Texas Sheriff Hasn’t Forgotten About Ron DeSantis’s “Unlawful” Anti-migrant Stunt

Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s transportation of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in September of last year qualified as “unlawful restraint,” alleged Javier Salazar, the Democratic sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, who is investigating the incident. Making the claim on a 60 Minutes segment that aired Sunday, Salazar said the migrants were deceived into boarding a plane charted by the DeSantis administration. “They lied to them,” he said—“they” being the operatives hired by the governor’s office to convince dozens of migrants to fly to the Massachusetts island. “They told them they were gonna get jobs there, and housing there.… The answer to your prayers is on this plane and [it] will take you to the promised land.’”

Salazar began looking into the case over concerns that migrants were picked up in San Antonio, which lies inside of his jurisdiction. “From what we’re able to tell at this point, basically, it looks like they drove around the area, looking for people that may look like the target audience that they’re after. And then made the approach,” he said. After an eight-month investigation by his organized crimes unit, Salazar said his office uncovered a “covert criminal operation.”

One of the migrants, Daniel Cauro, a 30-year-old from Venezuela, told 60 Minutes that two women approached him during the operation. “‘We want to send you to a state where there are not so many migrants, and you’re going to have a lot of help because you’re going to have housing and all that,’” he said one of the women told him. But that woman, who has since been identified as Perla Huerta, never mentioned Massachusetts, Cauro said.

Huerta is a former Army counterintelligence agent who, during her search for migrants to ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, reported directly to DeSantis’s public safety chief, according to the Florida Center for Government Accountability. Cauro said that Huerta had him sign a consent-to-transport form in exchange for a $10 McDonald’s gift card that he could use to buy food. “‘You have to sign to be able to get the card,’” Cauro said Huerta told him. But according to 60 Minutes, the form never mentioned Martha’s Vineyard. (Vanity Fair has reached out to Huerta for comment.)

The state of Florida reportedly spent more than $600,000 on the transportation of 50 migrants, who, as asylum-seekers, entered the US legally. “They preyed upon people to get them onto that plane,” said Salazar. “They exploited them, took advantage of the situation that they were in, a very desperate situation, and then took ’em there under false pretenses.” This past June, Salazar recommended felony and misdemeanor criminal charges against two unnamed people involved in the scheme. The Bexar County district attorney is still reviewing the recommendation.

While the flight was arranged as an anti-migrant publicity stunt, Rachel Self, an immigration lawyer who lives near Martha’s Vineyard, told 60 Minutes that the state of Florida may have accidentally given the migrants a path to qualify for a U visa, which would allow them to stay in the country for up to four years. “In order to qualify for a U visa,” Self said, “you need to have a certification from a law enforcement official that you were a victim of a crime. And you then need to show that you suffered as a result of the crime.” For his part, Salazar has signed U visa certifications for 49 of the migrants—one member of the group left Martha’s Vineyard before conferring with Self—that were arranged and brought to him by the attorney. “Ironically, it provided them a completely independent available path to legalize their status here,” Self added.