Migrant Flights

The flights, which drew national attention, took the migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, with a brief stop in the Northwest Florida community of Crestview. The lawsuit alleges that migrants were “duped” into participating in the flights and thought they were going to a city in the Northeast U.S.

A Leon County circuit judge rejected a request to hold Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration in contempt for not providing personal cell-phone records of Chief of Staff James Uthmeier that could relate to a controversial 2022 decision to fly migrants from Texas to Massachusetts.

A whistleblower's lawsuit says the DeSantis administration retaliated against him after he raised concerns that relocating immigrants from Texas to another state could be illegal.

Although immigration authorities nationwide have encountered migrants nearly 7 million times during Biden’s presidency, that doesn’t mean 7 million people have crossed into the country. Customs and Border Protection’s data tracks events, not people.

An appeals court is questioning a ruling that said the DeSantis administration violated Florida’s public-records law regarding migrant flights from Texas to Massachusetts.

DeSantis said Wednesday that California invited the migrants with its welcoming policies toward immigrants. He said those policies serve as a magnet for people looking for a better life and make it harder to crack down on illegal immigration.

Plaintiffs last week fired back after Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration argued that a federal judge should dismiss a potential class-action lawsuit filed after Florida flew 49 migrants from Texas to Massachusetts in September.

The lawsuit contended that a section of the state budget used to pay for the September flights was unconstitutional.

Republicans say the program would help migrants by taking them to sanctuary cities. Democrats say it as a political stunt meant to serve the governor’s national political ambitions.

A circuit judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a South Florida state senator but offered advice on how the legal complaint can move forward. The suit challenged the use of state funds to transport migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

The case has focused, at least in part, on requests by an open-government group for phone or text logs that could provide information about communications by DeSantis Chief of Staff James Uthmeier.

The subpoenas sought to force testimony in a hearing Tuesday in the public-records lawsuit filed against the administration.