DeSantis news - live: Florida governor polls surge despite class action suit over migrant flights

A group of 48 mostly Venezeulan migrants who the state of Florida transported in a surprise flight to Martha’s Vineyard last week have sued governor Ron DeSantis for the “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme.”

The class- action lawsuit comes as at least two law enforcement agencies are also investigating the actions of Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott for potential illegality.

Meanwhile, a plane reportedly full of asylum-seekers heading from Texas to Delaware so far hasn’t materialised, even as officials there worried they’d be the latest to be surprised with Florida’s highly controversial scheme of flying migrants unannounced to liberal jurisdictions.

Delaware agencies and the White House spent the day preparing for a surprise drop-off near President Biden’s beach home in Rehoboth Beach.

The plane, according to flight tracking services, only made it as far as New Jersey.

Local officials as well as the governor of California have called for Mr DeSantis in particular to be criminally investigated for the flights, which reportedly relied on false claims of aid in official-looking to entice the migrants to board them and involved migrants who never set foot in Florida to begin with.

Governor DeSantis and his aides have defended sending migrants to Democratic-leading states and cities in protest of what they characterise as the president’s “open border” policy.

Key points

• DeSantis hit with class action suit

• Six unanswered questions about Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights

• Migrants on the Martha’s Vineyard flight weren’t in US ‘illegally,’ despite DeSantis claims

• Texas sheriff announces investigation into DeSantis flights

• Jared Kushner condemns migrant flights organised by DeSantis

Texas sheriff faces ‘influx’ of threats for investigating DeSantis sending migrant flights to northeast

17:36 , John Bowden

Add a Texas sheriff’s department to the list of law enforcement agencies threatened with violence by conservatives after announcing action to criminally investigate their political leaders.

The Bexar County sheriff’s office says that their agency has received a surge of calls as well as “numerous” threats towards department personnel in the wake of its announcement of an investigation into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s efforts to bus migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard using state funds and supposedly via the use of deceptive practices.

The situation follows a rise in similar threats to FBI officials after the agency’s raid of Mar-a-Lago.

Read more from Gino Spocchia in The Independent:

Texas sheriff threatened for investigating DeSantis’s migrant flights

Migrants and civil rights attorneys file federal lawsuit against DeSantis administration

17:00 , John Bowden

Ron DeSantis is now facing a class-action lawsuit over what a group of 50 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, described as a “fraudulent” scheme to lure them onto buses bound for Martha’s Vineyard.

The lawsuit alleges the governor and members of his administration targeted immigrants who were recently released from shelters with false promises of job opportunities, education and financial assistance before they landed on the island with only volunteered support from local groups and emergency assistance from state agencies.

Read more from Alex Woodward in The Independent:

Migrants and civil rights groups file federal lawsuit against DeSantis administration

DeSantis’s team lured hungry migrants with $10 McDonald’s gift cards, lawsuit says

16:21 , John Bowden

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s team lured migrants with $10 McDonald’s gift certificates to gain their trust as part of a “scheme” to fly them to Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, according to a new federal lawsuit.

The resistance to the scheme launched by Mr DeSantis and his GOP colleague in Texas, Greg Abbott, is growing as the two have been accused of deceptive practices.

The move has been attacked by the White House as an “illegal” and political stunt.

Read more from Sravasti Dasgupta in The Independent:

Ron DeSantis’s team lured migrants with $10 McDonald’s gift cards, lawsuit says

False promises, a legal investigation and a mystery woman: Unanswered questions about Ron DeSantis's migrant flights

15:49 , John Bowden

Two planes with 48 migrants, most of whom fled Venezuela in the wake of that country’s political and economic collapse, landed unannounced on the island of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts on 14 September.

Days later, officials in Delaware were anticipating another Texas flight bound for the coast, roughly 20 miles from President Joe Biden’s beach home. Both were organised by Florida’s governor, the firebrand conservative Ron DeSantis, who is vying to raise his national profile ahead of an expected 2024 presidential run.

But much remains unclear about the governor’s plan, including how Florida funds are paying for it, who is working with the state to put migrants on planes, and what will happen next to migrants and their families seeking asylum in the US.

