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Classified as crime victims, some migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard get legal protections

At least three of the people flown to the Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 can now legally work and have protections from deportation.

By Ross Cristantiello

April 23, 2024

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Some of the migrants who were flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration in 2022 are now able to legally work and have protection against deportation because they are considered victims of a potential crime, according to multiple reports. 

Three of the 49 migrants have received “bona fide determinations” in response to their U visa applications, immigration attorney Rachel Self told The Boston Globe this week. Self has been working with those who were flown to Massachusetts since the incident occurred in September 2022. 

While only three of the migrants have received bona fide determinations so far, Self told the Globe that she expects more to receive the determinations in the future. 

This process was created to make reviews of U visa petitions more efficient and to provide “eligible victims of qualifying crimes” with the ability to work while they await final adjudication of their petition. 

“This will provide victims with stability and better equip them to cooperate with and assist law enforcement,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. 

The federal government only issues 10,000 U visas per year. Bona fide determinations are a tool meant to give applicants protections while they wait. 

The determinations were made possible by the fact that the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office in San Antonio certified that the migrants were legally victims of a crime and that they were assisting a law enforcement investigation. Sheriff Javier Salazar opened a criminal investigation shortly after Florida officials arranged the transportation of the migrants from Texas to Massachusetts. DeSantis, who was gearing up for a presidential campaign at the time, took credit for the stunt. 

Salazar said that the migrants, who were from Venezuela and Peru, were lured onto the flights under false pretenses. 

“Somebody saw fit to come from another state, hunt them down, prey upon them and then take advantage of their desperate situation just for the sake of political theater… and putting people’s lives in danger,” he said at the time. 

DeSantis has insisted that the migrants boarded the flights voluntarily and that the operation was legal. 

Salazar recommended that the Bexar district attorney bring criminal charges to the Florida officials and the operatives they allegedly worked with. Self said last September that the criminal investigation had concluded and that the Bexar DA’s office would present the case to a grand jury, according to The Martha’s Vineyard Times. 

Cape and Islands District Attorney Rob Galibois joined Texas and California officials in asking U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to help investigate the operation last summer. 

Self called on law enforcement officials to do more. 

“The Bexar County DA’s inaction in this matter is concerning and cannot be understated,” Self said in a statement to The Miami Herald this week. “Anyone who knows all of the facts, anyone who has seen all of the evidence, simply cannot ignore the crimes that were perpetrated in this case.

DeSantis, other Florida officials, and the airplane charter company that flew the migrants to the Vineyard were the subject of a lawsuit by Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights and pro bono attorneys working on behalf of the migrants. The migrants were specifically targeted and made to cross state lines under false pretenses, they alleged. The migrants allegedly believed they were going to Massachusetts but did not know they would be dropped off on Martha’s Vineyard, where seasonal work was drying up and shelters did not have the ability to provide long-term services. Local officials and residents were caught off guard by the arrival of the migrants. 

In a 77-page decision last month, Judge Allison Burroughs dismissed DeSantis himself and other allies as defendants. She did rule that the suit could proceed against Vertol Systems, the charter company. Burroughs narrowed the scope of the lawsuit because lawyers representing the migrants did not sufficiently connect DeSantis and the defendants other than Vertol to actions that took place in Massachusetts. 

Still, her ruling contained harsh criticism of the operation. 

“Unlike ICE agents legitimately enforcing the country’s immigration laws … the Court sees no legitimate purpose for rounding up highly vulnerable individuals on false pretenses and publicly injecting them into a divisive national debate,” Burroughs wrote. “Treating vulnerable individuals like Plaintiffs in this way … is nothing short of extreme, outrageous, uncivilized, intolerable, and stunning.”

In the meantime, DeSantis has floated the idea of flying more migrants to the Vineyard. In an interview last month he specifically mentioned the possibility of relocating those fleeing Haiti for Florida. The Caribbean nation is currently experiencing a wave of brutal gang violence that is causing a “catastrophic” situation where millions are in need of humanitarian assistance.  

“We really have to get them before they reach the shores and that’s why we’re working so hard to do that,” DeSantis said in the interview. “Although I will say this: We do have our transport program also that’s going to be operational. So, Haitians land in the Florida Keys, their next stop very well may be Martha’s Vineyard.”