TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration agreed to make public all records pertaining to a series of controversial migrant flights from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard by Dec. 1, according to a report from Politico.
Politico reports that lawyers for DeSantis filed a response Tuesday to a records request from the open government group “Florida Center for Government Accountability.” The group demanded all call and text logs from DeSantis’ Chief of Staff James Uthmeier and all records sent to or received from Vertol Systems Company — the company hired to organize the flights, as well as other communications between officials in Florida and officials in Texas, Politico reported.
According to WFLA’s NBC affiliate WESH, the group filed the lawsuit on Oct. 10 after the governor’s office failed to release records the group was seeking about two charter flights on Sept. 14 that transported 48 Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.
DeSantis and other Republican governors have used the relocation tactic to draw attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Democrats have accused DeSantis of using the migrants as part of a political stunt.
The governor previously defended his orders for the flights saying, in part, “we are not a sanctuary state and it’s better to be able to go to a sanctuary jurisdiction,” referring to the assistance offered in states like Massachusetts, New York and California. “Yes, we will help facilitate that transfer for you to be able to go to greener pastures.”
It was later discovered that DeSantis paid for the migrant flights using interest earned on COVID-19 relief from the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (SLFRF), created under the American Rescue Plan Act.
In a letter to several members of Massachusetts’ Democratic congressional delegation, the deputy inspector general for the Treasury Department said his agency would “review the allowability” of COVID-19 aid to states “related to immigration generally, and will specifically confirm whether interest earned on (the) funds was utilized by Florida related to immigration activities, and if so, what conditions and limitations apply to such use.”
In short, his agency would determine if DeSantis’ use of the COVID-19 interest money violated the law.
While the letter from the deputy inspector general did not provide a timeline for a review of the state’s spending, it noted that auditors had “already sought information from Florida” about how it spent COVID-19 aid.
In the meantime, DeSantis’ administration said it planned to continue flying migrants who entered the country illegally to Democratic strongholds.