Alex Woodward reports for The Independent:

Six unanswered questions about Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights

Sheriffs investigating migrant flights say they’re receiving violent threats

15:23 , John Bowden

Law enforcement agencies investigating Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott over their twin schemes to bus migrants around the country say they are now receiving violent threats from conservatives.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson from the Bexar County Sheriff’s office told VICE News that “there have been numerous threats, an influx of calls to our dispatch and administrative offices, along with hateful emails received” since the announcement of that county’s investigation.

“Additionally, as in any instance when our office receives threats precautionary measures will be made for safety of all personnel,” they said.

Read more at Vice:

Jared Kushner condemns DeSantis’s migrant flights

15:02 , John Bowden

Ex-President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner said in an interview that he was “very troubled” by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flying migrants from the US-Mexico border to Martha’s Vineyard.

He made the comments on Fox News, where many conservatives are likely to hear his opposition to the plan that has won Mr DeSantis praise from his fans and condemnation from rights groups and humanitarian organisations.

“I personally watch what's happening, and it's very hard to see at the southern border, I also—we have to remember that these are human beings, they're people, so seeing them being used as political pawns one way or the other is very troubling to me,” Mr Kushner said.

Read more from The Independent’s Eric Garcia:

Jared Kushner condemns DeSantis’s migrant flights

New poll shows DeSantis leading Trump in hypothetical Florida primary

14:39 , John Bowden

A new survey of voters in his home state suggests that Florida’s Ron DeSantis would win at least one state in a hypothetical GOP primary matchup against Donald Trump, were it to occur today.

Mr DeSantis’s lead over the ex-president comes as the former has enacted a plan to use state funds to bus migrants from Texas to Democrat-led jurisdictions in what appears to be an obviously political effort to embarass the Biden administration. The latter remains at Mar-a-Lago, in the same state, facing multiple criminal investigations.

Read the latest poll results at Axios:

Fact check: Ron DeSantis distorting immigration facts as he defends flights

14:27 , John Bowden

The govenors of Florida and Texas have roundly attacked the Biden administration as they continue their efforts to bus groups of migrants to Democrat-led areas, a scheme that has been denounced as a costly political stunt.

But in reality, the border under Joe Biden looks very similar to the border under the Trump administration; and that’s not the only mistruth that has been floating around in recent days.

Governors of the two states are now also conflating asylum-seekers with illegal migration — a dangerous development that stems from the right-wing belief that America should not offer asylum to refugees and should favour natural-born citizens.

Read more from The Independent about the real situation behind the bluster:

Fact check: Ron DeSantis distorting immigration facts as he defends flights

DeSantis’s team lured hungry migrants with $10 McDonald’s gift cards, lawsuit says

10:00 , Shweta Sharma

Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s team lured migrants with $10 McDonald’s gift certificates to gain their trust as part of a “scheme” to fly them to Martha’s Vineyard from Texas, a new federal lawsuit has alleged.

The lawsuit has been filed by Lawyers for Civil Rights, Boston, on behalf of a class of affected immigrants, including those stranded in Martha’s Vineyard, and Alianza Americas, a network of migrant-led organisations supporting immigrants.

The Independent’s Sravasti Dasgupta reports.

Ron DeSantis’s team lured migrants with $10 McDonald’s gift cards, lawsuit says

Fact check: Ron DeSantis distorting immigration facts as he defends flights

09:00 , Josh Marcus

How historic is the current border situation?

Is Joe Biden creating an “open border” that’s responsible for these trends?

And were the migrants on the controversial, Florida-funded Martha’s Vineyard flight in the US illegally?

Find out in our fact check.

Fact check: Ron DeSantis distorting immigration facts as he defends flights

Biden responds to rumoured migrant flight to Delaware with a joke

07:59 , Josh Marcus

President Joe Biden responded to reports that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has organised another flight to send migrants to the northeast, this time sending a plane to Delaware near the US president’s beach home.

In unscripted remarks to reporters after speaking on campaign finance, Mr Biden goaded the Republican governor over the latest political stunt.

