Volunteers mingle outside of St. Andrews Episcopal Church. Two planes of migrants from Venezuela arrived suddenly Wednesday night on Martha’s Vineyard. The migrants are being taken care of at the church for now.
Days after announcing an investigation into Florida's decision to send flights filled with migrants to Martha's Vineyard last year, a Massachusetts district attorney sent a letter to the U.S. attorney general formally requesting assistance and backing a federal probe of what happened.
Two planes filled with undocumented immigrants landed on Martha's Vineyard last September, leaving the island scrambling to prepare emergency shelters to help them. The office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said it was responsible for the flights.
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On Monday, Cape & Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for access to translations and transcripts of interviews conducted with the migrants after they were flown to the island — a journey that the district attorney said had "serious indications and allegations that they were inveigled into making."
"These interviews coupled with other obtained evidence, would provide crucial support for my initial assessment as to whether further investigation is warranted," Galibois wrote.
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On Friday, he publicly threw his support behind a group of public officials from California and Bexar County, Texas, who have called for a federal investigation into the flights. That announcement came ahead of an appearance by DeSantis at a Cape Cod fundraiser.
In his letter to Garland, Galibois reiterated that position, saying he backed the request for criminal and civil investigations into the flights.
The flights re-ignited the national debate over immigration policy.
DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has touted the flights to Martha's Vineyard in campaign speeches, falsely claiming island officials "deported them the next day." The officials brought them to an emergency shelter on Joint Base Cape Cod before alternative housing was arranged.
A spokesperson for the governor said the night of the flights they were "part of the state's relocation program to transport [undocumented immigrants] to sanctuary destinations."
In a class action lawsuit, migrants said unidentified people working with DeSantis had been "trolling streets outside of a migrant shelter in Texas and other similar locales, pretending to be good Samaritans offering humanitarian assistance."
The migrants said those people made false promises that if they were willing to board airplanes to other states, they would receive employment, housing, educational opportunities and other assistance. They also said they were told they would be flown to Boston or Washington, D.C., but were dropped off on Martha's Vineyard without food, water or shelter.
DeSantis' move was widely panned by Massachusetts lawmakers as a "cruel stunt."
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Earlier this summer, Florida also sent flights filled with migrants to Sacramento. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta both likened the action to kidnapping.
In a letter earlier this month, Newsom and Bonta joined Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, Texas, to call on the U.S. Department of Justice "to investigate potential violations of federal law by those involved in this scheme."
Salazar's office announced last month that it had recommended criminal charges, including misdemeanor and felony counts of unlawful restraint. No suspects were named. The sheriff had previously opened an investigation into the flights after saying the migrants were "lured." Charlie Baker, Massachusetts' governor at the time, said he was supporting that investigation.
