Migrants on DeSantis’ Martha’s Vineyard flight can sue charter company over ‘scheme to recruit vulnerable individuals’: ruling
Venezuelan migrants flown from the border to the upmarket liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard are now allowed to sue the aviation company that took them there, a judge has ruled.
The startling decision comes despite the Biden administration flying planeloads of unaccompanied migrant children from Texas to New York to be resettled, with no repercussion.
Liberal outcry reached fever pitch when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chartered an aircraft of roughly 50 migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts in Sept. 2022, claiming he had duped the migrants, newly arrived in the US, into going somewhere they hadn’t chosen.
Even though all those transported had signed forms agreeing to be taken to the state and being welcomed by residents, lawyers on behalf of a trio of the migrants — named only as Yanet, Pablo, and Jesus — filed a suit alleging violation of civil rights, false imprisonment, fraud and deceit as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The suit added they were flown to Martha’s Vineyard on “false promises” of stable housing and work.
US District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled Vertol — the aviation company that coordinated the flights for $1.5 million, according to the lawsuit — “actively participated in the scheme to recruit vulnerable individuals, through deceit, and to send them to Massachusetts as part a public act relating to a divisive national political issue.”
The suit also claims the migrants’ Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated because they were “stranded” on the island — where the average home costs $2.3 million, according to the MV Times.
The lawsuit conveniently ignored how a bus was chartered within two days, bringing everyone to the state’s mainland and every migrant personally received legal aid.
Immigration data also shows most migrants do not stay at the border, with the top destinations being Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Chicago.
The 50-person influx, a fraction of the 183,000 migrants encountered on the border that month, prompted the National Guard to show up to corral the “humanitarian crisis”.
In her ruling, Burroughs slammed the decision to ship the migrants to Martha’s Vineyard without concrete plans for shelter, food, or jobs.
“Vertol and the other Defendants here were not legitimately enforcing any immigration laws,” she insisted, adding “the Court sees no legitimate purpose for rounding up highly vulnerable individuals on false pretenses and publicly injecting them into a divisive national debate.”
DeSantis was also named as a defendant in the suit, however, Burroughs’ 77-page decision dismissed the former presidential candidate and other state defendants from the suit, ruling the court did not have jurisdiction over DeSantis.
The judge did not mention Biden’s own so-called “ghost flights,” which allegedly brought over 200,000 new arrivals to the US last year.
DeSantis defended his decision to charter the flights immediately after the ruling.
“As we’ve always stated, the flights were conducted lawfully and authorized by the Florida Legislature,” a spokesperson for the governor told The Hill.
“We look forward to Florida’s next illegal immigrant relocation flight, and we are glad to bring national attention to the crisis at the southern border,” they added.
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment, nor did Vertol Systems.
“We are pleased that most of the case has now been dismissed and believe the Lawyers for Civil Rights are once again mistaken in their analysis of the situation,” the company’s lawyer told NPR.
Meanwhile, the migrant crisis continues with a record of 267,000 people encountered at the Southern Border in December last year, and over 2.4 million encountered in the last financial year, which ended in October 2023.