“He should come visit, we have a beautiful shoreline,” Mr Biden told reporters on Tuesday when asked to respond to Mr DeSantis’s latest gambit.

More from our story:

Biden taunts DeSantis over reported migrant flight to Delaware

Reported Delaware flight of migrants sends officials scrambling

07:15 , Josh Marcus

The White House is coordinating with state officials and aid groups preparing for the potential arrival of a plane with migrants sent from Texas to coastal Delaware near the beach home of President Joe Biden.

The flight, due to arrive on Tuesday afternoon, could mark the second flight within a week organised by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration to move people seeking asylum in San Antonio to northeastern towns.

“We are coordinating closely with state officials and local service providers who are prepared to welcome these families in an orderly manner as they pursue their asylum claims,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Get the full story.

White House preparing for DeSantis migrant flights to Delaware

GOP's hard-line tactics on migrants refocus midterm debate

06:30 , Josh Marcus

They’ve delivered migrants on planes and buses to Washington, D.C., New York City — even Martha’s Vineyard. And the Republican governors of Florida and Texas may be just getting started.

Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas insist such dramatic steps are need to highlight a genuine crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, where thousands of migrants stream into the country illegally each day. But weeks away from their own competitive reelections, friends and foes alike acknowledged that such hard-line tactics have effectively refocused November’s midterm elections — at least, temporarily — away from abortion rights and toward an issue more favorable to Republicans.

A defiant DeSantis on Tuesday blasted the Biden administration’s inaction on the Southern border and celebrated his own policies for making illegal immigration “a front-burner issue” ahead of the midterms.

Read more.

GOP's hard-line tactics on migrants refocus midterm debate

Legal pressure on DeSantis for migrant flights continues with lawsuit

05:45 , Josh Marcus

Attorneys for a group of migrants who boarded unannounced flights to Martha’s Vineyard from San Antonio, Texas have filed a federal class action lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who allegedly directed a “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme” to transport a group of 50 people, including families with small children, as part of a political stunt.

The lawsuit alleges the governor and members of his administration targeted immigrants who were recently released from shelters with false promises of job opportunities, education and financial assistance before they landed on the island with only volunteered support from local groups and emergency assistance from state agencies.

Attorneys allege that the migrants were exploited for “political purposes” after arriving on the island last week.

Get all the details about the bombshell lawsuit.

Migrants and civil rights groups file federal lawsuit against DeSantis administration

Why both parties have failed to create a stable immigration system

05:00 , Josh Marcus

Every few months, the right declares there’s a new “crisis” at the US-Mexico border. In reality, both parties have created an unstable US immigration system through decades of inaction.

Sadly, this piece from last summer is still relevant, as many of the false claims and feckless solutions regarding immigration are once again making the rounds in the political discourse.

What Trump and Biden both get wrong about the migration ‘crisis’ at the border

How a ‘false brochure’ helped lure migrants to Martha’s Vineyard flights

04:15 , Josh Marcus

Before they boarded planes bound for Martha’s Vineyard, a group of about 50 migrants in San Antonio, Texas, were handed a trifold brochure titled “Massachusetts Refugee Benefits.”

A front cover included a photograph of a Massachusetts Department of Transportation highway sign reading “Massachusetts Welcomes You” above an illustration of the state.

On the back, printed in English and Spanish was the name and phone number and website for the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants, a state agency that aids resettlement agencies and works with community groups to provide assistance to newly arrived refugees.

But the agency had nothing to do with the flier. The flier was mocked up to look like a government document, falsely suggesting that the group of mostly Venzeulan people seeking asylum in the US would be eligible for cash assistance, housing, food, job training, job interviews and other benefits.

Alex Woodward has the details.

Migrants were given brochures with false promises of aid. Who made them?

Were Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights illegal?

03:25 , Josh Marcus

The Department of Justice has been tapped by California Governor Gavin Newsom to investigate whether Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s controversial decision to send two flights of migrants north would amount to “kidnapping”.

“I strongly urge the U.S. Department of Justice (US DOJ) to open an investigation into possible criminal or civil violations of federal law based on this alleged fraudulent scheme,” Gov Newsom wrote in a 15 September letter addressed to US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Johanna Chisholm has the story.

