Texas authorities are investigating a decision by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to fly close to 50 immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a news conference that his office is investigating whether the immigrants are victims of a crime.
Salazar said a Venezuelan migrant was paid to “lure” immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and successfully got 48 of them to stay at a hotel for a few days before they were flown to Massachusetts under “false pretenses” of work and other solutions.
Dozens of people were taken there for “little more than a photo op” and then stranded in Martha’s Vineyard despite being here legally, he said.
“What infuriates me the most about this case is that here we have 48 people that are already on hard times, right?” he said. “They are here legally in our country at that point, they have every right to be where they are, and I believe that they were preyed upon — somebody came from out of state, preyed upon these people, lured them with promises of a better life, which is what they were absolutely looking for.”
Salazar added that this move was for nothing other than political posturing to make a point.
“We all know that during a political campaign, things can get nasty, things can get out of hand,” he said. “But when you are playing with human lives, of people that are already in a desperate situation … that does tend to bother me quite a bit.”
Officials have been talking with the League of United Latin American Citizens, an attorney representing the immigrants still on the East Coast, and national and local media outlets. He did not release any other details about the case or name DeSantis or other political officials by name.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, DeSantis’s office wrote that before this move, immigrants have been “more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, homeless, and ‘left to fend for themselves.’”
“Florida gave them an opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary jurisdiction that offered greater resources for them, as we expected,” the governor’s office stated. “Unless the MA national guard has abandoned these individuals, they have been provided accommodations, sustenance, clothing and more options to succeed following their unfair enticement into the United States, unlike the 53 immigrants who died in a truck found abandoned in Bexar County this June.”
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DeSantis took credit for sending two planeloads of immigrants from Texas on Sept. 14, stating that Florida is “not a sanctuary state.” The Florida governor said back in April that the state budget had allocated $12 million to the Florida Department of Transportation, naming Delaware and Martha’s Vineyard specifically as possible migrant relocation destinations.
