martha’s Vineyard “on a voluntary basis.” Fenske provided in an email to MassLive a consent form where a person signs to “agree to be transported by the benefactor or its designated representative to locations outside of Texas, including in sanctuary states.”
“The immigrants were homeless, hungry, and abandoned — and these activists didn’t care about them then,” Fenske said in the statement. “Florida’s program gave them a fresh start in a sanctuary state and these individuals opted to take advantage of chartered flights to Massachusetts.”
Gov. Charlie Baker has pushed back against making Massachusetts a “sanctuary state” and previously signed onto a letter pushing for an “end to the national security crisis” at the border with 25 other governors.
He also opposed legislation dubbed the Safe Communities Act that would have restricted local and state law enforcement officials from asking about a person’s immigration status and vetoed a bill — the state Legislature later overturned his objection — creating a pathway to a driver’s license for immigrants without legal status in Massachusetts.
Alianza America Executive Director Oscar Chacòn said DeSantis used the migrants to advance a “hate-driven agenda.”
“That is why we have taken the steps to legally challenge what we view as not only a morally reprehensible action but what we believe is also illegal,” Chacòn said in a statement accompanying the suit.
The decision to send the group of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard drew national attention to a small island just a few miles off the coast of Massachusetts, where the year-round population hovers around 17,000.
Officials there have said they were only given a 20-minutes heads up before two planes landed Wednesday afternoon at a regional airport. DeSantis claimed credit shortly after their arrival.
In a statement last week, DeSantis Communications Director Taryn Fenske said the move was part of the “state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”
“States like Massachusetts, New York, and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden Administration’s open border policies,” Fenske said.
The Florida Legislature funded a relocation program with $12 million over the summer and authorized the Department of Transportation “to facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law.”
A provision in the most recent Florida state budget, where the funding was approved, defines an unauthorized alien as “a person who is unlawfully present in the United States according to the terms of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act.”
Top Florida Democrats have asked their House speaker and budget chief to formally object to the spending, which they can do under a provision of state law.
Florida House Minority Leader Rep. Evan Jenne, a Dania Beach Democrat, said taxpayers were left to foot the bill.
“These folks weren’t in the state of Florida. They were in Texas. They weren’t coming to the state of Florida, but that money was spent on something that will not make Floridians any safer,” Jenne said at a Monday morning press conference. “It is not going to make the cost of living go down, which we are experiencing a crisis right now in the state.”
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Yep—they get over here and the first thing they do is acquaint themselves with how to game the system.
If elected President, the first thing DeSantis should do is empower EVERY LEGAL citizen with the power of citizen’s arrest, of any who are illegally inside our borders, and a trip back to the border included if the citizen is so offended. Presidential pardons to all who get sued issued up front.
THE FIRST thing that needs to get done, is CHANGE THE rules, that OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS are expanded and given to ILLEGAL INVADERS!
THEY should only apply to CITIZENS and LEGAL residents.
Those left wing liberal lawyers were just waiting to pounce on those illegals to bring their radical anti-America political views to the public’s eye. This whole lawsuit is a big joke, and any normal thinking judge and court would dismiss it out of hand. Of course that part of the country is full of radical liberal judges trying to make a name for themselves, so they will probably take the case. About the only thing this mess will accomplish is to waste a lot of taxpayer money, and feed those socialist lawyers egos.
There’s days i would just LOVE TO publicly STRIP THE CItizenship from everyone of these lawyers, and ‘activist groups’, AND KICK THEM THE HELL out of this nation permanently.
The treachery of the treasonous, socialist Democrat Party know no bounds.
This treasonous, dishonest, socialist Democrat Party cult and its disciples will do or say anything to advance their demonic agendas
“The lawsuit alleges the unnamed defendants offered the migrants gift cards to gain their trust.”
If you’re a taxpayer in New York, or anywhere in the U.S., you’re getting scammed by groups like United Way, Catholic Charities and the Central American Refugee Center. You may think they’re charities. Truth is, these groups are hauling in millions in taxpayer dollars — your money — under government contracts to facilitate illegal immigration.
It’s money laundering.