DeSantis could be charged with kidnap after moving migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

ICMYI: Texas sheriff to investigate Florida for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

02:40 , Josh Marcus

A sheriff in Texas has opened an investigation into whether a group of migrants were “lured” on board last week’s flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts.

The flights, widely derided as a political stunt engineered by Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis against Democratic “sanctuary” policies, have faced international scrutiny following reports that migrants and their families were deceptively collected into planes out of state after seeking asylum in the US.

Get all the details.

Texas sheriff to investigate Florida for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

False promises, a legal investigation and a mystery woman: Unanswered questions about Ron DeSantis's migrant flights

01:55 , Josh Marcus

Two planes with 48 migrants, most of whom fled Venezuela in the wake of that country’s political and economic collapse, landed unannounced on the island of Martha’s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts on 14 September.

But so much remains unclear about the migrants’ journey, how Florida officials are identifying and collecting migrants in other states as part of the Republican governor’s state-sanctioned plans to send them to Democratic-leading states and cities, and how funding earmarked for his scheme is paying for it from several states away.

Alex Woodward has this in-depth look at what we do and don’t know about the controversial flight scheme.

Six unanswered questions about Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights

Ron DeSantis admits immigration isn’t a big problem in Florida

01:10 , Josh Marcus

Ron DeSantis has made himself the face of the anti-immigration movement with his migrant flights to Florida, but there’s something a bit strange about them.

Mass migration isn’t much of a factor in Florida, and the flights themselves began by picking up migrants in Texas, a state far more in contact with cross-border migration from Mexico.

“We’re not seeing mass movements of them into Florida,” Mr DeSantis said on Tuesday at an event, describing a slow trickle of migrants coming “in onesie-twosies” into the Sunshine State.

The data backs this up.

According to the most recent Border Patrol numbers, the border sector that includes Florida was about 400 times less busy than the ones in the Southwest.

Migrants on the Martha’s Vineyard flight weren’t in US ‘illegally,’ despite DeSantis claims

Wednesday 21 September 2022 00:50 , Josh Marcus

Ron DeSantis has falsely claimed the migrants his government sent on planes to liberal areas were criminals.

In fact, they were excercising rights protected under US and international law by seeking asylum in America.

As the news broke last week about Mr DeSantis’s migrant flights to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, his communications directors defended the policy, saying it that it was a rightful use of state resources to "transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”

However, the 48 migrants on the plane, many of them Venezuelans, were in the country legally.

As Alex Woodward notes in his great piece on the flights, they had already presented themselves to immigration authorities and were waiting on asylum proceedings.

After reaching the border, and turning themselves to authorities, migrants requesting asylum must undergo a “credible fear screening” to determine whether their return to their home countries could expose them to further persecution or threats. Following a screening, they are released while awaiting a hearing for their asylum case.

It was at this point, near San Antonio’s Migrant Resources Center, that the group of migrants targeted by people ostensibly working through Governor DeSantis’s operation were sent to Massachusetts.

Critics argue that it is the Florida governor himself who broke the law.

The migrants on the Martha’s Vineyard flight filed a class action lawsuit against the Republican on Tuesday, arguing that they were enticed onto the cross-country flights with false promises of work, housing support, and other services.

“Plaintiffs have led lives inflicted by violence, instability, insecurity, and abuse of trust by corrupt government officials that most Americans could hardly conceive of,” the suit reads.

“They fled to the United States in a desperate attempt to protect themselves and their families from gang, police, and state-sponsored violence and the oppression of political dissent. To put it simply, Plaintiffs, and the class of similarly situated individuals they seek to represent, are vulnerable in a way and to an extent that almost defies verbal description.”

Local officials in Texas are investigating whether Mr DeSantis’s scheme broke any laws.

Texas sheriff to investigate Florida for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

California governor Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, has argued it was tantamount to kidnapping and has urged the federal Department of Justice to investigate.

DeSantis could be charged with kidnap after moving migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

And here’s Alex’s piece for more information on the process.

Migrants were given brochures with false promises of aid. Who made them?

Does Joe Biden have an ‘open border’ policy? Not really.

