DeSantis wins in court over migrant flights, but legal skirmish far from over

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — A federal judge in Massachusetts has limited the scope of a lawsuit filed against Gov. Ron DeSantis and others after Florida arranged to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, but in a sharply worded ruling left intact the legal challenge against the company that arranged for the high-profile flights.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs’ 77-page decision dismissed DeSantis and other state defendants from the suit. But it also does not shut down the possibility of additional legal action against DeSantis over the contentious flights that the governor pursued to criticize the immigration policies of President Joe Biden. The flights of roughly 50 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, attracted enormous publicity at the time.

The main reason that the lawsuit was dropped against the Republican governor and current and former top aides — as well as one of the main individuals who helped find people for the September 2022 flights — is that the judge found there was “insufficient facts” presented in the lawsuit to tie them to any potentially illegal actions that occurred in Massachusetts.

“The court cannot ascertain what actions were undertaken by whom and therefore cannot determine which, if any, of the individual defendants transacted business or caused injury here, leaving it no choice but to find that, at least on this record, personal jurisdiction has not been established,” Burroughs wrote.

The DeSantis administration praised the decision to dismiss the lawsuit against the governor.

“As we've always stated, the flights were conducted lawfully and authorized by the Florida Legislature,” said Jeremy Redfern, a spokesperson for DeSantis. “We look forward to Florida's next illegal immigrant relocation flight, and we are glad to bring national attention to the crisis at the southern border.”

Burroughs, however, did take aim at Vertol, the company that was paid $1.5 million to operate the flights and said several claims against the vendor can proceed. The judge also said there evidence to support allegations that the migrants were targeted because they were Hispanic.

“The court sees no legitimate purposes for rounding up highly vulnerable individuals on false pretenses and publicly injecting them into a divisive national debate,” Burroughs wrote.

DeSantis pushed to get $12 million from the Legislature for his migrant relocation program and records showed that several top aides were deeply involved in the planning of the Martha’s Vineyard flights. The class-action lawsuit filed against DeSantis by Lawyers for Civil Rights Boston — on behalf of some of those on the flight — as well as Alianza Americas said that migrants were lied to about where they were going and told they would have housing and jobs once they reached their destination.

The organization praised the ruling because it allows the litigation to continue.

“The favorable ruling is a major victory in the Martha’s Vineyard case, and it sends a crucial message: private companies can — and will — be held accountable for helping rogue state actors violate the rights of vulnerable immigrants through illegal and fraudulent schemes,” said Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, the executive director for the Boston group, in a statement.

Espinoza-Madrigal added that “to be clear: the Martha’s Vineyard migrants will not stop here” and said that the group would continue to pursue claims against all those involved, including seeking additional information that could be used against DeSantis in a future lawsuit.

Florida conducted a second round of flights in June of last year when it arranged to fly migrants to Sacramento, but has not undertaken any operations since then. DeSantis floated flying Haitian migrants to Martha's Vineyard last month.