Florida officials admitted on Tuesday to arranging chartered flights that brought migrants to Sacramento, ending their silence after the initial group arrived in California last Friday.
The transportation has received severe criticism from California Governor Gavin Newsom, who expressed concerns about the potential illegality of the transport and mentioned the possibility of kidnapping charges in a Twitter message directed at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday.
Florida Officials Deny Coercion and Deception in Migrant Transportation
Florida officials have disputed the claim that the migrants were transported against their will or under deceptive circumstances.
Alecia Collins, the spokesperson for Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, characterized the two flights that landed on Friday and yesterday as an act of voluntary relocation.
Collins explained, “Based on explicit verbal and written consent, these individuals willingly expressed their preference to be relocated to California. A designated contractor was present to ensure their secure transportation to a third-party non-governmental organization (NGO). The particular NGO, Catholic Charities, is employed and financially supported by the federal government,” as stated by Collins.
Controversial Video Raises Questions About Migrant Relocation
The statement includes a video that depicts more than a dozen individuals signing documents and being aboard a private plane. Later in the video, one person states that they have arrived in California. The video shows images of people smiling and dancing, and one man shares his experience of migrating through Central America.
Collins stated that the video portrays the relocation of individuals who are in the country illegally, without specifying the cities of origin or destination of the flight. The authenticity and timing of the images could not be independently verified.
According to California officials, sixteen migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were transported from Texas to New Mexico and then flown on a chartered jet to Sacramento, where they were dropped off at a church on Friday.
On Monday, a plane carrying twenty migrants arrived in Sacramento. Both groups were transported by the same contractor and possessed documents indicating that their transportation was facilitated by the state of Florida, as reported by officials from the California Department of Justice.
Newsom, along with Attorney General Rob Bonta, pointed fingers at DeSantis as the one responsible for the unannounced arrivals, long before the state of Florida acknowledged its involvement.
DeSantis himself has not yet commented on the flights, which is an unusually restrained response considering his similar actions last year when he organized the transportation of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
In her statement, Collins contended that the practice of transporting migrants across the country is not unusual and insinuated that Newsom’s allegations of misconduct were contradictory.
She stated that mayors in liberal-leaning cities like El Paso, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, have previously facilitated the relocation of individuals who crossed the U.S. border illegally. However, she noted that when Florida transports undocumented immigrants to a sanctuary city, it is suddenly characterized as false imprisonment and kidnapping.
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