DeSantis Flights Take Flak While Biden Keeps Migrants Coming

California officials are accusing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of misleading migrants – or worse – when a group was flown from the Texas border to Sacramento this month.

In a separate, but perhaps coordinated, legal gambit the Bexar County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office filed a criminal case against unnamed Florida officials for flying migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard last September.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said his investigation indicates migrants had been promised help finding jobs if they got on the planes, but were later “dumped and deserted” in California’s capital city.

“While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting,” Bonta said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom got personal, calling DeSantis a “small, pathetic man” in a tweet. DeSantis is seeking a Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Newsom, a Democrat, is seen by some as a contender for President Joe Biden’s job.

Loose talk about “kidnapping” suggests that at least two California politicians could use a law school refresher.

To prove a kidnapping charge would require prosecutors to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that the aliens were fraudulently induced to get on the planes. Banda has not produced such evidence, and no one has said the migrants’ participation was anything other than voluntary.

In San Antonio, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office is taking a similarly shaky tack in claiming “unlawful restraint” of migrants. The case, which involved the airlifting of 49 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last fall, is currently under review by the local District Attorney’s Office.

(Notably, the sheriff filed his case Monday, the same day that Bonta and Newsom delivered their broadsides. Could this timing be pure coincidence, nine months after the Massachusetts flight?)

The San Antonio DA will want to check for legal precedent. As CBS reported, DeSantis was sued previously over the Martha’s Vineyard flight, and a federal judge dismissed the case.

Meantime, we know of no lawsuits by Democrat politicians (including the elected Texas sheriff) challenging the Biden administration’s reckless disregard for U.S. immigration law and wholesale release of migrants into America. Deep blue New York City is, however, ramping up its own mass-transit program, dispatching northbound buses to move migrants out of town. Expect more to come.