New York Times: DeSantis Administration Intentionally Targeted Venezuelan Migrants for Political Stunt

As the fallout from Ron DeSantis’ cruel decision to lure and fly migrant families seeking asylum to Massachusetts continues, the New York Times is reporting that the DeSantis administration intentionally targeted Venezuelan migrants to ship to Massachusetts.

The report details how the DeSantis administration’s goal was “rounding up Venezuelan asylum seekers on the streets of San Antonio and shipping them on private planes to Massachusetts.”

A Venezuelan man who worked to recruit migrant families tells the New York Times he was specifically asked by a woman contacted by the DeSantis administration “to help…recruit other migrants like him from Venezuela.”

The man added that “he felt betrayed, because she never mentioned working on behalf of the Florida government. ‘I was also lied to,’ he said. ‘If I had known, I would not have gotten involved.’”

Already, DeSantis’ political stunt sparked a criminal investigation and widespread backlash across Florida, including from the Hispanic community. Now, it appears that DeSantis was deliberately targeting migrant families by nationality to use them for his own political purposes.

“As more details emerge about exactly who DeSantis was targeting for his cruel political stunt, it’s more and more clear just how calculated his politically-motivated decision was,” said DGA Deputy Communications Director Sam Newton. “DeSantis didn’t care that these were families fleeing an authoritarian regime when he chose to use them as a distraction from his failures as governor. His use of families fleeing a dictator as political pawns is absolutely abhorrent.”