Democrats call for justice department to investigate migrant flights

Asylum seekers, who arrived on a flight sent by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, gather outside a church, on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Photograph: Ray Ewing/AP

Democratic lawmakers have called on the US justice department to investigate whether Florida and Texas officials broke any federal law when they moved dozens of Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under allegedly false pretenses.

The letter from the congressional representatives Gerry Connolly, Sylvia Garcia, Ted Lieu and dozens of other Democrats followed the emergence of a report in which a 27-year-old Venezuelan said he was paid $200 by a mystery figure known as “Perla” to find people outside the San Antonio migrant center to board a flight.