We know what happened: Roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants were taken to Martha’s Vineyard on chartered flights. We know when it happened: The planes landed on Wednesday afternoon. We know who was responsible: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was quick to claim responsibility. We even know why: The Republican was eager to execute a political stunt and use these struggling people as props.
Understanding how this happened, however, is proving to be one of the key elements of the larger controversy. The New York Times spoke to one migrant, named Ardenis Nazareth, who was standing in a parking lot this week, across the street from a San Antonio shelter, considering his next steps.
That is when a well-dressed woman who introduced herself as Perla handed him and about 30 other migrants gift cards for the fast-food restaurant, which they gladly accepted. Then she made an enticing offer: a free flight to a “sanctuary,” he recalled, where there were people to help them get on their feet. The place was called Massachusetts. Was that close to New York, Mr. Nazareth asked. She assured him that it was, and that onward travel would be available, if that is where he hoped to settle.
He recalled that the same woman who’d handed out the gift cards made the same offer to other migrants. With limited options, they boarded a van, found themselves at an airport hotel, boarded a charter flight, and arrived at an unfamiliar New England island.
All of this mirrored a report from NPR:
The migrants said a woman they identified as “Perla” approached them outside the shelter and lured them into boarding the plane, saying they would be flown to Boston where they could get expedited work papers. She provided them with food. The migrants said Perla was still trying to recruit more passengers just hours before their flight.
NPR asked one young migrant why he’d leave a Texas shelter and board a plane with little information. “Look, when you have no money and someone offers help, well, it means a lot,” Andres Duarte responded.
What these stories appear to describe is something resembling fraud. If accurate, these accounts describe a situation in which desperate migrants were lured onto an airplane under false pretenses — not to help them, but rather, to exploit them. They were then dumped in a small community, different from the destination they were promised, all as part of a scheme to allow a politician to smirk at a press conference the next day.
[Update: Rachel Self, a Boston immigration attorney assisting with the migrants’ cases, held a press conference from Martha’s Vineyard, fleshing out additional lies the Venezuelans were told at multiple steps. She described their treatment as “sadistic.”]
If there’s a moral defense for such cruelty, I can’t think of it. But that’s not only dimension of note. Indeed, there’s no shortage of questions.
Were the migrants in Florida? The Republican governor’s office hasn’t provided the public with details, but by all appearances, the Venezuelans did not begin their American journey in the Sunshine State. It raises the prospect of DeSantis using Florida taxpayer funds to move dozens of people from Texas to Massachusetts.
Who knew this was happening? DeSantis does not appear to have notified officials in Massachusetts or at the Department of Homeland Security, but the Republican’s team did give an exclusive to Fox News.
Who’s Perla? At this point, it’s unclear who Perla is, whether that’s her real name, who paid her, and whether she was an official representative of the Florida governor’s office. Was this legal under federal law? A variety of Democrats and legal experts yesterday questioned whether the DeSantis administration committed human trafficking. In an especially odd moment yesterday, one of the governor’s own spokespersons published a tweet comparing the DeSantis administration with criminal cartels. Federal law in this area, however, is quite complex and will need additional scrutiny. Was this legal under state law? According to Florida’s relevant budget language, DeSantis’ administration is only allowed to “transport unauthorized aliens“ from Florida, not other states. If the migrants were in Texas, as appears to be the case, this would appear to be a meaningful problem for the Republican. Did DeSantis hope to prove that a liberal New England enclave hates immigrants as much as far-right Republicans? Apparently so, but he failed spectacularly. Was all of this captured on camera? By some unconfirmed accounts, there was a videographer with the migrants, perhaps to be used in future campaign advertising. If the matter comes under investigation, that footage will become highly relevant. There is no reason to think this will be a one-day story.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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