Massachusetts lawmakers ask Buttigieg to investigate DeSantis migrant flights

BOSTON — Massachusetts lawmakers are asking Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to investigate whether the migrant charter flights organized by GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke the department’s rules by allegedly misleading those on board.

Sen. Ed Markey, in a letter to Buttigieg signed by five other members of the all-Democratic Massachusetts delegation and shared first with POLITICO, invoked a charter-broker rule issued during the Trump administration that prohibits charter operators from “misrepresenting” information like the “time of departure or arrival, points served, route to be flown, stops to be made, or total trip-time.”

Markey cites the federal class action lawsuit a civil rights firm filed on behalf of the migrants last week that accused DeSantis and Florida transportation officials of coercing migrants onto planes from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard through “false promises and misrepresentations” of where they were going and what was waiting for them on the other end of the flight.

Court documents describe how the primarily Venezuelan migrants were approached near shelters in San Antonio, Texas, by a woman named “Perla” and offered $10 McDonalds gift cards and “false promises and false representations” of employment, housing and educational opportunities in either Boston or Washington, D.C.

It wasn’t until the migrants were en route to Massachusetts, the lawsuit says, that they were informed they were instead headed to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, where local officials were unaware of and unprepared for their arrival.

Other Democrats have called on the Justice Department to investigate DeSantis, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. A sheriff in Texas has also opened an investigation into DeSantis and the flights, though it remains unclear exactly what he’s probing.

Markey and Reps. Lori Trahan, Seth Moulton, Stephen Lynch, Jake Auchincloss and Bill Keating — who represents Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod, where the migrants were voluntarily moved to a military base — argue in their letter that Vertol Systems Company, which signed a contract with the state of Florida to relocate the migrants and then appears to have hired another company to operate the flights, “likely constituted a charter-broker subject to DOT rules in the transaction.”

“Charter brokers and air carriers should not assist states like Florida in relocating migrants with false promises about their ultimate destination,” the lawmakers wrote. “The Department should use all tools within its authority — including enforcement of its consumer protection rules — to ensure that migrants are not transported under false pretenses as part of a competition among wannabe Trump acolytes to claim the mantle of cruelest governor in the United States.”

DeSantis has denied that the migrants were misled. Taryn Fenske, communications director for DeSantis, said in a statement last week that the migrants “were homeless, hungry, and abandoned.”

The Transportation Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Buttigieg called the migrant transports “stunts” during an appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival earlier this week, but has said little else on the matter. The Federal Aviation Administration, which operates under DOT, has been similarly reticent to address DeSantis’ migrant charter flights and likely has little authority to stop them from happening again unless a law enforcement agency like the Department of Justice steps in first.

The Massachusetts delegation members’ request to Buttigieg comes amid increasing calls from Democratic officials in Massachusetts for DOJ to investigate the circumstances surrounding the flights to Martha’s Vineyard.

GOP Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has welcomed the Texas sheriff's investigation, but has not called for anything further and has repeatedly declined to join Democrats in hitting DeSantis or the other Republican governors, Greg Abbott in Texas and Doug Ducey in Arizona, who have been busing migrants to blue cities for months.

“I’ve been watching Republicans and Democrats that are running for president tee off on each other — that doesn’t help solve the problem” of immigration reform, Baker said on a local radio show earlier this week. “I’m not running for president, so why engage in a presidential debate?”