Bloomberg Línea — The Mexican government has condemned Florida’s immigrant relocation program, joining local and state governments that could take legal action against Governor Ron DeSantis.
Mexico had remained silent on the issue of the relocation of immigrants from Florida to Texas and California, after allegedly being deceived with promises of employment and housing, until the Mexican Consulate General in Sacramento revealed that one of the migrants transported to that city from Florida was a person from the southern state of Chiapas.
“The Government of Mexico strongly condemns the practice of transporting migrants from states bordering Mexico to other parts of the United States for political and electoral purposes, as has occurred in the specific cases of Massachusetts, New York and recently from the state of Florida to the city of Sacramento, California. Such action violates human and constitutional rights and the dignity of the people,” said the statement issued Thursday night.
It warned: “Legal and diplomatic measures will be explored in response to this disturbing practice”.
So far, most of the migrants involved in the relocation program are Venezuelan, Nicaraguan or Cuban nationals who are legal asylum seekers, according to US asylum application regulations.
“Mexican nationals generally face a higher hurdle to apply for asylum in the United States because the country’s relative stability makes it more difficult to prove individualized persecution,” according to The Hill.
DeSantis’ response
Florida state authorities confirmed to Agence France Presse that they organized the two flights that took migrants to Sacramento, California, last week and Monday.
The flights could be instances of “state-sanctioned kidnapping,” according to California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Following a video released by the Ron DeSantis administration, Amelia Johnson, Florida Division of Emergency Management said, “As you can see from the video, Florida’s voluntary relocation was precisely voluntary”.
This is not the first time in the United States that undocumented migrants have been taken from the border to a Democrat-governed state. Last September, around 48 migrants were flown from Texas to the eastern island of Martha’s Vineyard. The immigrants were lured onto the flights with false promises of jobs and opportunities.
California Governor Gavin Newsom responded to the flights to his state by tweeting an insult to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, calling him a “small, pathetic man”, and suggesting that kidnapping charges could be brought against the latter, who recently launched his bid to win the Republican nomination for presidential candidate in the 2024 elections.
