California Attorney General Blames Florida for Flight of Migrants to Sacramento

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s Attorney General said the state of Florida appears to have arranged for a group of South American migrants to be dropped off outside a church in Sacramento.

“While this is still under investigation, we can confirm that these individuals were in possession of documents purported to be from the Florida state government,” Bonta said in a statement late Saturday.

According to the documents, the migrants were transported as part of a program run by Florida’s Department of Emergency Management and performed by contractor Vertol Systems Co., said Tara Gallegos, a spokeswoman for Bonta. Florida pays the same contractor $1.56 million last year to fly migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and a possible second flight to Delaware that never happened.

The 16 migrants who arrived in Sacramento on Friday come from Colombia and Venezuela. They came to the USA via Texas. They were transported to New Mexico and then flown on a chartered plane to the California capital, where they were then dropped off in front of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, California officials said.

They were approached outside a migrant center in El Paso, Texas, by people offering them jobs and travel assistance, said Eddie Carmona of PICO California, a religious group that helps the migrants. They didn’t know they were being taken to Sacramento and arrived with few belongings, he said.

Vertol Systems Co. and the Florida Division of Emergency Management did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Sunday.

Bonta said he was checking to see if there had been any violations of civil or criminal law.

“As we continue to gather evidence, I want to make one thing very clear: State-sanctioned kidnappings are not public policy decisions, they are immoral and abhorrent,” Bonta said in a statement.