Wednesday 21 September 2022 00:21 , Josh Marcus

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has blamed the Biden adminstration’s alleged “open border” policies for a migration “crisis” that requires flying migrants to other parts of the country just to give overwhelmed border towns a break.

“Biden can’t defend his policies of open borders,” Mr DeSantis said at an event on Tuesday. “It’s doing huge damage to our country.”

It’s a harrowing picture the Republican has painted, but it’s far from complete.

For one thing, the Biden administration’s border looks a lot like the one under the Trump administration.

President Biden, for example, is still buildingthe border wall along the US-Mexico border, a project that remained incomplete— “open” perhaps, to borrow Mr DeSantis’s phrase—at the end of the Trump adminsitration.

The Trump administration’s controversial Remain in Mexico programme, which forced asylum seekers to wait on the Mexico side of the border as their claims processed, was in place until this June.

And Mr Biden has continued using Mr Trump’s Title 42 order to massive effect. The policy, a supposed pandemic measure cooked up by arch immigration opponent Stephen Miller, reportedly over the protests of the CDC, allows immigration officials to refuse entry to asylum-seekers before they even enter immigration proceedings.

According to a Pew analysis, the Biden administration has already carried out the great majority of the roughly 2.2m Title 42 expulsions that have taken place since the policy went into effect.

Expulsions this year under the health rule, which the Biden administration renewed in August despite previous plans to abandon it, appear well on track to overcome the 1.07m conducted in 2021, according to Border Patrol stats.

Border officials also note that in addition to all the usual, nuanced drivers of immigration to the US political instability beyond American shores is a huge factor.

“Failing communist regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba are driving a new wave of migration across the Western Hemisphere, including the recent increase in encounters at the southwest U.S. border,” CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus said in a recently released enforcement update.

And even during the Trump administration, harsh policies like Remain in Mexico and Title 42 weren’t deterring border crossers from trying their luck over and over again until they got into the US, analyses and the Border Patrol have concluded.

“There’s never going to be a point of militarization that the US can get the border to that would completely stop all these flows,” Jessica Bolter of the Migration Policy Institute told The Independent at the end of the Trump administration.

“The environmental and security push factors that are driving people to leave, as well as economic push factors, especially during and in the wake of the pandemic—there’s always going to be reasons to migrate.”

How ‘historic’ is the situation at the border? Here’s what the data says.

Tuesday 20 September 2022 23:58 , Josh Marcus

Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott have both framed their highly controversial efforts to send migrants in planes and buses to liberal states as a way to raise awareness about the “historic” crisis at the US border. It’s a crisis, they say, that’s been caused by the Biden adminstration.

Indeed, a historic number of people have crossed the US-Mexico this year.

So far, in fiscal year 2022, more than 2.1m migrants have been encountered at the frontier line, according to US Customs and Border Protection.

That’s already more that 2021’s total, which just barely topped previous records from the 1980s and early 2000s, as the Pew Research Center noted in an analysis.

For what it’s worth, the record year of 2021 also included the final few months of the Trump administration, but you’re unlikely to hear much mention of that from partisans like Mr DeSantis and Mr Abbott.

As we’ll explore in a coming blog post, however, pinning these record numbers solely on Joe Biden hugely distorts the picture of what’s actually happening.

White House says Florida using migrants as ‘pawns’ to score points for DeSantis

Tuesday 20 September 2022 23:30 , Josh Marcus

The White House on Tuesday continued to criticise Florida governor Ron DeSantis for backing migrant flights sending asylum-seekers from Texas and Florida to liberal locales across the country.

“When you think about what’s going on in Venezuela, when you think about what’s going on in Nicaragua, when you think about what’s going on in Cuba – they are fleeing political persecution only to be used as a political pawn by the Florida governor,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday during a press briefing.

Watch her full remarks here via C-SPAN.

Both parties are to blame for the border ‘crisis'

Tuesday 20 September 2022 23:10 , Josh Marcus

Cries, especially from the GOP, of a “crisis” at the border are nothing new.

Whether its Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or Greg Abbott, Republicans regularly use the border as an issue to whip up their base.

