Miami, Feb 23 (EFE) Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.
The lawsuit, filed by Democratic state senator Jason Pizzo, argued that a section of the budget used to pay for flights last September was unconstitutional, because it created a new program and changed laws, local media reported.
Lawyers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, argued that Pizzo’s lawsuit was “moot” given that the Legislature this month passed a law aimed at bolstering efforts to transport migrants to “sanctuary areas” of the country, the report reported. Pensacola News Journal.
During today’s hearing, and after Pizzo’s attorney conceded the point made by the state’s defense, Judge John Cooper dismissed the lawsuit.
However, for Pizzo, what he was looking for was partly achieved, as laws passed this month by the Legislature addressed a number of legal issues raised by the Democrat.
The DeSantis Administration used $615,000 to pay Vertol Systems Company for the transfer of this group of undocumented immigrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, the media added.
On February 16, several immigrant organizations expressed their concern about the recent expansion in Florida of a program for the relocation of undocumented immigrants that could give rise to arrests motivated by racial profiling in this state and the rest of the country.
The SB 6B law, which after its approval in the Florida Legislature was signed by DeSantis, allows the transfer of immigrants who are not necessarily in Florida to other parts of the country, as happened with the shipment of nearly fifty undocumented immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts.
Sending the immigrants to the island of Martha’s Vineyard on DeSantis’s orders caused a lively controversy and prompted lawsuits and investigations into him, Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, and people who helped recruit immigrants in Texas. .
When the shipment of immigrants became known and the controversy broke out, the governor defended his decision as a response to the immigration policy of the Government of President Joseph Biden, which, in his opinion, leaves the US borders “open” to foreigners without permission to settle in the country.
DeSantis also said that immigrants caught in Texas after applying for political asylum at the border traveled to Martha’s Vineyard voluntarily, but those who boarded the flight paid for by Florida said before the Massachusetts court that they had been deceived.
(c) EFE Agency
