MIAMI – The governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, was sued in a Florida court for sending Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to an island in Massachusetts, a state where he is already facing a lawsuit for the same reason.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and organizations defending immigrants such as the Florida Immigration Coalition reported that the lawsuit was filed in the federal courts of Miami this Thursday against the governor and Florida Secretary of Transportation, Jared W. Perdue.
The plaintiffs maintain that Florida’s immigrant resettlement program, endowed with $19 million dollars and under which almost 19 migrants, mostly Venezuelans, were transferred from San Antonio (Texas) to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, last September, is unconstitutional.
Florida is “usurping the exclusive role of federal government in regulation lar and enforce the immigration law”, they allege. national origin.”
“The Constitution is clear: The sole and exclusive power to regulate immigration policy is vested in the federal government, not the states,” said Paul Chavez, lead supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center Immigrant Justice Project, in a statement.
“Governor DeSantis’ program and the state of Florida to use taxpayer funds for the ‘relocation’ of ‘unauthorized aliens’” is a blatant and illegal attempt to harass immigrants at the state level”, he stressed.
When learned of the sending of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and controversy broke out, DeSantis defended his decision as a response to the immigration policy of the Government of the President Joseph Biden, who, in his opinion, leaves the US borders “open” to foreigners without permission to settle in the country.
He also said that immigrants recruited in Texas after applying for political asylum at the border traveled to Martha’s Vineyard voluntarily, but those who boarded the flight paid for by Florida told a Massachusetts court that they had been deceived.
There has only been one relocation flight so far, at a cost of more than $1.5 million, but DeSantis vowed to spend the $ 19 million that the Florida Congress appropriated for that program.
In the class action lawsuit brought by a civil rights organization in federal courts in Massachusetts, DeSantis and other Florida officials are accused of violating the rights of immigrants with “false promises and misrepresentations” to get them to board the flights.
The department’s watchdog The US Treasury is investigating whether the governor misused money related to federal COVID-19 relief to pay for flights .
In Texas, a sheriff opened an investigation into the flight from San Antonio and in Florida Democratic state senator Jason Pizzo filed a lawsuit to prevent DeSantis from using more money on immigrant resettlement, but it was dismissed on technical grounds.
Despite this controversy and others due to his ultra-conservative agenda, Florida voters gave DeSantis four more years in office in the midterm elections held in November.
The polls prior to the appointment with the polls showed that half the electorate agreed with the relocation of immigrants to Democratic-dominated states and cities pursued by the DeSantis program.
The governor has not revealed I’m not even sure if he’ll run for the Republican presidential nomination in 19, something analysts are taking for granted based on several indications, including a plan to change a state law that , if approved, will allow him not to have to give up the governorship while he fights to be the candidate for the White House.
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