A private flight with about twenty migrants on board landed Monday at the Sacramento airport in California, according to Tara Gallegos, spokeswoman for Attorney General Rob Bonta. Last Friday, another plane arrived in the Californian capital with 16 asylum seekers from Venezuela and Colombia, which state authorities have linked to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The two flights were organized by the same company, according to the California Attorney's Office, contracted by the Florida government to move immigrants from the Texas border to the California capital. In both cases, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the asylum seekers were contacted in Texas, and from there they were flown to New Mexico and then by plane to Sacramento.
Florida authorities have neither confirmed nor denied that they are behind these flights. In 2022, Florida paid the same company $1.56 million to fly immigrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and for another flight to Delaware that never took place. The Republican governors of Texas and Arizona had (and continue to do) thousands of migrants from their states on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., but DeSantis escalated that tactic by making the transfers by plane and not from his state but from others.
Ron DeSantis officially aspires to the Republican nomination for president, and has redoubled in his campaign the attacks against immigrants and against the policies of President Joe Biden at the border, in addition to approving in Florida one of the toughest laws in the country against the undocumented.
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"A pathetic little man"
California's attorney general told ABC News on Monday that the migrants who arrived Friday in Sacramento — young men and women — had documents indicating the flight was part of Florida's program to resettle migrants. They were abandoned outside the Catholic Diocese of Sacramentowith just a backpack of belongings each, said Eddie Carmona, campaign director for the religious community group PICO California, which provides assistance to migrants.
[Hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children placed in the hands of non-family adults]
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called DeSantis a "small, pathetic man" in a message on Twitter on Monday, and raised charges of "kidnapping."
The attorney general, for his part, indicated that he is evaluating whether there were violations of civil rights or even criminal acts due to this transfer. "As we collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: state-sanctioned kidnapping is not a political option, it is immoral and repugnant," he said.
The migrants flown to Sacramento crossed the border through Texas, Eddie Carmona said; They were processed by federal authorities and have a court date to defend their asylum cases, so they are not undocumented immigrants and are in the country legally. In El Paso, Texas, he said, "individuals representing a private contractor" approached them outside a migrant center and offered to help them get work and take them to their final destinations in the United States.
"They were intentionally lied to and deceived," Carmona said, adding that the migrants had no idea where they were after they were dropped off in Sacramento. He added that they have court appointments across the country, and none wanted to end up in California.
Asylum seekers can change the location of their immigration court appointments, many are reluctant to try and prefer to keep a fixed date, at least for their initial appearance. They think it's a guarantee, even if it's terribly uncomfortable.
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The documents carried by the migrants arriving Friday said they were moved through a program run by the Florida Division of Emergency Management and conducted by contractor Vertol Systems Co, the prosecutor's spokeswoman said.
If confirmed that the flight was hosted by Florida, it would escalate the political dispute between DeSantis Newsom. An opposing view on immigration, abortion and other issues.
Newsom said in a statement that he met with the migrants arriving Friday and that local authorities are working to ensure they are "treated with respect and dignity."
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg issued a stronger statement: "Whoever is behind this must respond to this: Is there anything crueler than using frightened human beings to score cheap political points?"
