MIAMI — The state agency charged with managing the controversial migrant relocation program said its mission was “to relocate out of the State of Florida foreign nationals who are not lawfully present in the United States,’’ according to documents obtained Friday by the Herald/Times.
That may pose a problem for Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose administration paid a Destin-based aviation company, Vertol Systems Company, more than $1.56 million to transport migrants, including two Sept. 14 flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, even though the 48 Venezuelan passengers never set foot in Florida.
The documents released Friday provide a deeper look into the carefully organized plan by the governor to use the Florida Department of Transportation to relocate migrants from Texas to another part of the country, an exercise that has drawn national attention and reignited the polarizing debate over immigration in the run-up to the mid-term elections.
