A campaign maneuver could have legal repercussions for the governor of Florida. Republican Ron DeSantis had flown 48 suspected illegal migrants from Bexar County, Texas, to the luxury island of Martha’s Vineyard in Democratic-ruled Massachusetts last week.
Now the New York Times is reporting that the Bexar County Sheriff has launched an investigation. Accordingly, Sheriff Javier Salazar said he had put his organized crime department on the case. It is still too early to say which laws DeSantis may have violated. But it is clear that many of the migrants who were flown out were misled and lured away from Texas.
Not only DeSantis resorts to such means. A day later, Texas Governor Greg Abbott – also a Republican – had two busloads of migrants driven to US Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in Washington.
According to the New York Times, one of the migrants flown out by DeSantis appears to have been paid to recruit other Venezuelans. Accordingly, Sheriff Salazar said the people had been promised jobs and a better life “under false pretenses,” the newspaper reports. “They had the right to roam the streets like you and I, and they had the right not to be preyed upon and made a fool of being trucked across half the country just for a media event,” the newspaper quoted the sheriff as saying and Democrats. “This is a tragedy.”
The “New York Times” reports that the migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard were approached near their accommodation in San Antonio by a well-dressed woman who gave out coupons for fast-food restaurants and promised “refuge” in Massachusetts.
After the migrants’ surprise arrival on Martha’s Vineyard, volunteers and officials took care of them. Days later, they were bussed to a Cape Cod shelter. DeSantis communications director Taryn Fenske said the migrants were dying to leave Bexar County, where they were abandoned, according to the newspaper. “Florida has given them the opportunity to seek greener pastures in a sanctuary that puts more resources at their disposal.”
Sheriff Salazar obviously sees things differently. He is now considering involving state and federal authorities in the investigation.
Additional source: “New York Times”.
