Florida racks up $1 million in legal bills for migrant flights
Misty Severi
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The state of Florida could end up paying $1 million to defend itself against a class-action lawsuit filed by immigrants from Venezuela who were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last year.
Records from the Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System revealed that the state agreed to pay up to $500,000 in contracts to two law firms. Florida Department of Transportation’s contracts with Consovoy McCarthy and Campbell Conroy & O’Neil were signed in September, but just under $112,000 have been paid in legal fees so far.
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The money for the law firms is on top of the nearly $1.6 million paid to the Florida aviation firm Vertol Systems Company, which the state contracted for the two migrant flights. Together, it means the state has paid roughly $35,000 to relocate each migrant so far, according to Axios.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and his administration organized the flights in September, which transported nearly 50 refugees out of Texas and to Massachusetts amid an immigration crisis on the United States’s southern border.
“Our clients have been stripped of their rights and their dignity. We are committed to holding DeSantis and other perpetrators accountable,” Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement obtained by Axios. “We are appalled to see reports that DeSantis has been using scarce taxpayer dollars to fund his unlawful immigration scheme to the tune of approximately $35,000 per migrant. DeSantis is hurting migrants and taxpayers in one fell swoop.”
The immigrants, who are mostly from Venezuela, were told they were going to Washington, D.C., or Boston, according to the lawsuit, but were taken to Martha’s Vineyard instead. Lawyers claimed the immigrants were given misleading information, including by state officials who allegedly created an “official-looking brochure” using language from the Massachusetts Refugee Resettlement Program.
State lawmakers gave the state’s Department of Transportation $12 million for a migrant relocation program. The money comes from interest earned in Florida’s $8.8 billion portion of the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan, according to the Tallahassee Democrat. However, it is not clear whether any portion of the $12 million is going to the legal fees. The Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General is also examining whether DeSantis improperly used the COVID-19 aid to fund the transport, according to the outlet.
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In addition to the main lawsuit, the Southern Poverty Law Center and other immigration organizations sued DeSantis over the flights in a Miami federal court last month. Sheriff Javier Salazar in Bexar County, Texas, also opened an investigation into whether the immigrants were tricked into boarding the flights from San Antonio, according to the outlet.