DA gets migrant flights inquiry
Trips from Kelly tied to Desantis got sheriff ’s attention
The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office has handed District Attorney Joe Gonzales its findings from a criminal investigation into two politically charged flights of immigrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in September orchestrated by Florida Gov. Ron Desantis.
Sheriff Javier Salazar won’t say what charges, if any, he is recommending that Gonzales’ office pursue or whether they include suggestions that it prosecute former San Antonio resident Perla Huerta, who became the public face of the controversy.
Huerta and others working with her are accused of lying to about 50 South American immigrants, misleading them into boarding the flights Sept. 14 with promises of assistance or employment. Salazar has said he was not investigating Desantis but only those who had contact with the immigrants here.
Numerous attempts to contact Huerta for comment have been unsuccessful. But her lawyers, in recent documents seeking to have a lawsuit over the flights dismissed, said the migrants complained about the flights because they don’t agree with Desantis’ politics.
The immigrants would have willingly boarded the planes no matter what they were told, Huerta’s lawyers argued, because they were living on the streets after they no longer qualified for help from the city of San Antonio’s migrant resource center.
In a text response to questions, Gonzales said the criminal investigation is not complete.
“I can confirm that we have been working with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office on this investigation,” Gonzales said.
“However, a formal and complete case has not yet been filed in our office. We cannot comment on any particular individuals or specifics of an investigation.”
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Deputy Johnny Garcia said via email that “we are not releasing specific details at this time” because the investigation is ongoing.
Taking flight
Salazar announced the investigation shortly after a contract firm working on behalf of the Desantis administration in September recruited the migrants outside the center on San Pedro. Most were from Venezuela and had arrived in San Antonio after being cleared by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to continue their claims for asylum within the United States.
A woman named “Perla,” or others working with her or hired by her, made false claims about who paid for the flights and the destination, promising the migrants they would get jobs and housing and legal assistance, according to interviews with their lawyers, arguments in the lawsuit and documents released through open records requests.
“Perla” was later identified in text messages released by Desantis’ office as Huerta, who’d recently retired from a 20-year
Army career and worked for the contractor hired by the Desantis administration.
The migrants were put up in a South Side hotel near Kelly Field for what was to be the first of several flights that Desantis planned. The idea was to drop them off at locations mocked by Republican politicians as sanctuaries for immigrants because of their liberal politics.
After one of Salazar’s own officers used a police dog to sniff the migrants’ luggage before boarding, the immigrants were loaded on two chartered jets under the watch of Huerta and others, including Larry Keefe, a member of Desantis’ administration. (The Sheriff’s Office said the deputy was misled, like the migrants.)
Text messages and other records show Huerta worked at the time for Florida-based Vertol Systems, which contracted with the Desantis administration and arranged the flights. The planes flew from Kelly Field and made a brief stopover in the Florida Panhandle, apparently so the flights could be paid for with state funds designated for removing undocumented immigrants from Florida.
The planes arrived in Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the Massachusetts coast frequented by the wealthy. Massachusetts officials were caught off guard, setting off a scramble to house and feed the migrants.
Desantis, a Republican considered a likely 2024 presidential candidate, later said he sent
the migrants to Martha’s Vineyard so the “sanctuary” community could deal with the same complications that border states experience.
He was following the lead of fellow GOP Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and then-gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, who bused immigrants from their states to New York City, Washington, D.C., and Chicago to make a political statement about what they contend is President Joe Biden’s failure to secure the border with Mexico.
The flights drew rebukes from some Democrats and the civil rights organization LULAC, which offered a $10,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of Huerta. She had sold her condo in Tampa,
Fla., a week after the flights.
Huerta, who grew up in San Antonio, started working for Vertol Systems after retiring from the Army in August.
In October, Salazar said his office had identified “suspects” in the criminal investigation but would not name them.
“Based upon the claims of migrants being transported from Bexar County under false pretenses, we are investigating this case as possible unlawful restraint,” Salazar said at the time.
The Texas Penal Code defines unlawful restraint as using force, intimidation or deception to restrict a person’s freedom of movement, including “by moving the person from one place to another.” It is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a maximum fine of $4,000.
The federal lawsuit against Huerta was filed in Boston by three of the 50 migrants.
‘A political polemic’
Boston lawyers Nicholas Ramacher and George W. Vien wrote in a 39-page memorandum defending Huerta’s motion to dismiss the suit that Huerta is an immigrant herself. Born in Mexico, she migrated with family to the U.S. and holds dual citizenship, the lawyers wrote.
The lawyers portrayed the Venezuelans as complaining about getting a free ride because they disagree with the politician behind the flights — Desantis, a Republican who
easily won a second term as governor in November. They also said that federal court in Massachusetts has no jurisdiction over the lawsuit, or is the wrong venue, because most of the actions alleged in the lawsuit did not happen in that state.
“Plaintiffs’ complaint is a political polemic dressed as a legal document,” the lawyers wrote. “Stripped of its rhetoric, the complaint alleges that Ms. Huerta — who migrated to the United States herself and holds citizenship in both the United States and Mexico — gave Yanet Doe, Pablo Doe and Jesus Doe … food, basic necessities and hotel rooms in Texas after she found them ‘living on the street.’ ”
Among her lawyers’ arguments is that the immigrants got most of what they were promised, even if Huerta or those she worked for didn’t provide it.
“Plaintiffs repeatedly claim that they were ‘stranded’ on Martha’s Vineyard, but they nowhere allege that they are still there, or were, in fact, unable to leave,” the lawyers said. “Dislike of a politician, and free food, hotel rooms and transportation, are unusual facts on which to build claims for constitutional deprivation.”
Desantis and the other defendants named with Perla have filed similar motions to dismiss the lawsuit.