Democratic politicians want to maximize illegal immigration, but they don’t want their fingerprints on it. The remedy: pay so-called charities that will do the work for them. Who’s in on this scam? President Joe Biden, and politicians across the country including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Even before crossing the border, migrants still in Mexico are being handed payment cards loaded with $800 a month to enable them to pay for necessities. The cards are distributed by the nonprofit International Organization for Migration, thanks to money provided by the Biden’s administration’s State Department.
“…the Biden’s administration’s State Department.”
We The People are picking up the tab. One of the oldest “shell games” in the book.
In my next life I’m going to live as a government. If anything goes wrong The People pay. If it goes right, I get the gravy.
Heads up to Lawyers for Civil Rights; You people obviously don’t get it but the Biden regime is committing a crime by enticing and allowing these illegal invaders to come into America illegally. How about suing him, how about demanding his arrest and prosecution?
You socialist fools ignore the real crime to chase butterflies!
TO ME everyone of those law groups, are ALSO Engaged in crimes.. TREASON Specifically, by GIVING AID TO invaders.
The illegals get offered gift cards by the sane governng legally elected leaders and Democrats want them arrested and prosecuted, all the while the illegals offer our kids fentanyl pills that kill them by the hundreds of thousands and the Democrats want them not only protected but rewarded with social services designed for legal citizens. Just tell me how insane, illegal, and corrupt can 30-40% of our Democrat party voting country get?
This was so unfair to the illegals.
The law should have been followed. They would be back home, safe and cozy, by now.
There you gov’s go, they just handed you the place, Boston Mass. Next stop for the next 1000 illegals to be sent. Ship them in all at one time.
Clearly the migrants are just pawns. They are being used, just like all Blacks and oddballs exploited for years by the Dem elites. This is a distraction action, and without merit, for the sake of the Leftist Media. The Governor should not fall for this foolish ploy.
Don’t worry, the good Governor has his stuff together. The first one’s to shuffle those illegals around the country was that stooge Newsom from California, and the other stooge we have in the white house, but they are left wingers so the msm just ignores that fact.
NOR Should any judge, but unfortunately as we’ve seen for years now, THERE ARE JUST TOO DAMN Many libtard activist judges, who are on our benches.
I have said this before, and I will say it again here and now:
The only thing that can save this country is a mushroom cloud over DC.
That’s a waste of power. 😎
these illegal aliens have no rights in america they are not citizens of the country they are criminals period dot end of story.
Agree, they are prisoners at this point and cannot dictate how they should be treated.
THAT is hwo they SHOULD be seen. BUT these days, it seems ILLEGAL INVADERS and criminals, are the only ones WHO HAVE rights…
Where were these lawyers when the feds were doing the same thing. Time to start populating Boston and their suburbs.
Probably holding parties, CHEERING ON what biden and co, were doing, to RED CITIES and states.
The migrants, illegal aliens getting and taking tips from the DEMOCRATS. Starting their new life in freedom with the dirty DEMOCRATS!! Give the migrants and inch and already they take a mile and probably will go for more!
“We, the people” need to get our country back and the best way is by our vote in November. Let our voices be heard loud and clear – go and vote so our laws can start to be enforced as we do not need new laws – just enforce the one we already have. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE but keep vigil for mules and sudden finding of new ballots only for them.
I am of Mexican descent and welcome legal immigration but not illegal invasion.
ROFLMAO!!! This is absolutely hysterical! Did they sue Biden for flying planeloads of illegals into Florida or New York? Or anywhere else, for that matter? And then just dumping them, leaving them to figure out how to survive in a strange city? Of course not. It’s only a problem when we inconvenience the super-elite. These people make me gag.
The ONLY people responsible for the plight of the ILLEGAL INVADERS are the ILLEGAL INVADERS themselves! They are not citizens therefore they should have any legal standing in OUR courts of law. The idiots who filed the arbitrary and capricious lawsuit should be fined by the court for the court’s time wasted AND should have to pay ALL costs and fees associated with defending the BS lawsuit. Meanwhile we have many senior citizens, disabled citizens and many other US CITIZENS who are unable to afford housing and food all while our ILLEGITIMATE GOVERNMENT hands the ILLEGAL INVADERS FREE MONEY, ROOM AND BOARD AND 3 SQUARE MEALS A DAY! When will someone stand up and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH??
AND then see their law licenses REVOKED!
“Ambulance chasing” lawyers come to mind.