Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sued after using taxpayer funds to send migrants to Martha’s Vineyard
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks to attendees at his inauguration ceremony in January 2023. (SOURCE: Flgov.com)
On Dec. 24, as families dressed up for selfies in matching pajamas and left cookies and milk out for Santa, 130 people showed up at the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C.
They weren’t carolers — they were migrants. Busloads of undocumented immigrants were dropped off in the dead of night.
As mothers helped their young children and babies off the bus, they were greeted with a horrific reality: their bus ride to freedom was all a ruse.
It might seem cruel, but it’s becoming all the more usual for Republican leaders like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to exploit the turmoil experienced by those fleeing violence, persecution, and the climate crisis.
Lawsuit challenges DeSantis’ power to relocate migrants
For Paul R. Chávez, the senior supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Immigrant Justice Project, the Constitution is clear: the exclusive power to regulate immigration policy belongs to the federal government.
"The scheme by Gov. DeSantis and the State of Florida to use taxpayer funds for the ‘relocation’ of ‘unauthorized aliens’ is a blatant and unlawful attempt to harass immigrants at the state level," Chávez said in a Dec. 1 press release. "Florida’s relocation program constitutes a discriminatory attack on immigrant communities and Gov. DeSantis’ unconstitutional actions must be stopped."
The SPLC and other stakeholders filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of Florida on the same day, accusing DeSantis and his Secretary of Transportation, Jared Perdue, of "creating a separate, parallel immigration system" and claiming that the Act was unconstitutional because it overrode federal law.
The decision to incentivize undocumented immigrants only to desert them came to a head on Sept. 14, when 50 Venezuelan and Peruvian migrants flew from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, promised a fresh start by officials.
But when they arrived, there were no homes, no jobs, nothing.
The lawsuit cites news reports that confirm an agent of the Florida Department of Transportation began handing out gift cards to families near a migrant shelter in San Antonio in the days leading up to the relocation.
According to a Dec. 1 legal filing, the worker "also told migrants that she was offering a free flight to cities in the Northeast, where they would receive all manner of assistance that she knew did not exist."
The political stunt, which DeSantis went on to take credit for, saw the migrants processed into the U.S. by immigration authorities. The lawsuit claims no one in Massachusetts knew the migrants were coming.
DeSantis would go on to say he funded the scheme through a section of the 2022 Florida Appropriations Act that saw more than $12 million in federal funding meant to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the state reallocated, vowing to use "every penny" to continue coercing undocumented immigrants into situations that put their safety at further risk.
Back in Dec. 2021, DeSantis told reporters he allocated $8 million in the state budget to address "the Biden border crisis" by "transport[ing] people illegally out of the state of Florida." He even joked about relocating immigrants to "Martha’s Vineyard or some of these places."
Then in Aug. 2022, Florida Lieutenant Governor Jeanette M. Nuñez revealed DeSantis had seriously considered siphoning state funds to send Cuban migrants, "very frankly, to the state of Delaware, the state of the President."
Experts and advocates condemn lies and exploitation of migrants
Tessa Petit, co-executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition, said last month that DeSantis’ intentions "are none other than to bully individuals and families who are part of our communities."
"For political ambitions, he pulled a heinous stunt in order to posture himself as a right-wing strongman using human beings as pawns," Petit said in a news release.
Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, the executive director of Hope CommUnity Center, agrees.
"It is fiscally irresponsible and morally reprehensible to use federal funding to deceive and toy with the lives of asylum seekers who are simply trying to find a safe haven in our great state," he said in a news release. "His bullying tactics must stop."
Shalyn Fluharty, the executive director of the advocacy organization Americans for Immigrant Justice, points out that DeSantis’ relocation program requires the Florida Department of Transportation to sign contracts with transportation companies.
Fluharty emphasized the fact that none of the companies contracted for the relocation program have immigration authority, training, or experience, "yet they are asked to effectuate de facto deportations out of the state of Florida to other states."
"The relocation program is nothing more than an expensive political stunt designed to feed Gov. DeSantis's political ambitions on a diet of xenophobic, state-sponsored harassment," said Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, in a release.
In a statement emailed to The Blueprint, SPLC Immigrant Justice Project Staff Attorney Stephanie Alvarez-Jones confirmed the lawsuit is still in its early stages and has yet to reach a courtroom.
To be lied to in such a way violates the very core of humanity. Undocumented immigrants deserve better.