But is there really a “crisis” at the border?

Last year, as Donald Trump railed against a similar “crisis,” I wrote this look at how both parties have failed to pass any meaningful immigration reform in decades, resulting in a constant state of crisis that varies little from one administration to the next.

What Trump and Biden both get wrong about the migration ‘crisis’ at the border

Investigation threats loom over migrant flights

Tuesday 20 September 2022 22:40 , Josh Marcus

The Florida-funded migrant flights certainly accomplished one part of their objective: get attention.

But perhaps it’s not the kind of attention Republican supporters of the tactic like governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida really wanted.

Multiple entities, ranging from California governor Gavin Newsom to a local sheriff, say an investigation is warranted into whether the flights were illegal.

Here’s our reporting on what could come next

Texas sheriff to investigate Florida for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

Migrants’ lawyers call for criminal investigation into Martha’s Vineyard stunt

DeSantis could be charged with kidnap after moving migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

Migrants and civil rights attorneys file federal lawsuit against DeSantis administration

Tuesday 20 September 2022 22:10 , Josh Marcus

Attorneys for a group of migrants who boarded unannounced flights to Martha’s Vineyard from San Antonio, Texas have filed a federal class action lawsuit against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who allegedly directed a “fraudulent and discriminatory scheme” to transport a group of 50 people, including families with small children, as part of a political stunt.

The lawsuit alleges the governor and members of his administration targeted immigrants who were recently released from shelters with false promises of job opportunities, education and financial assistance before they landed on the island with only volunteered support from local groups and emergency assistance from state agencies.

Attorneys allege that the migrants were exploited for “political purposes.”

“No human being should be used as a political pawn in the nation’s highly polarized debate over immigration,” Lawyers for Civil Rights executive director Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal said in a statement.

More details from Alex Woodward’s full report.

Migrants and civil rights group file federal lawsuit against DeSantis administration

Immigrants sue Ron DeSantis for Martha’s Vineyard flight

Tuesday 20 September 2022 21:48 , Josh Marcus

The nearly 50 migrants aboard a flight the state of Florida funded to land in Martha’s Vineyard last week are suing Ron DeSantis.

Lawyers for Civil Rights, an advocacy group, announced the group of 48 is filing a class action lawsuit against the Florida governor for what it calls “a fraudulent and discriminatory scheme to transport nearly 50 vulnerable immigrants, including women and children, from San Antonio, Texas to Martha’s Vineyard without shelter or resources in place.”“No human being should be used as a political pawn in the nation’s highly polarized debate over immigration,” Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement.

“This cowardly political stunt has placed our clients in peril. Numerous laws were brazenly violated to secure media headlines,” Oren Sellstrom, the group’s litigation director, added.

Read a full copy of their lawsuit here.

Chris Coons blasts Delaware flights as ‘cruel stunt'

Tuesday 20 September 2022 21:31 , Josh Marcus

Chris Coons, US senator for Delaware, blasted Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, calling a rumoured plan to fly migrants from Texas to Delaware a “cruel stunt.”

He told CNN he’s been working “much of last night” with officials on the ground in Delaware to prepare for the flight.

“Simply put, what a cruel stunt to a group of folks who are applying for asylum. ‘There’s gonna be jobs and housing on either side of this flight, get on this plane,’” Mr Coons said. “And then they get off the plane and they’re like, ‘Nope. You’re 1,000 miles farther from where your hearing is going to be.’”

Rumoured DeSantis migrant flight to bypass Florida entirely

Tuesday 20 September 2022 20:50 , Josh Marcus

The Florida government may be reportedly funding another migrant flight from Texas, but it doesn’t appear the plane will actually touch down in the Sunshine State.

According to flight tracking data, the plane scrapped an original stop in Crestview, Florida, and is now bound for an airport in Tennessee, before its ultimate destination in Delaware.

Delaware officials say they haven’t been given any notice of potential migrant flight from Texas

Tuesday 20 September 2022 20:30 , Josh Marcus

Delaware officials say they haven’t been given any official notice over a potential plane full of migrants being sent from Republican states.

