Senior Florida officials said Monday that the 50 illegal immigrants that were flown to Martha’s Vineyard last week were effectively “wandering homeless along the border” before they were flown to the sanctuary city.
The news comes after Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) had two planes land in Martha’s Vineyard as part of “the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations,” an official for the administration said last week.
Speaking to reporters on background this week, senior Florida officials said that the illegal immigrants were “wandering homeless along the border” when they were offered a “better life” in a sanctuary city.
“So the groups in Texas that we’ve identified, the majority if not all of the individuals that originated in Texas and ended up on the flight to Martha’s Vineyard were indeed homeless, hungry, sleeping outside in parking lots,” the officials said. “Many have been in a shelter at some point previously and had been kicked out, did not have a place to go, and essentially were wandering homeless along the border.”
“During the flights, individuals were given bags with snacks, with water and other provisions and information taken from the Massachusetts website that talks about benefits that are available in a sanctuary state,” the officials continued. “These were homeless people that were in a rough situation and undoubtedly had their circumstance improved. In fact, several have already communicated their thanks for the opportunity to go to the sanctuary state.”
Democrat Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar announced Monday that his office was opening an investigation into the flights, although he did not name any suspects and admitted that he could not name any laws that were broken.
Salazar claimed that the migrants were “lured” into making the flight, even though a Florida publication reported that they obtained a brochure given to the illegal immigrants that showed that Massachusetts was where they were going.
“That does tend to bother me quite a bit,” Salazar said. “And so we are absolutely opening up an investigation into this.”
“I believe people need to be held accountable for it to the extent possible,” he said. “At this point, I’m not able to definitively say here’s the statute that they broke either federal, state or local. But what I can tell you is it’s wrong just from a human rights perspective, what was done to these folks is wrong.”
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