\n\n“The 35-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Boston offers one of the most detailed accounts yet of how roughly 50 migrants found themselves on two planes that unexpectedly landed in Martha\u2019s Vineyard last week, and trauma their new lawyers say they\u2019ve suffered from their ordeal and from being thrust into the center of the national debate over immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plaintiffs include three Venezuelan migrants who boarded the planes to Martha\u2019s Vineyard along with their family members as well as Alianza Americas, a Chicago-based advocacy group for Latino immigrant communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The complaint alleges that people working for DeSantis were \u201ctrolling streets outside of a migrant shelter in Texas and other similar locales, pretending to be good Samaritans offering humanitarian assistance,\u201d including $10 McDonalds gift cards and free hotels while making \u201cfalse promises and false representations\u201d of employment, housing and educational opportunities awaiting the migrants in either Boston or Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were also allegedly told they would receive assistance with their immigration proceedings at their final destination and were \u201cintentionally sequestered\u201d before their departure from Texas \u201cso they could not discuss the arrangement\u201d and so that the migrants \u201cwould be less likely to leave or change their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, the migrants were flown to Martha\u2019s Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, where \u201cno one\u201d on the island or \u201canywhere in Massachusetts\u201d knew they were coming. They were given pamphlets \u201clifting language\u201d from the state\u2019s Refugee Resettlement Program \u2014 which the lawsuit argues none of the migrants are eligible for. And the people who recruited the migrants for the flights were \u201cunreachable by phone\u201d after they landed in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese immigrants, who are pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the United States, experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country,\u201d the plaintiffs argue. \u201cDefendants manipulated them, stripped them of their dignity, deprived them of their liberty, bodily autonomy, due process, and equal protection under law, and impermissibly interfered with the federal government\u2019s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda.\u201d”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“DeSantis has continued to defend his actions, claiming last week that the migrants voluntarily boarded the flights and weren\u2019t coerced. He has argued that Florida\u2019s Republican-led Legislature approved $12 million to transport migrants out of the state, though Democrats have claimed<\/a> the flights are improper uses of the allocated funds.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n