Accusing Gov. Ron DeSantis of an “attempt to legalize state-sponsored harassment,” immigrant-advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging an “unauthorized alien” relocation program approved by state lawmakers earlier this year.
The lawsuit makes a series of allegations, including violations of constitutional due-process and equal-protection rights.
The Florida Legislature, at DeSantis’ request, steered $12 million in the state budget to the Department of Transportation “for implementing a program to facilitate the transport of unauthorized aliens from this state consistent with federal law.”
The money for the program, which didn’t appear in early versions of the state budget during the 2022 legislative session, was tucked into the appropriations bill while House and Senate leaders were reconciling differences in their proposed state spending plans. The budget was passed a few days later.
The lawsuit in part maintains that the inclusion of the money for the relocation program in the budget violated the state Constitution. “An appropriations act is not the proper place for the enactment of general public policies on matters other than appropriations,” the 28-page legal complaint said.
The program “should have been scrutinized through the legislative process substantive legislation, not slipped into the annual appropriations act,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote.
The plan drew international headlines in September after state transportation officials dipped into the fund to pay for charter flights to transport about 50 migrants from San Antonio, Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The planes stopped briefly in North Florida before landing on the island.
DeSantis, who is widely considered a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, frequently rails against the Biden administration’s policies and blasts the president for an influx of immigrants at the southern U.S. border.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in the Middle District of Florida is one of several legal challenges to the flights and the program, including a potential class-action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts on behalf of migrants who say they were tricked into getting on the planes.
Plaintiffs in the latest legal challenge are three nonprofit organizations that support immigrants in Florida: The Florida Immigrant Coalition; Americans for Immigrant Justice, Inc., or AI Justice; and Apopka-based Hope CommUnity Center, Inc.
The lawsuit alleges in part that the Florida effort unconstitutionally discriminates against Black and Hispanic people or “unauthorized aliens” or both.
“Whether located in Texas, Florida, or parts unknown, there is no doubt that the intended targets of the ‘relocation program’ are people of color arriving from nations south of the U.S./Mexico border,” the complaint said. “Spending $615,000 to transport asylum-seekers from Texas to Massachusetts does not further a legitimate interest, it merely perpetuates xenophobia and hate by targeting Latin American and Caribbean migrants.”
The lawsuit, which names DeSantis and Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue as defendants, also accused DeSantis of having “consistently targeted immigrants of Latin American descent.”
“The discriminatory intention behind this law is clear to see when not read in a vacuum,” the lawsuit said, pointing to recent efforts by Florida lawmakers to target so-called “sanctuary” cities.
DeSantis’ spokeswoman Taryn Fenske defended the program.
“The relocation program was funded by interest from federal COVID dollars and lawfully executed under an appropriation of the Florida state legislature (that, incidentally, had bipartisan support.) This program does not violate federal law. We will continue to defend the state’s actions against these politically motivated, unsound lawsuits,” she said in an email.
The relocation program has forced the advocacy groups to divert resources from other programs to respond to an onslaught of requests for legal and other assistance from people “who are concerned about their and/or family members’ possible transportation out of Florida by state officials,” according to the lawsuit.
The legal challenge also alleges that the state’s relocation program conflicts with complex federal immigration laws and regulations.
“This coordinated national system of tracking and processing noncitizens in proceedings before (the Department of Homeland Services) or the Immigration Court is upended and thrown into chaos when individuals who are required to appear before a federal agency in one location are unable to do so due to state intervention,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote. “Thus, defendants interfere with the regular enforcement of immigration law when they transport someone out of Florida.”
The “interference is uniquely egregious” because the state transportation department and its contractors are “ill-equipped to determine” who has the legal authority to remain in the country, the lawsuit said. “The federal power to determine immigration policy is well settled and federal governance of immigration and noncitizen status is extensive and complex.”
“Though dressed as a state budget item,” the program “is an effort to backhandedly control national immigration, and, as such, it is unconstitutional,” the complaint said.
The plaintiffs’ legal team includes Southern Poverty Law Center attorneys; Massachusetts-based lawyers George Leontire and Felicia Carboni; and Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., director of Harvard University’s Criminal Justice Institute.
–Dara Kam, News Service of Florida
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Brandon Cross says
Please help me this…
Illegal Aliens… not vetted entering our country… millions!!!
Yet you say they have rights
I truly don’t understand?
Help me understand how this is possible??
Pierre Tristam says
It requires looking at the undocumented as human beings and conceding that all human beings have human rights.
Brandon Cross says
So… the illegal aliens, that are claiming asylum should be entered “cart blanche” into our country?
My research indicates they less than 10 % of these asylum seekers ever show up for their opportunity to prove their claim?
