▶ Watch Video: California officials suggest DeSantis behind latest migrant flights
A plane carrying migrants landed in Sacramento on Monday, just days after a chartered flight with 16 migrants on board landed in the city Friday, officials said.
About 20 people were on Monday’s flight, a spokesperson for the state’s attorney general said. Documentation indicated both flights were linked to the state of Florida.
“The contractor operating the flight that arrived today appears to be the same contractor who transported the migrants last week,” a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta said. “As was the case with the migrants who arrived on Friday, the migrants who arrived today carried documents indicating that their transportation to California involved the state of Florida.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in September arranged for planes carrying immigrants to be flown to Martha’s Vineyard. At the time, DeSantis’s communications director said the flights were part of an effort to “transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”
CBS News has reached out to DeSantis’ office for comment.
DeSantis was sued over the Martha’s Vineyard incident, but a federal judge dismissed the case. The migrants he flew to Martha’s Vineyard were departing not from Florida but from Texas. The migrants on Friday’s plane to Sacramento also originated in Texas, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
“These individuals were transported from Texas to New Mexico before being flown by private chartered jet to Sacramento and dumped on the doorstep of a local church without any advance warning,” Newsom said.
Newsom tweeted about DeSantis on Monday, calling him a “small, pathetic man.”
“This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard,” he tweeted. “Kidnapping charges?”
The tweet included a link to California legislation on kidnapping and an image of the legislation.
“Every person who, being out of this state, abducts or takes by force or fraud any person contrary to the law of the place where that act is committed, and brings, sends, or conveys that person within the limits of this state, and is afterwards found within the limits thereof, is guilty of kidnapping,” the law reads.
After the first flight landed in Sacramento, Bonta said his office was looking into possible criminal or civil action against those who transported the migrants or arranged for the transportation.
“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said. “We are a nation built by immigrants and we must condemn the cruelty and hateful rhetoric of those, whether they are state leaders or private parties, who refuse to recognize humanity and who turn their backs on extending dignity and care to fellow human beings.”
DeSantis, who’s running for president, has been a fierce opponent of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy. He previously signed a bill allocating $12 million for the transport of migrants to other states. He also signed a bill to establish an “Unauthorized Alien Transport Program,” which would “facilitate the transport of inspected unauthorized aliens within the United States.”
