Attorneys representing some of the migrants who are suing after they were flown to Martha's Vineyard from Texas at the hands of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said they're seeking a nationwide injunction to prevent more flights.
"We are seeking a nationwide injunction to block Governor DeSantis and Florida from engaging in these activities which endanger human lives," Ivan Espinoza-Madrigral, with Lawyers for Civil Rights, said during a video news conference Wednesday.
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WATCH HEREThe group's class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Boston Tuesday on behalf of some of the Venezuelan migrants, accuses DeSantis and others of a "premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme" to fly them to the island last week.
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Espinoza-Madrigral said the group would be filing a series of claims seeking damages amid their claims of illegal seizure, false arrest, deprivation of liberty and discrimination of the migrants.
The suit filed Tuesday claims the migrants were lured with incentives like McDonald's gift certificates and free hotel stays, and were promised jobs, housing and educational opportunities if they boarded planes, which they were told were going to Boston or Washington, D.C.
DeSantis said all migrants went voluntarily and were provided with information on assistance they could receive in the area, which he called "the most posh sanctuary jurisdiction maybe in the world."
The migrants spent a day and a half at the wealthy Massachusetts enclave before they were taken to a Cape Cod military base.
"They were provided an ability to be in the most posh sanctuary jurisdiction maybe in the world and obviously it's sad that Martha's Vineyard people deported them the next day, they could have absorbed this, they chose not to," DeSantis said. "But what it shows is if 50 was a burden on one of the richest places in our country, what about all these other communities that have been overrun with hundreds or thousands?"
DeSantis' office on Tuesday night shared the form that they said was given to the migrants to give their consent to the flights.
Taryn Fenske, a spokeswoman for DeSantis, called the attorneys who filed the suit "activists" who were using "illegal immigrants for political theater."
"If these activists spent even a fraction of this time and effort at the border, perhaps some accountability would be brought to the Biden Administration’s reckless border policies that entice illegal immigrants to make dangerous and often lethal journeys through Central America and put their lives in the hands of cartels and Coyotes," Fenske's statement read. "The transportation of the immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard was done on a voluntary basis. The immigrants were homeless, hungry, and abandoned – and these activists didn’t care about them then. Florida’s program gave them a fresh start in a sanctuary state and these individuals opted to take advantage of chartered flights to Massachusetts. It was disappointing that Martha’s Vineyard called in the Massachusetts National Guard to bus them away from the island within 48 hours."
An attorney representing some of the migrants dismissed the consent form.
"The truth is in the contents. And nothing contained in this form, even if every migrant signed it fully understanding the Spanish text, makes it a consent to be flown to Martha’s Vineyard if they were told they were going somewhere else," attorney Rachel Self said.
The suit said the migrants fled Venezuela and crossed the U.S. southern border before surrendering to federal immigration officials.
In a video posted to Twitter Wednesday, Sen. Marco Rubio blasted the lawsuit.
"In what country in the world are you allowed to enter illegally into a country violating its laws and within a week be in court suing the very government whose laws you just violated?" Rubio said. "The 48 migrants from Venezuela who violated our laws a week ago when they entered the country illegally are now suing, they're now in court, they have a lawyer and they're suing. This is incredible, no other country in the world would allow that."
Though Fenske and Rubio said the migrants entered illegally, that may not be the case. Though it's generally not authorized to cross the border away from a border inspection point or port of entry, people seeking asylum can do so once they're in the U.S.
DeSantis has vowed to spend “every penny” of $12 million set aside by the state legislature for such “relocation programs."
State records showed that so far Florida has paid over $1.5 million to an aviation company in connection to the migrant relocation program, but the governor's office and state agencies haven't said if the payments were in connection to the Martha's Vineyard flights.
NBC 6 tried reaching out to the aviation company and its president but couldn't reach them.
The suit comes as a local sheriff in Texas announced Monday that he had opened an investigation into last week's flights to Martha's Vineyard, which originated in his county.
