SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ management stated Tuesday that 3 dozen migrants whom the state flew from the U.S. southern border to California on personal planes all went willingly, refuting allegations through California officers that the people had been coerced to trip beneath false pretenses.
The admission of accountability — 5 days after the primary flight touched down in California’s capital — simplest served to heighten tensions between DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his widespread political sparring spouse.
Two planes arrived in Sacramento, on Friday and Monday, every sporting asylum-seekers most commonly from Colombia and Venezuela. The people were picked up in El Paso, Texas, taken to New Mexico after which placed on constitution flights to California’s capital of Sacramento, stated California Attorney General Rob Bonta. He’s investigating whether or not any violations of legal or civil regulation took place.
Alecia Collins, a spokeswoman for the Florida Division of Emergency Management, stated in a commentary that “through verbal and written consent, these volunteers indicated they wanted to go to California.” She additionally shared a video compilation that seemed to display folks signing consent paperwork and thanking officers for treating them smartly.
The clips had no time stamps, and Collins declined to proportion further information about when and the place they had been recorded. Representatives from Sacramento ACT and PICO California, two non secular teams serving to the migrants in Sacramento, didn’t straight away reply to messages searching for remark about whether or not the migrants within the movies had been the similar as the ones they had been serving to.
This isn’t the primary time DeSantis’ management has transported migrants from Texas to different states. Last fall, Florida flew 49 Venezuelans to the upscale Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. The transfer used to be meant to protest federal immigration coverage. DeSantis has stated he intends to ship migrants who can result in Florida to states that experience immigrant-friendly insurance policies, like California.
It’s no longer transparent whether or not Florida used to be the meant vacation spot for any of the individuals who arrived in California. If so, they’d constitute only a sliver of the immigrants who arrive in Florida every yr.
DeSantis signed a regulation offering $12 million for his migrant relocation initiative in early May, simply weeks sooner than pronouncing his Republican presidential bid. He’s touted the sooner migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard at the marketing campaign path.
Newsom, a Democrat, indicated in a tweet Monday that California would possibly imagine kidnapping fees in opposition to DeSantis. Such fees would most likely be extraordinarily tricky to turn out, in particular given the migrants signed waivers.
Bonta has indirectly stated he is thinking about kidnapping fees. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in Texas on Monday stated it had really useful misdemeanor and prison fees for “unlawful restraints” within the shipping of migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard. The county district lawyer should make a decision whether or not to pursue the ones fees and in opposition to whom.
Possible fees apart, Newsom’s administrative center doubled down on its complaint of DeSantis after Florida claimed credit.
“This is exploitative propaganda being peddled by a politician who has shown there are no depths he won’t sink to in his desperate effort to score a political point,” stated Anthony York, a spokesman for Newsom.
Though Newsom has no plans to run for president in 2024, he and DeSantis have continuously used every different as political foils as they solid their very own governing means as a style for the country. Beyond immigration coverage, the 2 have sparred on abortion get entry to, LGBTQ+ and civil rights, and a bunch of different cultural problems.
On the marketing campaign path, DeSantis has been keen to slap at innovative insurance policies in Democratic strongholds comparable to New York and California, claiming that Florida’s inhabitants growth in recent times has been pushed through folks fleeing blue-state insurance policies.
DeSantis is these days situated because the most powerful selection to former President Donald Trump within the GOP’s crowded number one, despite the fact that Trump maintains a large lead in early polls.
Bonta, who met with some of the migrants who arrived Friday, stated they informed him they had been approached in El Paso through two girls who spoke damaged Spanish and promised them jobs. The girls traveled with them through land from El Paso to Deming, New Mexico, the place two males then accompanied them at the flight to Sacramento. The similar males had been at the flight Monday, Bonta stated.
He stated the asylum seekers have courtroom dates in New York, Utah and Colorado and carried a record that “purports to be a consent and release form” this is designed to protect Florida from legal responsibility.
“Of course, what’s important is what is actually said and represented and told to the individuals and we’ve got good indications of what that was and the fact that it was false, misleading, and deceptive,” Bonta stated.
His administrative center didn’t remark Tuesday following Florida’s statement that the migrants weren’t coerced.
Gabby Trejo, government director of Sacramento ACT, a collaboration of non secular congregations within the Sacramento space, stated all of the migrants had already been given pending courtroom dates through U.S. immigration officers sooner than they had been approached in Texas through folks promising jobs. Trejo stated that they’d been “lied to and deceived.”
It’s no longer but transparent if the brand new arrivals in Sacramento plan to keep in California or will ultimately search to pass in other places, advocates stated. Four who arrived at the first flight on Friday have already been picked up through pals or members of the family, however the remainder stay within the care of native advocacy teams. ___
Rodriguez reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Fla., and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed.
___
Find extra AP protection of immigration: https://apnews.com/hub/immigration