How about the thousands of immigrants who have gone through the proper channels to legally come in to our country?
Who get pushed back due the over burden at the southern border?
I ask for a dialogue not an argument?
Laurel says
Brandon: I don’t disagree with you. The things to consider is this country does need people to do the work Americans do not want to do, but this can be done legally. I’m not crazy about the money being sent out of country, though. That said, there could be new laws.
Another thing is we should pressure Mexico and Central America to do something to help keep these people stay in their homes, and come here and work legally. Most do not really want to leave their homes and families and friends, but feel the need to. These other countries need to take up the slack.
Also, we Americans are so very welcoming of the drugs made available to us from these countries. That’s nobodies fault but ours. It’s an open invitation.
Last, but not least, these people need to fight for their own countries! Look at the Ukrainians, they fight. We would never let gangs, drug gangs or otherwise, take over our country. The problem is that these people do need money, but they would rather risk coming here, which is a better bet than to fight and take their country from the gangs.
Also, it sucks when our politicians use these vulnerable people as political props.
Brandon cross says
Well put
Been There says
They were in the US legally. They were asylum seekers. DeSantis used Florida money to go to another state, pick them up under false pretense, and abandon them with no resources. The pamphlet that was handed to the migrants had one thing written in English but something different in Spanish. In the Spanish version, there was a missing paragraph. He defrauded these people and exploited them.
Robert Joseph Fortier says
How is it that some liberals get all freaked out if the south is not comfortable with foreigners moving in their area, yet all they have to do is invite them into their neighborhoods. When the Governor sends them up north, they have a meltdown.
“Do as I say, not as I do” fits this scenario perfectly to a “T”.
Nancy N says
And it’s because of people like you who buy into his performances that DeSantis pulls these stunts. The outrage has nothing to do with the immigrants being sent to liberal areas. It has to do with HOW it was done – with abuse (and probably illegal use) of state funds, by deceiving the immigrants about where they were going and why, and by deliberately dumping them unannounced in areas that don’t have services to assist them just to create chaos and score political points. (And it should be noted that the residents of those areas stepped up with emergency efforts to help when these people were brought into their community, until the immigrants could be relocated to nearby areas with more services for them.) He used people as political pawns, without concern for their welfare, for political grandstanding.
LD says
Thank you!
Dennis C Rathsam says
Its so funny…When the imbacile in the Whitehouse does the same thing to these invaders, sending them throughout the states in the middle of the night… Thats OK But when the GOP does it…in broad daylite thats a problem…. You know what the problem really is, its call being a democrat, no ideas, no plans, How many more Americans will die from fentenyol, thanx to the Biden Administration?
Geezer says
It takes an imbecilic person to misspell “imbecile,” and then hurl it at someone whose station in life is stratospherically higher than his own. Is that you?
Good golly…
Brandon Cross says
DeSantis, who is widely considered a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, frequently rails against the Biden administration’s policies and blasts the president for an influx of immigrants at the southern U.S. border.
Curious?
Is this a bad thing?
Please explain how allowing illegal immigrants into our country is a good thing.
Geezer says
Columbus was an illegal alien.
Aj says
I’m glad suit was filed. Will this hurt Desantis? Time will tell.
CallItWhatItIs says
If I pulled this stunt, I’d be in jail for kidnapping and human trafficking. DeSantis and all those involved should be punished appropriately.
Laurel says
I cannot believe Cuban Americans voted for this guy! When Cubans crossed the water to get to Florida, if they made it to shore they were considered safe. They often jumped out of their homemade boats and swam to shore.
I don’t have a problem with other states joining in with relocating immigrants to their states, but it should be done by agreement. Any way you look at it, what DeSantis, and company did, was human trafficking across state lines by tricking unsuspecting, trusting people, and deserting them. These politicians purposely picked what their constituents would consider “coastal elite,” proving it was nothing more than a political stunt. There was no other reason to touch down in Florida other than to grandstand and spend our money. What asses.
The dude says
They don’t come to “replace you” they come to “do the shit you refuse to do”.
All you MAGAs are fine with letting them dig your ditches, replace your roof, or otherwise do a million different things that MAGA simply won’t or can’t do, but you freak out when they just want to live in peace and raise their families.
Now you kidnap them in states that are not Florida and fly them to other states that are not Florida using Florida tax dollars.
Where’s the consistency? Oh wait… we’re dealing with MAGA here.
Geezer says
The Dude abides.
LD says
Thank you!
JimBob says
What you can see by the signatories on this thread is that republicans view the treatment of these Venezuelan refugees as either clever or downright funny. That is the kind of people they are.