“The governor’s office has not received any outreach from either Texas or Florida,” a Delaware spokesperson said on Tuesday.

That would match the pattern of previous migrant dumps, when officials weren’t given warning before multiple buses of migrants were left outside of the vice-president’s house in Washington.

Texas sends two buses of migrants to Kamala Harris’s home

Migrant flight to Delaware appears delayed

Tuesday 20 September 2022 20:07 , Josh Marcus

The much-hyped migrant flight today from Texas to Joe Biden’s vacation home in Delaware appears to be delayed.

According to flight tracking data, the plane designated for the flight, whose ultimate destination is the Georgetown Delaware Coastal Airport, has not yet left Texas.

Right now, the craft appears to be in the first leg of its journey, from Longview to San Antonio, Texas. According to the original manifest, the flight was already supposed to be in Delaware by now.

The Florida government has declined to confirm the flight, let alone offered public updates on it, but some critics have speculated that the controversy surrounding the migrant transports may be behind the delay.

“It appears that Ron DeSantis is having trouble rounding up more victims in his latest kidnapping spree,” Florida attorney Daniel Uhlfielder, founder of the group Remove Ron, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. Word has spread that his maps and brochures are all lies. The candyman got caught.”

Here’s our report from Alex Woodward on the brochures he’s mentioning.

Migrants were given brochures with false promises of aid. Who made them?

State of Florida has spent over $1m with migrant flight contractor

Tuesday 20 September 2022 19:30 , Josh Marcus

The state of Florida has spent more than $1.5m this month with the aviation contractor responsible for last week’s controversial Martha’s Vineyard migration flights.

Public records show the Florida Department of Transportation has paid Vertol Systems Company, Inc. $1,565,000 this month, as WTSP reports.

On Monday, the company was paid $950,000, and a company craft was shown headed for Delaware on Tuesday, after Republicans hinted that Joe Biden’s home state could be the next site of a surprise immigration drop off.

Texas sheriff to investigate Florida for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

Tuesday 20 September 2022 19:10 , Josh Marcus

A sheriff in Texas has opened an investigation into whether a group of migrants were “lured” on board last week’s flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts.

The flights, widely derided as a political stunt engineered by Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis against Democratic “sanctuary” policies, have faced international scrutiny following reports that migrants and their families were deceptively collected into planes out of state after seeking asylum in the US.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar’s office announced on 19 September that his office is working with “attorneys who are representing the victims as well as advocacy organizations regarding this incident.”

Alex Woodward has the story.

Texas sheriff to investigate Florida for flying migrants to Martha’s Vineyard

Biden taunts DeSantis over reported migrant flight to Delaware: ‘He should come visit, we have a beautiful shoreline’

Tuesday 20 September 2022 18:42 , Josh Marcus

President Joe Biden responded to reports that Florida Gov Ron DeSantis may be sending another plane of migrants to the northeast, with the latest flight scheduled to arrive in Delaware near the US president’s home.

In unscripted remarks to reporters after speaking on campaign finance, Mr Biden goaded Mr DeSantis over the political stunt.

“He should come visit, we have a beautiful shoreline,” Mr Biden told reports when asked to respond to Mr DeSantis’s latest gambit.

Alex Woodward is following the White House’s response.

Biden taunts DeSantis over reported migrant flight to Delaware

ICYMI: Florida and Texas migrant transports moved over a dozen kids

Tuesday 20 September 2022 18:30 , Josh Marcus

The migrant flights and bus trips from Florida and Texas to liberal locales are controversial for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the large number of children on board.

By The Independent’s count, over a dozen kids were aboard the transports.

Here’s our look at how children got ensnared in the immigration stunts of governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott.

Florida and Texas migrant transports moved over a dozen kids, including one-year-old

White House preparing for DeSantis migrant flights to Delaware as state agencies ready response

Tuesday 20 September 2022 18:17 , Josh Marcus

The White House is coordinating with state officials and aid groups preparing for the potential arrival of a plane with migrants sent from Texas to coastal Delaware near the beach home of President Joe Biden.

The flight, due to arrive on Tuesday afternoon, could mark the second flight within a week organised by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s administration to move people seeking asylum in San Antonio to northeastern towns.

