To halt the $12 million migrant relocation program in Florida, migrant rights organizations have gone to court.
After discovering that immigrant rights groups have filed additional court action challenging the validity of the state’s plan to have two aircraft of migrants relocated to Martha’s Vineyard, the office of Florida governor Ron DeSantis issued a statement.
Florida’s Warm Welcome to New Residents is the official name of the budget line that funded our efforts there (that, incidentally, garnered bipartisan support). We found no evidence of any violation of the law throughout our examination.
In an interview with Politico published on Friday, Taryn Fenske, DeSantis’ director of communications, confirmed the story. It is maintaining the ability to refute politically motivated allegations requires constant readiness.
The 28-page complaint against DeSantis and state Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue was filed on Thursday by the Florida Immigrant Coalition, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and the Hope Community Center.
The papers were filed with and served by the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Florida deported 49 illegal Texans to Martha’s Vineyard in September. Most of the people that fled to the United States were from Venezuela. Former President Obama has made his home on this remote island.
To the locals, the arrival of migrants was hardly shocking news.
Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has taken credit for the planes to highlight what he sees as the Biden administration’s inadequate response to the border. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been sending asylum applicants to blue states.
According to the complaint filed on September 14, 2022, “individuals acting at the direction of Defendants” killed approximately fifty Venezuelan and Peruvian migrants who had been processed into the United States by immigration authorities and who had been “induced” to fly from Texas to Massachusetts with “false promises of aid, jobs, and more.”
A more realistic description would be “no one arrived to assist.”
Although at first Martha’s Vineyard welcomed the illegal immigrants and criticized Republican DeSantis and Abbott for inactivity, the island quickly realized it could not accommodate the large number of people traveling by plane from the United States’ southern border with Mexico. Members of the community have relocated to a Cape Cod military base.
Florida will spend $12 million from its current budget to help illegal immigrants leave the state. Florida benefited economically from the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The complaint claims that the sought funding would violate federal immigration statutes by imposing an arbitrary definition of “unauthorized immigrant.” Advocates for Florida immigrants are concerned about their members’ safety after the federal government legalized their status in the United States and the state of Florida.
One of the principal goals of the case is to demonstrate that “immigrants in the United States bring considerable advantages to the places where they choose to stay, financially and otherwise.” Spending $615,000 to ship migrants from Texas to Massachusetts is wasteful and promotes hatred of Latinos and Caribbean people. No matter how justifiable legislation may be in every other respect, it is unconstitutional if it discriminates against certain persons in favor of others.
The case that challenged Florida’s refugee resettlement program raised similar concerns.
An SPLC Immigrant Justice Project senior supervising attorney said, “the conspiracy by Gov. DeSantis and the state of Florida to utilize public funds to remove ‘unauthorized aliens’ is a brazen and unlawful attempt to harass immigrants at the state level.” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has enacted a controversial immigration-targeting relocation plan that violates the law.
Adding salt to injury, a new complaint alleges that Floridians tricked San Antonians into boarding planes to Martha’s Vineyard.