Second flight of migrants arrives
Monday's plane mirrors Friday's route from New Mexico and reportedly had 20 people aboard
A second plane reportedly carrying migrants arrived Monday in Sacramento, three days after 16 migrants from South America were flown on a private chartered flight from New Mexico to California's capital city.
Logs from the website FlightAware showed a flight landing at 10:26 a.m. Monday at Sacramento Executive Airport, about two hours after taking off from Deming, New Mexico, the same departure point as Friday's flight.
The flight brought 20 migrants, all of them adults, said Sacramento County spokesperson Kim Nava said. The migrants were given food and water at the airport and then transported to a religious institution.
Nava said county social workers are en route to assess the situation. She expected the migrants to be housed in Sacramento. The county was not aware the flight was arriving until Monday morning, Nava said.
The FlightAware history for the aircraft shows the plane traveling Monday morning from El Paso International to Deming Municipal Airport, then flying from Deming to Sacramento. It then took off to return to El Paso International.
The log shows the flight was en route to Sacramento's McClellan Airport near North Highlands, where Friday's flight landed, before being diverted to Sacramento Executive Airport. Monday's flight used the same plane as Friday's charter, operated by Texas-based Berry Aviation, according to flight records compiled by the Sacramento Bee.
According to FlightAware, the same de Havilland Dash 8 twin turboprop flew Friday from El Paso International to Deming Municipal to McClellan Airport that morning, then back to
El Paso International that afternoon. No other flights were listed for the plane between Friday and Monday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta over the weekend and Monday morning blamed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for Friday's flight.
Bonta in an interview with ABC News said the migrants on Friday's flight arrived in Sacramento carrying release documents indicating the flight was part of Florida's program for relocating unauthorized migrants, mostly from Texas, to other states. No politician or organization has publicly taken responsibility for the flight.
Bonta, however, is already blaming DeSantis and said he was preparing to file charges for the stunt. Those charges could include false imprisonment and kidnapping, as well as violations of California's unfair competition law, Bonta told ABC News.
In a tweet Monday morning, Newsom called DeSantis a “small, pathetic man” and included a link to California's penal code section on kidnapping. The 16 migrants from Friday's flight, from Venezuela and Colombia, were left on the doorstep of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento in the city's Curtis Park area.
DeSantis, who is seeking the Republican nomination to run for president, has been a fierce critic of federal immigration policy under President Joe Biden and has heavily publicized Florida's role in past instances in which migrants were transported to Democratic-led states.
He has made the migrant relocation program one of his signature political priorities, using the state legislative process to direct millions of dollars to it.
Sacramento ACT, a collaboration of area religious congregations, said in a statement that after being processed at the border, the migrants were approached by “individuals representing a private contractor” who said they would assist them with getting to a migrant center where they would find jobs and free support.