“We are coordinating closely with state officials and local service providers who are prepared to welcome these families in an orderly manner as they pursue their asylum claims,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.

Alex Woodward is following the story for The Independent.

White House preparing for DeSantis migrant flights to Delaware

Ron DeSantis tears into Biden and avoids comment on rumoured Delaware flight during event

Tuesday 20 September 2022 18:13 , Josh Marcus

Florida governor Ron DeSantis tore into Joe Biden during an event on Tuesday.“He inherited a border that wasn’t like this,” Mr DeSantis said. “He has created a crisis.”

The Republican denied that the migrant flights he sent to Martha’s Vineyard were a “stunt” and called on Mr Biden to reinstate Trump administration policies like Remain in Mexico, which stranded tens of thousands of legally protected asylum seekers in squalid camps on the Mexican side of the border for months, where they were the targets of exploitation.

“The biggest stunt was Biden coming in as president and reversing Trump’s policies just so he could virtue-signal that he was against Trump,” Mr DeSantis said. “The impact has been devastating.”

Mr DeSantis also said he “cannot confirm” another migrant flight is headed from Texas for Delaware.

The Republican governor claimed Democrats were being hypocritical about the flights, when they have tried to downplay the challenge of the high numbers of migrants who have crossed the border this year.

“I didn’t hear any outrage about that,” Mr DeSantis said. “The only thing I hear them getting about is you have 50 that end up in Marth’s Vineyard. Then they get really upset. And I’m sorry, those migrants were being treated horribly by Biden. They were hungry, homeless, they had no opportunity at all.”

Later in the event, Mr DeSantis acknowledged that Florida itself hasn’t had much trouble with high immigration numbers, even describing migrants entering the state in mere “onesie-twosies”

“We’re not seeing mass movements of them into Florida,” Mr DeSantis said.

Delaware braces for a migrant flight of its own

Tuesday 20 September 2022 17:50 , Josh Marcus

Cities and states across the country have struggled to respond to surprise flights and buses full of migrants sent from Republican border states. Delaware could be next.

The governor’s office and community groups were preparing on Tuesday for an influx of asylum-seekers, after reports of a plane scheduled to leave Texas and land near Joe Biden’s beach home in Rehoboth Beach.

“Our teams at [Delaware Emergency Management Agency] and [Delaware Department of Health and Social Services] are working with community organizations and other partners to make sure that migrants who arrive here have the support that they need,” a spokesperson for governor John Carney’s office told Delaware Online on Tuesday.

Earlier this week, senator Ted Cruz singled out the president’s vacation home as a target for another migrant transport.

Governor Ron DeSantis press conference starting now

Tuesday 20 September 2022 17:37 , Josh Marcus

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is currently holding an event in Manatee County to tout his budget and tax agenda, but there’s a chance he’ll address the growing scandal of the migrant flights his government funded to Martha’s Vineyard.

You can watch the live stream of the event here, and we will be monitoring for updates.

Migrants sent to Martha’s Vineyard were given brochures with false promises of aid and jobs. Who made them?

Tuesday 20 September 2022 17:33 , Josh Marcus

Before they boarded planes bound for Martha’s Vineyard, a group of about 50 migrants in San Antonio, Texas, were handed a trifold brochure titled “Massachusetts Refugee Benefits.”

A front cover included a photograph of a Massachusetts Department of Transportation highway sign reading “Massachusetts Welcomes You” above an illustration of the state.

On the back, printed in English and Spanish was the name and phone number and website for the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants, a state agency that aids resettlement agencies and works with community groups to provide assistance to newly arrived refugees.

But the agency had nothing to do with the flier. The flier was mocked up to look like a government document, falsely suggesting that the group of mostly Venzeulan people seeking asylum in the US would be eligible for cash assistance, housing, food, job training, job interviews and other benefits.

Alex Woodward investigates.

Migrants were given brochures with false promises of aid. Who made them?

Tuesday 20 September 2022 05:58 , Shweta Sharma

We are closing the live coverage of the blog. But you can find news reports on the topic on our website.

Thank you for staying with us.