Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is being sued on behalf of migrants who flew to Martha’s Vineyard last Wednesday without warning.
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Ronda Churchill / Getty Images
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is being sued on behalf of migrants who flew to Martha’s Vineyard last Wednesday without warning.
Ronda Churchill / Getty Images
A civil rights law firm filed a federal class-action lawsuit Tuesday against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others. to transport about 50 immigrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, without shelter or resources in place.
The Civil Rights Law Firm, along with the immigrant-led nonprofit Alianza Americas, filed the lawsuit on behalf of “Vineyard Migrants and All Persons of Similar Status” scammed by DeSantis and the State of Florida to get through state lines,” the group told NPR in an email. In addition to Governor DeSantis, litigation also named Florida, Florida Secretary of Transportation, Jared Perdue, and their accomplices as defendants.
The legal action comes after last Wednesday, when nearly 50 migrants were boarded from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, with a stopover in Florida. They came without warning, and Local communities scramble to provide food, shelter, and translation services. The migrants said they were not informed of their final destination, but were promised a chance to find work and a better life.
Alianza Americas CEO Oscar Cha also said that DeSantis used migrants to “promote a hateful agenda.” “That’s why we’ve taken steps to legally challenge what we see as not only a morally reprehensible act, but what we believe is also illegal.” , he said.
The attorneys want DeSantis and his co-defendants to be barred from “enticing immigrants to cross state lines by fraud and misrepresentation,” as well as “compensating those with damages.” migrate”.
On Monday, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said in a news release that his office is investigating whether migrants were victims of crime:
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation into migrants lured from the Migration Resource Center, located in Bexar County, TX, and flown to Florida, where they were eventually left to fend for themselves. for myself at Martha’s Vineyard, MA.
Hours after Salazar announced As a criminal investigator, DeSantis appeared on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News. The governor said the investigation was an overreaction, and that the migrants chose to come to Martha’s Vineyard voluntarily. He also asserted that all migrants had signed consent forms and that any condemnation of the flights was a “sign of virtue”.
The governor’s office and the Florida Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment on the lawsuit.
