Lawyers claim that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis handed out misleading brochures that promised cash assistance, job placement services, and more, to migrants before flying them out to Martha's Vineyard.
The situation comes as authorities in Texas have opened up a criminal investigation into the Republican's operation to fly roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants from the state to the Cape Cod island last week.
Florida's Fake Brochures
In a statement during a Monday news conference, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar announced that his office was investigating whether the migrants were the victims of a crime. He said that the individuals were "lured under false pretenses."
Many of the migrants said that they agreed to fly from San Antonio to the Massachusetts island after they were promised jobs. However, there were no real career opportunities waiting for them at their destination.
Salazar said that people should be held accountable for the situation to the extent possible under the law. He added that at that point in time, he was not able to definitively say what statute was broken, either federal, state, or local, as per the Miami Herald.
Gov. DeSantis took responsibility for the two charter flights last week, saying that they were part of a state program to relocate migrants from Florida, although the group of Venezuelans was in San Antonio.
Salazar called the flights "little more than a video op" but did not name DeSantis in his remarks about the situation. Furthermore, he said that his office was cooperating with a private attorney for the migrants, as well as advocacy groups, and was preparing to cooperate with federal agencies "should the need arise."
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According to Business Insider, now, the Boston-headquartered Lawyers for Civil Rights, which is representing roughly 30 of the migrants, shared links to photos of the misleading brochures via Twitter. The group noted that the migrants were given the brochure "at some point during their expulsion and relocation from Texas and Florida."
Venezuelan Migrants
Previous reports noted that a woman the migrants identified as "Perla" promised them to work permits in Boston once they arrived. Later on, links to the brochure photos were posted on Twitter on Monday.
Immigration attorney Matt Cameron said that the benefits in the brochure are resettlement benefits for refugees referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and authorized to live in the United States. However, they are not available in Massachusetts to the migrants who are still seeking asylum.
The "Massachusetts Refugee Benefits" brochure describes benefits including up to eight months of cash assistance, job placement, retention and upgrade services, assistance with housing, food, clothing, and more.
Officials in Massachusetts also recently requested a federal human trafficking probe over DeSantis' order to fly migrants to Martha's Vineyard. In a Twitter post on Sunday, state Rep. Dylan Fernandes said that they were requesting the Department of Justice to open an investigation to hold the Florida Republican and others accountable for the inhumane acts.
Fernandes noted that not only were the orders morally criminal, but there were also legal implications around fraud, kidnapping, deprivation of liberty, and human trafficking, USA Today reported.
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