In September, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis bused migrants from Bexar County, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
Nine months later, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar has something to say about it. Salazar, an elected Democrat, announced Monday that his office has recommended a criminal charge against DeSantis.
“The charge filed is unlawful restraint and several accounts were filed, both misdemeanor and felony,” the Texas sheriff’s office said in a statement obtained by local media. “At this time, the case is being reviewed by the DA’s office.”
Salazar said last year that his office had already begun exploring whether to recommend charges against DeSantis.
“Somebody saw fit to come from another state, hunt them down, prey upon them, and then take advantage of their desperate situation just for the sake of political theater, just for the sake of making a statement,” Salazar said last year, according to Politico. “I believe people need to be held accountable for it to the extent possible.”
At the time, Salazar did not name any laws broken by DeSantis, Politico pointed out. Now, Salazar has finally revealed the recommended charge: several counts of unlawful restraint.
Johnny Garcia, a spokesman for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, said that at this time the office is not naming suspects.
The county prosecutor will decide whether to file the charge. The prosecutor may exercise discretion and choose to drop the charge.
After this announcement, one former federal prosecutor, Michael Wildes, predicted a looming defeat for DeSantis. Wildes served a federal prosecutor in New York state, before becoming the Democrat mayor of Englewood, New Jersey.
Wildes told NewsNation that DeSantis “had no legal authority as governor” to send migrants to a different state.
“If you take people and you give them the impression that they’re going to get work, which is what was found, and they were just transporting them around the United States haphazardly, of course charges could be leveled,” Wildes continued. “Not only against the governor, but any of his emissaries.”
A former local prosecutor, Mark Bederow, offered some more nuance. Bederow worked as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and he now practices criminal defense. He wanted the case handled by federal authorities, rather than a county sheriff.
“If anything, the federal government should be looking into this,” Bederow argued. “But this reeks of politics.”
Bederow said that a local sheriff shouldn’t bring a case against a governor of a different state, regardless of whether a local sheriff is allowed to do so.
“Can they? Maybe,” Bederow said. “Should they? Probably not.”
Take a look —
A Texas sheriff is now recommending charges against Ron DeSantis in the transport of nearly 50 migrants to Martha's Vineyard in September. Could the Florida governor actually BE charged? @Michael_Wildes & @Bederowlaw join Dan to discuss. pic.twitter.com/osDhNS9mPw
— Dan Abrams Live (@danabramslive) June 6, 2023
Meanwhile in California, state officials were investigating Tuesday whether Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis was behind a flight that picked up asylum-seekers on the Texas border and flew them — apparently without their knowledge — to California’s capital, even as faith-based groups scrambled to find housing and food for them.
About 20 people ranging in age from 21 to 30 were flown by private jet to Sacramento on Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. It was the second such flight in four days.
“To see leaders and governments of other states and the state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, acting with cruelty and inhumanity and moral bankruptcy and being petty and small and hurtful and harmful to those vulnerable asylum seekers is blood-boiling,” Bonta said in a Monday interview.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and faith-based groups who have been assisting the migrants scheduled a news conference Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom lashed out at DeSantis as a “small, pathetic man” and suggested the state could pursue kidnapping charges.
DeSantis and other Florida state officials were mum, as they were initially last year when they flew 49 Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, luring them onto private jets from a shelter in San Antonio.
DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination to run for president, has been a fierce critic of federal immigration policy under President Joe Biden and has heavily publicized Florida’s role in past instances in which migrants were transported to Democratic-led states.
He has made the migrant relocation program one of his signature political priorities, using the state legislative process to direct millions of dollars to it and working with multiple contractors to carry out the flights. Vertol Systems Co., which was paid by Florida to fly migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, appears to be behind the flights to Sacramento on Monday and last Friday, Bonta said, adding that the migrants were carrying “an official document from the state of Florida” that mentions the company. The company didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Altogether, more than three dozen migrants arrived in Sacramento on flights last Friday and on Monday. Most are from Colombia and Venezuela. California had not been their intended destination and shelters and aid workers were taken by surprise, authorities said.
Friday’s group was dropped off at the Roman Catholic Church diocese’s headquarters in Sacramento. U.S. immigration officials had already processed them in Texas and given them court dates for their asylum cases, and none had planned to arrive in California, said Eddie Carmona, campaign director at PICO California, a faith-based group helping the migrants in Sacramento.
The Republican governors of Texas and Arizona have previously sent thousands of migrants on buses to New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., but the rare charter flights by DeSantis mark an escalation in tactics. The two groups sent to Sacramento never went through Florida. Instead, they were approached in El Paso by people with Florida-linked paperwork, sent to New Mexico, then put on private flights to California’s capital, California officials and advocates said.
The office of New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham had no specifics as to why the immigrants were taken from Texas to New Mexico before being flown to California.
Last year, DeSantis directed Republican lawmakers in Florida to create a program in his office dedicated to migrant relocations. It specified that the state could transport migrants from locations anywhere in the country. The law was designed to get around questions about the legality of transporting people on a flight that originated in Texas.
Florida’s alleged role in the arrival of the two groups in Sacramento is sure to escalate the political feud between DeSantis and Newsom, who have offered conflicting visions on immigration, abortion and a host of other issues.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.