Texas sheriff opens criminal investigation into Martha's Vineyard migrant trips

A Texas sheriff said Monday that his bureau has opened a transgression investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' unprecedented move to nonstop astir 50 migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, past week.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said the enquiry was successful its aboriginal stages, and helium declined to sanction imaginable suspects. But successful a quality conference, helium said: "Everybody connected this telephone knows who those names are already."

Salazar said it was not wide whether immoderate laws had been broken, but helium said that 48 migrants appeared to person been "lured nether mendacious pretenses" into staying astatine a edifice for a mates of days earlier they were flown to Florida and Martha's Vineyard.

"They were promised work," helium said. "They were promised the solution to respective of their problems."

He said a recruiter was paid a "bird canine fee" to stitchery astir 50 radical astir a San Antonio migrant assets center.

The asylum-seekers, astir of them Venezuelan, were past taken to the posh Massachusetts land "for small much than a photograph op oregon a video op, and they were unceremoniously stranded successful Martha's Vineyard," Salazar said.

Salazar said his office's organized transgression investigators would grip the investigation.

Immigration advocates and lawyers called for a transgression probe into DeSantis' effort to determination the migrants nether a $12 cardinal programme aimed astatine relocating "unauthorized aliens" to what his medication has described arsenic "sanctuary" jurisdictions.

The governor's bureau did not instantly respond to a petition for remark Monday night. His medication has antecedently denied breaking immoderate laws with the program, and astatine a quality league Friday, DeSantis said helium would "spend each penny" helium could connected it.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, oregon LULAC, offered a reward of $5,000 for accusation that leads to the recognition of the idiosyncratic who misled the migrants. "Wanted" posters person gone up astir San Antonio.

"It's 1 of the astir cruel governmental stunts I've seen successful my lifetime," LULAC President Domingo García said.

García said LULAC has spoken to respective asylum-seekers who said a pistillate named "Perla" told them they were going to Boston and promised 3 months of enactment and escaped housing.

García, who spoke with astir a twelve migrants connected Martha's Vineyard past week, said Monday that "Perla" gave them a representation with an "X," marking a exile center, which ended up being an bare parking lot.  

Attorneys representing 30 of the 48 migrants person asked the Massachusetts lawyer wide and the national authorities to unfastened transgression investigations. They said their clients "were induced to committee airplanes and transverse authorities lines nether mendacious pretenses."

Immigration advocates, arsenic good arsenic Democrats and the Biden administration, accidental transporting migrants is dehumanizing, and they impeach Republicans of utilizing radical for governmental stunts arsenic calls for a transgression probe grow.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, tweeted that "the Department of Justice needs to analyse Governor DeSantis for utilizing fraud and deception to lure radical retired of authorities lone to wantonness them without fulfilling his mendacious promises. Same for Greg Abbott. They're engaging successful quality trafficking."

Since April, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has bused migrants released from national migration custody to Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago. He accuses President Joe Biden of being excessively lax connected migration. A period later, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, besides began transporting migrants to Washington, D.C.

DeSantis sent 2 planes carrying migrants to Martha's Vineyard connected Wednesday.

The Florida Immigrant Coalition, a statewide conjugation for much than 65 organizations, is investigating whether national funds were misused erstwhile DeSantis sent the migrants to Martha's Vineyard and whether determination is country for litigation.

"We are disgusted," co-Executive Director Tessa Petit said. "We're doing everything we tin to marque definite this does not repetition again."

Many of the migrants are asylum-seekers who person fled socialist countries, similar Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, wherever regular beingness has go hard nether authoritarian regimes.