• Fifty Venezuelan migrants were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last week.
• The lawsuit claims they were duped into taking flight as part of a cruel stunt to highlight immigration policy.
• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has claimed credit for transporting them via airplane.

Fifty primarily Venezuelan migrants who were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in the northeastern United States last week filed a lawsuit against Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, alleging they were duped into taking the flight as part of a cruel stunt to highlight federal immigration policy.

The class action lawsuit was filed in Massachusetts by the immigrant rights organization Alianza Americas and three unnamed Venezuelans on behalf of the entire group, alleging that the migrants were lured from Texas shelters onto a chartered flight with false promises of employment and assistance, as well as $10 McDonald’s gift cards.

It stated that the plaintiffs fled socialist-controlled Venezuela, a country riven by violence and economic collapse, “in a desperate attempt to protect themselves and their families from the gang, police, and state-sponsored violence and the oppression of political dissent.”

It said that as they were “pursuing the proper channels for lawful immigration status in the United States, [they] experienced cruelty akin to what they fled in their home country.”

DeSantis has claimed credit for transporting the migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard via airplane.

According to the lawsuit, DeSantis and other Florida officials “impermissibly interfered with the Federal Government’s exclusive control over immigration in furtherance of an unlawful goal and a personal political agenda.”

The advocacy group involved in the lawsuit estimates that last week’s private charter trip cost approximately $615,000.

The lawsuit requests that punitive damages be assessed during a jury trial.

Immigration is a contentious issue in the United States ahead of the November midterm elections.

As the lawsuit was being filed in Massachusetts, in Delaware, where Vice President Joe Biden resides, word of another migrant flight arriving from Texas sent the media hurrying to the Georgetown airport on the coast.

According to flight monitoring websites, the aircraft reversed course and flew to Nashville and then New Jersey.

With interpreters, civil society organizations from Washington and Wilmington, Delaware, had traveled to welcome the newcomers.

Emily David, the governor’s spokesperson, told AFP, “we’re just here and ready and enabling our state agencies and community partners to be ready to welcome folks if and when they do arrive.”

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