Tag: florida

Civil Rights Law Firm Files Lawusit Against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis On Behalf Of Martha’s Vineyard Migrants

Posted on by Judith E. Ashton

A civil rights law firm has filed a lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others after they misled about 50 migrants and flew them from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.

NPR desantis-marthas-vineyard“reports lawyers for Civil Rights and Alianza Americas, a migrant-led non-profitfiled the suit on behalf of the “Vineyard migrants and all similarly situated people who are fraudulently induced to travel across state lines by DeSantis and the State of Florida.”

The suit names DeSantis, the state of Florida, Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue, and their accommodations. Oscar Chacnthe executive director for Alianza America, told NPR DeSantis used the migrants to advance a “hate-filled agenda.”

They also want DeSantis and the other defendants banned from “inducing immigrants to travel across state lines by fraud and misrepresentation,” and to pay damages “for the harm suffered by the migrants.”

Last week, nearly 50 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, were flown from Texas to Florida and then to Martha’s Vineyard. The migrants arrived with no notice and were left on their own. However, the local community scrambled to help, providing food, shelter, and even recruiting a group of high school students from an advanced Spanish class to help translate for the migrants.

According to the migrants, the cruel ruse started when they were shown a basic map of the US and told they would receive jobs and housing and a chance at a better life.

The move was a political ploy that has also been used by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has sent buses of migrants to New York, Chicago, and Vice President Kamala Harris’ Washington, DC residence. Additionally, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said his department is investigating the incident.

DeSantis spokesperson Taryn Fenske said in a statement released Tuesday night accusing activists of

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Migrant Attorneys Call For Criminal Probe Into Ron DeSantis’ Cruel Martha’s Vineyard ‘Stunt’

Posted on by Judith E. Ashton

Attorneys for Venezuelan asylum seekers who were shipped to Martha’s Vineyard last week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are calling for a criminal probe into the “shameful political stunt.”

“We strongly believe that criminal laws were broken by the perpetrators of this stunt,” read a letter from Boston’s Lawyers for Civil Rights sent Saturday to US Attorney Rachael Rollins and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

“This type of conspiracy to deprive our clients of their liberty and civil rights must be thoroughly investigated for violations … of all applicable criminal laws,” LCR demanded.

New York City Major Eric Adams also warned Sunday that he is considering legal action over similar human trafficking to his city by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has bused some 2,500 migrants to New York.

“Our legal team is looking at legal challenges” against Texas, Adams said on CBS New York. “When you place someone [involuntarily] on a bus, we believe that skates the law. We’re not leaving any stone unturned to make sure that New Yorkers are [not] being treated in an unfair way,” he added.

The Venezuelan victims in Massachusetts were “induced to board planes and cross state lines under false pretenses,” landing far from where they had intended to be, according to LCR.

The group, which is representing 30 of the 48 people flown from Texas to the Massachusetts vacation Island Wednesday, charged that “individuals, working in concert with state officials, including the Florida governor, made numerous false promises [to the migrants] – including work opportunities, schooling for their children … in order to induce them to travel.” They only learned of their true destination mid-flight, LCR noted.

They were conned in what amounted to a coordinated political “stunt” targeting vulnerable people as young as two years old, “based on

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Lawyers for migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigations

Posted on by Judith E. Ashton

Sept. 18 (UPI) — Lawyers representing 30 migrants sent by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to Martha’s Vineyard last week are calling on federal and state prosecutors to open criminal investigations into what they call a “political stunt.”

Lawyers for Civil Rights sent letters Saturday evening to US Attorney Rachael Rollins for the district of Massachusetts and the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, asking them to formally open criminal investigations after two chartered planes with 50 migrants onboard were flown Wednesday from Texas and through Florida to Martha’s Vineyard.

DeSantis has said his state paid for the flights under his so-called immigration relocation program in an effort to “insulate” Florida from the impacts of the federal government’s immigration policies.

The attorneys arrived in Martha’s Vineyard on Thursday to meet with the migrants, and told the prosecutors in their letters that they “strongly believe” criminal laws were broken.

