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California Attorney General Rob Bonta is probing whether migrants flown by private plane to Sacramento on Friday without prior arrangements in place had been sent from Florida.
“We are investigating the circumstances by which these individuals were brought to California,” Bonta said in a statement Saturday. “We are also evaluating potential criminal or civil action against those who transported or arranged for the transport of these vulnerable immigrants.”
“While this is still under investigation, we can confirm these individuals were in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida,” he added. “While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting.”
Bonta’s office said that a second plane had landed in Sacramento on Monday carrying about 20 people and that the contractor operating the flight appeared to be the same one that transported the migrants last week.
“As was the case with the migrants who arrived on Friday, the migrants who arrived today carried documents indicating that their transportation to California involved the State of Florida,” Bonta’s office said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment.
DeSantis, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, last year flew 50 mostly Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts without notice. DeSantis said the flights were meant to highlight the crisis at the southern border, while Democrats and immigration activists said it made political pawns of vulnerable asylum-seekers.
On Monday, the sheriff’s office in Bexar County, Texas, said it has recommended that the district attorney bring criminal charges related to those flights.
“The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has officially filed a completed criminal case with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office regarding the incident from September 2022 where 49 migrants were flown to Martha’s Vineyard,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “The charge filed is Unlawful Restraint and several accounts were filed, both misdemeanor and felony. At this time, the case is being reviewed by the DA’s office.”
Although Florida’s migrant transport program has been largely dormant since the flights last year, the DeSantis administration has quietly signaled that it could potentially restart. The USA Today Network reported last month that the governor’s administration has picked three vendors, including the Vertol Systems Co., which carried out the September flights to Martha’s Vineyard, to work with the migrant transfer program.
The Florida Legislature passed a bill in February that expanded DeSantis’ program enabling government officials to fly migrants to destinations in blue states that have sanctuary policies in place. The Republican-controlled Legislature gave the DeSantis administration $10 million for the program during a February special legislative session, and $12 million more during the recently concluded 2023 legislative session.
DeSantis also signed a sweeping immigration overhaul bill last month, weeks before he announced his presidential campaign and a day before the Biden administration ended Title 42, a Covid restriction that made it easier to expel migrants at the southern border.
Matt Dixon, Rebecca Shabad and Gabe Gutierrez contributed.
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