Prosecuting Florida’s migrant flights would run into legal hurdles

When a private jet chartered by the government of Florida recently dropped baffled Hispanic migrants on a pair of flights from Texas to California, Governor Gavin Newsom described it as a possible “kidnapping” and called for an investigation.

There was precedent: A Texas sheriff announced this week that he was recommending criminal charges in connection with two similar flights last year, also organized by the state of Florida, that transported 49 Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard and left it to bewildered locals. officials to figure out what to do with it.

But holding someone civilly or criminally responsible for the flights could be challenging, legal analysts said, and would most likely be about whether the migrants were misled as they boarded the planes.

“I suspect prosecuting this is going to be a chore,” said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio who is familiar with local criminal laws. “It can be difficult to get a conviction.”

State officials said the migrants who arrived in Sacramento on Friday and Monday had paperwork indicating their flights were “managed by the Florida Division of Emergency Management” and Florida-based contractor, Vertol Systems.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, clearly laid the blame on his Republican counterpart in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, who has long complained that Democratic border policies have left Florida to deal with a wave of immigration that has destroyed schools and other public infrastructure. charge. in its state.

“You pathetic little man,” Mr. Newsom wrote on Twitter, addressed to Mr. DeSantis. “This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard. Kidnapping charge?”

Florida officials on Tuesday confirmed the flights were operated under the state’s $12 million relocation program, but emphasized that they were “voluntary” and that organizers had obtained both oral and written consent from migrants they said they clearly wanted to go to California.

Civil or criminal liability would arise if consent was found not to have been fully informed, several legal analysts said, as appeared to be the case with some of those who flew to Massachusetts in 2022. Some of those men and women said they had been falsely told there were jobs waiting for them and that they had not fully understood the waivers they had signed.

But there would be defenses: The workers hired to recruit migrants in Texas to board the flights could say they were told they were only picking up volunteers who wanted a trip to another state, Mr. Taylor.

And even if it were determined that the migrants were deceived by people on the ground, he said, Mr. DeSantis or those close to him could argue that they did not direct their employees or contractors to deceive or coerce anyone.

“It’s the idea of ​​clean hands. They are not directly responsible,” said Mr. Taylor. “It’s plausible deniability.”

Texas investigators investigating the Martha’s Vineyard flights initially considered a wide variety of possible crimes, but after a careful investigation, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office recommended prosecution for unlawful deprivation of liberty, in most cases a misdemeanor and felony if involving children go.

The individuals who recruited the migrants faced up to two years in prison because several minors were part of the group brought to Massachusetts, investigators said.

“That makes this case quite unusual, especially since it’s going too far to call it human trafficking,” Mr Taylor said.

Much of the focus in the Texas case was on Perla Huerta, a former Army counterintelligence officer, who had met several migrants outside a San Antonio shelter, handed them McDonald’s gift certificates and a brochure with the cover: “Massachusetts Welcome You. The migrants, most of whom were fleeing the extreme poverty and desperation of their homeland, signed waivers agreeing to the flights and boarded two Vertol Systems planes to Martha’s Vineyard, a leftist oasis for the rich.

Lawyers representing Ms. Huerta in related civil litigation did not respond to a request for comment. In legal documents, they have said the migrants only complained about their travels because they disagreed with Mr. DeSantis’ politics. They were open to the free travel, the documents said, because they were hungry, exhausted and had few other options for help by the time they were approached.

The San Antonio sheriff did not recommend more serious charges, such as kidnapping, and did not expand his net to include top Florida political figures such as Mr. DeSantis. Legal analysts said this was likely because local law enforcement officials felt their role was limited. From the beginning, Sheriff Javier Salazar has emphasized that he was looking at the people who may have broken the law in his own jurisdiction.

There has been no outcry from Texas Governor Greg Abbott like that from Mr Newsom in California: Mr Abbott has undertaken his own migrant relocation program, sending large numbers of migrants on buses to Democrat-run cities, including New York , Washington and Chicago.

The California issue may be a matter of jurisdiction as the flights did not originate there, but the state could assert its authority as at least some of the crime took place there – again, if it can be proven that the migrants were there been brought against their will, said Gerardo Menchaca, an immigration lawyer in San Antonio who has regularly handled criminal cases.

Being lured somewhere on false pretenses could be “close to kidnapping,” Mr Menchaca said. And because the migrants were being moved from one state to another, both the state and federal government would have the right to investigate, he said. “It doesn’t have to be where the crime started, as long as it ended there,” he added.

Rob Bonta, California’s Democratic attorney general, said investigators are investigating whether any laws were broken.

But a full investigation takes time, as evidenced by the slow progress in San Antonio, where it took the sheriff’s department nearly nine months to present its findings to District Attorney Joe Gonzales.

For starters, Sheriff Salazar has stated that all of the people who flew into Martha’s Vineyard were victims of a felony, a finding that allows them to apply for a special immigration visa that they would not otherwise qualify for.

Now the prosecutor must review the results of the investigation and decide whether to take the case to a grand jury, a process that could take weeks, if not longer.

“The process of determining whether there is sufficient evidence to charge someone with a crime and convincing a jury of Bexar County residents ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that a crime has been committed can, under the best of circumstances, be lengthy and laborious .” Gonzales said in a statement.

Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting from Miami.