“Our clients were induced to board airplanes and cross state lines under false pretenses,” LCR Executive Director Ivan Spinoza-Madrigal and Litigation Director Oren Sellstrom wrote in the letters. “Individuals, working in concert with the Florida governor, made numerous false promises to our clients, including of work opportunities, schooling for their children and immigration assistance, in order to induct them to travel.”

The letters state the migrants were only told mid-flight that they were being taken to Martha’s Vineyard and not Boston as they were informed prior to boarding the planes. And once landing on the island, those who convinced them to board the planes “disappeared,” the lawyers said, leaving their clients to learn that the offers of assistance were untrue.

“This conduct deprived our clients of their liberty by deception. It interfered with their ability to comply with federal immigration obligations, such as attendance at hearings and check-ins. The perpetrators targeted our clients

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Planned Parenthood wants Supreme Court to review appellate court decision not to enjoin abortion law

Posted on by Judith E. Ashton

Planned Parenthood is gearing up to ask the state Supreme Court to weigh in on whether a Tallahassee appellate court should have blocked Florida’s new abortion law from taking effect.

That law bans women and girls from getting abortions after 15 weeks of gestation.

The First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee notified the Supreme Court on August 15 that Planned Parenthood Southwest and Central Florida had filed a notice notifying it of its plans to ask the state’s high court to invoke its discretionary jurisdiction and review the July 21 appellate court ruling.

“The decision is within the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction because it expressly and directly conflicts with a decision of the Supreme Court on the same question of law,” florida“American Civil Liberties Union of Florida attorney Daniel Tilley wrote.

At press time, the Supreme Court had not decided whether it would agree to consider the case.

The case was on appeal after a group of abortion clinics represented by the ACLU challenged the law in circuit court alleging it violated Florida’s voter-approved privacy clause, which in the past has been cited as a reason by the state Supreme Court to block abortion restrictions .

Circuit Court Judge John Cooper ruled that the ban — which does not include exceptions for rape, incest and human trafficking, but does have an exception for the pregnant woman’s life — was likely unconstitutional and issued a temporary injunction. The state, however, immediately appealed the ruling, which prevented the injunction from taking effect.

The decision was appealed to the First District Court in Tallahassee. In July, a split 2-1 decision was issued denying the request to stay the law.

Writing for the majority, Judge Brad Thomas suggested those challenging the law — including a doctor — could not show

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Well-known immigration attorney on whether or not Cuban migrants who reach US can stay: “They have a shot”

Posted on by Judith E. Ashton

MIAMI – It is almost like clockwork, and most always early morning, that Cuban migrants try to reach Florida.

On Tuesday, 25 of them landed on Key Biscayne. A federal law enforcement official confirmed, as they put it, “a maritime smuggling event.”

This fiscal year, some 3,000 Cubans have been apprehended at sea – most repatriated to back to the island nation.

Willy Allen is probably one of Miami’s best known immigration lawyers.

“Once you touch the American territory you have the right to go before an immigration judge and seek asylum,” he said.

That’s what the thousands upon thousands of Cubans are doing at the US border with Mexico. That is likely what these folks that arrived Tuesday morning will do: Ask for asylum, describe a creditable fear of persecution and seek a hearing. They might not be going back to Cuba anytime soon.

“You have a shot to present your asylum case to an asylum officer and a judge so they have a shot to stay here,” Allen said.

Despite the wet foot, dry foot policy being dropped, there is still a chance the arrivals could stay, possibly paroled waiting for a hearing. Smuggled or arriving on Florida’s shores, Cuban migrants are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of Cubans arriving by land at the US-Mexican border.

“If you look at figures that came out in June, the are at 170-plus Cubans… that are clogging up the immigration system. it is impossible to go before an immigration judge in the near future.”

How about Cubans that land in South Florida by boats are undetected?

“This year we have half a dozen guys who came in that way. We applied for asylum for them, and they have interviewed already and out of the five four got

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