Florida appears to have arranged for a group of South American migrants to be transported from Texas to California and dropped off in Sacramento, the attorney general of California stated, adding that he is investigating whether any crimes were committed.
If true, the 16 Colombian and Venezuelan migrants who arrived at the Roman Catholic Church diocesan headquarters in Sacramento on Friday would be the most recent to be relocated from a Republican-led state to a Democratic-led state.
California Blames Florida for Migrant Charter Flight
Attorney General Rob Bonta stated that although the circumstances surrounding the migrants' presence in the capital of California are still being investigated, the migrants possessed documents that appeared to have been issued in Florida.
In addition, he stated that he is determining whether civil or criminal law was broken. They entered the United States through Texas, CBS News reported.
Eddie Carmona, campaign director at PICO California, a faith-based organization that aids migrants, stated that US immigration officials had already processed the young women and men and given them court dates for their asylum cases before "individuals representing a private contractor" approached them outside a migrant center in El Paso, Texas, and offered to help them find jobs and travel to their final destinations.
The migrants were transported from Texas to New Mexico and then flown to California's capital by charter aircraft, where they were dropped off in front of the diocese's headquarters, according to California officials.
Last year, DeSantis, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, unannouncedly transported 50 mostly Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Per NBC News, DeSantis stated that the flight was intended to emphasize the crisis at the southern border, whereas Democrats and immigration activists claimed that it used vulnerable asylum-seekers as political pawns.
Despite the fact that Florida's migrant transport program has been largely inactive since last year's flights, the DeSantis administration has subtly signaled that it may resume.
The governor's administration has selected three vendors, including Vertol Systems Co., which conducted the September flights to Martha's Vineyard, to assist with the migrant transfer program.
In February, the Florida legislature enacted a bill expanding DeSantis' program to allow government officials to fly migrants to destinations in blue states with sanctuary policies.
The Republican-dominated Legislature granted the DeSantis administration $10 million for the program during a special legislative session in February, and an additional $12 million during the recently concluded legislative session of 2023.
Last month, DeSantis also signed a comprehensive immigration reform measure, weeks before he declared his presidential campaign and one day before the Biden administration ended Title 42, a Covid restriction that made it easier to deport migrants at the southern border.
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Newsom Called DeSantis 'Small, Pathetic Man'
On Monday, Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom escalated his war of words with Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, labeling him a "small, pathetic man" and threatening to file kidnapping charges over a flight of migrants sent to his state.
The Democratic governor launched the tweets in response to California's attorney general's assertion that Florida's government appeared to be behind a flight of South American migrants that arrived in Sacramento last week.
DeSantis has not claimed responsibility for the incident, but he and other Republican governors have bused or flown migrants to Democratic-led communities across the United States in protest of border policies and security.
Last month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) tweeted that the state alone had bused over 17,000 migrants to "sanctuary cities." DeSantis, who is now a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, sent two planes of migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in the autumn of 2018.
Per The Hill, it is unknown whether Florida is behind the latest flight to Sacramento, or what the migrants knew about their journey.
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