TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A nonprofit government watchdog group has filed a lawsuit alleging Gov. Ron DeSantis and his staff violated the state public records law for failing to produce documents and other material it requested related to two flights relocating migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.
It comes days after the governor’s office released a handful of records related to the Martha’s Vineyard flights in response to several requests from media outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel and other organizations.
But they don’t come close to the full scope of records requested by the Florida Center for Government Accountability, said Michael Barfield, director of public access for the FGCA.
“They are releasing the records piecemeal,” Barfield said.
Two jets chartered by Destin, Florida-based contractor Vertol Systems left San Antonio on Sept. 14 for Martha’s Vineyard with 48 adult and children migrants, mostly Venezuelan refugees seeking asylum. They were the inaugural flights of the migrant relocation program approved by the Legislature and financed with $12 million, interest from COVID-19 relief money the state had received.
Their arrival triggered a firestorm of critics, who accused DeSantis of human trafficking and breaking the law that allowed him only to remove migrants in Florida to other states. DeSantis has defended his actions, saying he was trying to get so-called “sanctuary states” to share the burden of migrants crossing the southern border.
Another flight from Texas to Delaware the following week was apparently scuttled over the blowback.
“It’s clear that Gov. DeSantis overstepped in a really offensive way with the trafficking of asylum seekers and we think potentially broke his own law,” Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, said. “Delaying those records is an effort by DeSantis to avoid accountability for his gross political stunt before the Nov. 8 elections.”
The suit filed Monday by Florida Center for Government Accountability in Leon County Circuit Court seeks to compel the governor’s office to enforce the Public Records Act and produce records the organization requested in September. The suit asks for an immediate hearing.
The Sept. 20 request sought a number of detailed records from the governor's office and his staff about the migrant relocation program and the trip to Martha’s vineyard, including:
— Any record sent by or received by Chief of Staff James Uthmeier about the migrant relocation program between Sept. 1 and Sept. 15, as well as Uthmeier’s cellphone logs and other telecommunication devices.
— All records sent to or from Vertol Systems or its agents.
— Any calls or messages between the governor’s office and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
— Communications about the printing of materials about services available in Massachusetts.
The governor’s office acknowledged receipt of the records request two days later, on Sept. 22. On Sept. 25 and Sept. 28, the center notified the governor’s office that it had not received any records requested and asked that records be produced by Sept. 30
Andrew King, a lawyer for the governor’s office, told the center on Sept. 30 that the records wouldn’t be ready that day and couldn’t say when they would be ready.
On Friday, the governor’s office sent the center several pages of documents to the Department of Transportation from James Montgomerie, owner of Vertol Systems, giving price quotes for flying people from Florida to Massachusetts and California.
The governor’s office also sent a link to the center and other media organizations of a cache of records labeled “Martha’s Vineyard.” The email noted the documents were “the first production” of records requested, but the center said none of the documents were from the governor or the governor’s office or within the time frame identified in its request.
Those records show that Vertol Systems was awarded the contract to relocate migrants through next June or until the full $12 million allocated by the Legislature ran out.
The records also show that the state may have violated its own law creating the relocation program, which clearly states that migrants must be relocated from Florida. They include a request for bids and project guidelines that clearly outline that the job is to move people out of Florida who have been identified as undocumented migrants with the help of law enforcement.
They also provide memos from Vertol Systems to DOT officials showing how the company raised the cost of transporting the migrants from Florida to Boston, Massachusetts, first for $35,000 for up to eight people, then to $325,000 for up eight people, $485,000 for up to 25 people and $625,000 for up to 60 people.
Montgomerie and the DOT agreed on $615,000 for up to 50 people from Crestview, Florida, near Vertol Systems’ headquarters in the Panhandle, to Boston.
But they didn’t fly out of Florida. Forty-eight people, including children, were recruited in San Antonio by people working for Vertol Systems, one of whom was a former military intelligence officer The New York Times has identified as Perla Huerta of Tampa, who nobody has managed to contact. The League of United Latin American Citizens has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to locating, arresting and prosecuting her.
Vertol received $615,000 on Sept. 8 for the first two flights, which on Sept. 14 originated from San Antonio, a hub for migrants seeking asylum and other federal aid to gain entry to the U.S. legally. That works out to about $12,800 per passenger, but expenses included food, room and board and ground transportation.
Both planes touched down in Crestview in the Florida Panhandle briefly before ultimately arriving at Martha’s Vineyard, a resort island off the coast of Massachusetts.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo has also sued the governor, alleging that the program violates state law because the migrants were not being moved from Florida. The budget language allocating the $12 million said it was for “the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law.”
On Sept. 20, another flight was planned out of San Antonio for an airport near the vacation home of President Joe Biden in Delaware, flight records show, but apparently was called off after the sheriff in San Antonio launched a criminal investigation into the flights. Vertol Systems received another advance payment of $950,000 on Sept. 19, presumably for that flight.
Asked why the relocation program wasn’t taking migrants out of Florida, DeSantis said at a news conference in September that so few migrants were coming to Florida, his administration had to go to other states to find people who might potentially want to come here.
“If I could do it all in Florida, I would,” he said. “But if we just ignore the source we are going to have people trickling in five, 10 a day ... and there is no way to track all that because it’s on such a small scale.”
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