Illegal Immigrants Flown to Martha’s Vineyard Given ‘Crime Victims’ Visas

Some of the illegal immigrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 are expected to receive special visas that will allow them to stay and work, their attorneys said.

These individuals last year applied for what is known as the U visa, a special type of immigration status granted to crime victims who help authorities investigate or prosecute crimes.

In this case, they worked with a Texas sheriff who is pushing for felony charges against the DeSantis administration for allegedly tricking illegal immigrants into boarding flights from San Antonio to Massachusetts Island.

Once approved, the U visa is valid for up to four years, although holders can apply for permanent residency after three years. There are only 10,000 U visas available annually.

At least three of the original 49 passengers received “bona fide determinations” for their U visa applications, according to Rachel Self, an immigration attorney who lives near Martha’s Vineyard and has been representing them since 2022.

In an interview with The Boston Globe, Ms. Self said the designation allows applicants to work legally and be protected from deportation while they wait for their visas to arrive.

“These findings are one step closer to justice,” she told the newspaper. “(They) further underline that anyone who knows all the facts … simply cannot ignore the criminality of the actors.”

No costs yet

The development comes about a year after Javier Salazar, the Democratic sheriff of Bexar County, where San Antonio is located, filed a completed criminal case with the district attorney regarding the transportation of the 49 illegal immigrants.

“The charges filed are unlawful coercion, and several charges have been filed, both misdemeanors and felonies,” Mr. Salazar’s office said last June, without saying who was charged.

Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales, also a Democrat, has not yet filed formal charges.

The legal saga began in September 2022, when Mr. DeSantis took credit for the two flights that brought illegal immigrants to the doorstep of the posh liberal vacation island. According to the Republican governor, this was part of his state’s $12 million taxpayer-funded program to move willing newcomers to a “sanctuary community.”

As Mr. DeSantis pledged to continue and possibly scale up resettlement efforts, it has sparked an outpouring of outrage from Democrats, including President Joe Biden, who accused Mr. DeSantis of “playing politics with people and using them as props ‘.

DeSantis pushed back against the criticism, calling out Democrats for what he saw as hypocrisy when it comes to the suffering of individuals after being “enticed” to cross the border illegally.

“You’ve seen migrants dying in the Rio Grande,” he said in an interview on Fox News shortly after the Bexar County sheriff announced the criminal investigation into the migrant flights. “There were fifty who died in a trailer in Texas because they were neglected. Was that a panic attack? No, there wasn’t.”

In a statement defending the decision to allow the illegal immigrants to fly, the governor’s office argued that all passengers “voluntarily” accepted the one-way ticket.

“Immigrants are more than willing to leave Bexar County after being abandoned, left homeless and ‘left to fend for themselves.’ Florida gave them the opportunity to seek greener pastures in a jurisdiction that offered them more resources, as we expected,” a spokesperson for the governor said at the time.

“Unless the (Massachusetts) National Guard has failed these individuals, they have been given shelter, livelihood, clothing and more options to succeed after their unfair enticement to enter the United States, unlike the 53 immigrants who died in a truck found abandoned in Bexar County. in June.”

More flights expected

Earlier in April, Mr. DeSantis’ administration was awarded a legal victory by a federal judge, who dismissed the state defendants from a lawsuit brought by some migrant flight passengers on grounds of lack of evidence.

“The court cannot determine which actions were taken by whom and therefore cannot determine which of the individual defendants here did business or caused damage, leaving it no choice but to find that, at least on this record, personal jurisdiction did not take place. is established,” wrote Judge Allison Burroughs, an Obama appointee.

However, Judge Burroughs told the illegal immigrants they could continue their case against Vertol, the Florida-based company that was paid $1.5 million to transport them to Massachusetts.

In response, the governor’s office pledged to book more flights to transport illegal immigrants to “sanctuary” communities outside the state.

“As we have always stated, the flights were lawfully conducted and authorized by the Florida Legislature,” Julia Friedland, a spokeswoman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement. “We look forward to the next flight of illegal immigrants into Florida, and we are pleased to draw national attention to the crisis at the southern border.”

From the time of the era