California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), along with two others, penned a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to open a Justice Department investigation into Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ program luring in and dropping off migrants in various blue states.
The letter from Newsom, California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a Texas sheriff who investigated Florida’s transport of migrants from his county urges Garland to follow up on local investigations into the transports with a federal probe.
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“Although separate investigations into potential violations of state laws remain active, the U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) has a unique capability to investigate cases where, as here, the scheme stretches from Massachusetts to California and touches upon no fewer than five states,” Thursday’s letter reads.
The Florida program overseen by DeSantis has rounded up migrants from various places and dropped them off in Martha’s Vineyard last year and Sacramento last month. Local investigations, media reports and first-person accounts all say that recruiters for the program deceived migrants into boarding planes with false promises of jobs, housing and access to other social services once they reached their destination.
“It is unconscionable to use people as political props by persuading them to travel to another state based on false or deceptive representations,” the letter reads.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has launched a similar program bussing migrants to Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City, but the letter did not address it.
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Texas’ Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar, one of the letter’s signatories, filed a criminal case last month recommending charges against DeSantis for arranging to transport migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard. Several counts of unlawful restraint were filed, and potential criminal prosecution is currently pending with the county’s district attorney.
DeSantis, also running for the Republican presidential nomination, did not immediately return requests for comment.
