Migrant flights to Martha's Vineyard: Political stunt, criminal operation, or humanitarian mission?
A surge of migrants at the U.S./Mexico border has choked the country's immigration system. Over the last year, about 2 million migrants have been apprehended trying to cross into the U.S. Another 1,500 — seeking asylum — are allowed in every day. Shelters are overflowing, resources are stretched thin and lawmakers seem incapable of fixing it. There is no shortage of dysfunction or drama. But one episode on the border last year caught the attention of law enforcement. You may recall the story of the 50 migrants who were unexpectedly dropped off on the island of Martha's Vineyard, seven miles off the coast of Massachusetts. The migrants all had permission to be in the United States, pending asylum hearings, and were in Texas, but it was Florida officials who arranged the flights north. Tonight, you will hear about the investigation into those flights and why one sheriff says it was more than just a cruel political stunt, he says it was a crime.
In the early hours of September 14th, 2022, 50 migrants lined up on the tarmac of a military airfield in San Antonio, Texas and boarded two private jets. The flight manifest shows each plane carried 25 migrants. Six others who'd helped arrange the flights were also on board. Hours later, the migrants landed here, more than 2 thousand miles away, on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard.
Jackie Stallings: These people were exhausted and did not know what was going on. They just were terrified.
Sharyn Alfonsi: They really didn't know they were on an island or anything?
Jackie Stallings: They had no idea they were going-- coming to a small island.
Jackie Stallings and her husband Larkin own a dive bar on the Vineyard called The Ritz. They were among the first to be called in to help. Jackie speaks spanish.
Jackie Stallings: I immediately said, you know, "Welcome," and "How are you? Are you okay? What do you need?" They start telling me, like, their resumes. "I can do this. I can do this." They all wanted to work.
Jackie says the migrants seemed shell-shocked. Some were sick. Help soon poured in from every corner of the island along with a flood of reporters after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took credit for the flights as part of his newly minted $12 million migrant relocation program.
Governor DeSantis (at a Sept. 2022 news conference): "They were hungry, homeless, they had no opportunity at all. State of Florida, it was volunteer, offered transport to sanctuary jurisdictions."
But the Florida governor's office didn't tell anyone on the Vineyard about the plan. Islanders did not think it was an oversight.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I think there was this idea that by dropping these migrants off in Martha's Vineyard, they were gonna stick it to rich, white people, liberal elitists.
Larkin Stallings: No. That's hilarious because he missed it by two weeks. He did. They were all gone.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Who was left?
Larkin Stallings: And what's left is working class folks, the teachers and the doctors and the tavern owners. What he did is he got a bunch of hardworkin' folks to come together and solve a problem.
The story caught the attention of Sheriff Javier Salazar in San Antonio. He's the highest-ranking uniformed law enforcement officer in Bexar County, Texas, about 140 miles north of the border with Mexico.
Sharyn Alfonsi: What was your reaction when you heard that they were taken from your county?
Sheriff Javier Salazar: I mean, I was shocked. Like, why-- why Bexar County? You're-- you're the Florida governor, you know? Why are you messing with people in Bexar County that are here legally at that point, by the way, you-- know? They're not "undocumented," anymore. They've been documented. They're here legally.
Salazar, a Democrat, spent 23 years with the San Antonio Police Department before he was elected sheriff in 2016. He asked his organized crimes unit to investigate. After eight months they uncovered what Sheriff Salazar calls a "covert criminal operation'' carried out by individuals who were contracted by the Florida governor's office.
Sheriff Javier Salazar: When you move people from point A to point B under conditions of deception, then that qualifies as unlawful restraint.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I think when you hear, "Unlawful restraint," you think gun to the head. They didn't have a gun to their head.
Sheriff Javier Salazar: No, they didn't. They didn't have a gun to their head. This was not done by inducement. It was done by deception.
The deception, Salazar says, began here, outside the migrant resource center in San Antonio.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So explain how this all went down.
Sheriff Javier Salazar: From what we're able to tell at this point, basically it looks like they drove around the area, looking for people that may look like the target audience that they're after. And then made the approach.
The targets he's talking about are migrants, like Daniel Cauro. The 30-year-old from Venezuela made the months-long journey through Central America, with his sister Deici and two cousins. They surrendered at the U.S. border in early September, requested asylum and were lawfully permitted to enter the U.S. Days later, they were outside the resource center, tired and hungry, when Daniel says, two women in a white SUC offered help. One spoke spanish.
Daniel (translation): She was saying, "We want to send you to a state where there are not so many migrants, and you're going to have a lot of help, because you're going to have housing and all that."
Sharyn Alfonsi: Is "Massachusetts" ever mentioned as a possibility?
Daniel and Deici: (translation): No, no.
Deici (translation): She never said "Massachusetts."
Sharyn Alfonsi: Did the woman in the SUV give you her name?
Daniel (translation): Yes, she said her name was Perla.
Perla, is Perla Huerta…who the migrants identified as the woman in this photo. According to the Pentagon, Huerta, is a former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent. Dozens of texts obtained by the Florida Center for Government Accountability reveal that Huerta was in Texas looking for migrants to fill the planes. Her progress was reported back to key members of the Florida governor's office.
In mid-August of 2022, Huerta texts then Florida Public Safety Czar Larry Keefe as she searched for migrants in Texas: "Just got back. Churches were empty…"
On September 5th, Keefe sends this progress note to James Uthmeier, then chief of staff for Gov. DeSantis: "I'm back out here. conditions are quite favorable." Uthmeier replies: "Very good. You have my full support. Call anytime."
Six days later, Keefe, the public safety czar, informs Uthmeier, the governor's chief of staff, that the two planes could be filled to capacity: "we are at 50…" A delighted Perla Huerta put it this way: "yahtzee!! we're full."
For days, the migrants were housed and fed at this $59-a-night hotel near the San Antonio airfield. The afternoon before they left, Daniel says Perla gave them a $10 McDonald's gift card, he still carries his.
Daniel (translation): She said here's a card, but I need you to sign this sheet. And we said OK. We were hungry. So we signed it.
Deici (translation): And she said, "you have to sign to be able to get the card."
This is what they signed - a consent to transport form. The migrants say the abbreviations for Texas and Massachusetts were filled in by someone else. Nowhere on the form does it say Martha's Vineyard. The next morning, the 50 migrants boarded the private jets. Daniel and Deici were excited, it was the first time either of them had been on a plane. Flight data shows the jets took off at 8 a.m., stopped in Crestview, Florida, and again in the Carolinas to refuel. They landed on Martha's Vineyard around 3 p.m. The migrants were escorted onto waiting buses and then dropped off by the side of the road. According to public records, the operation cost Florida more than $600 thousand — about $12 thousand a migrant.
Sheriff Javier Salazar: Look, if-- if you're gonna take somebody and-- and-- and fly 'em hundreds of miles away, do it under full disclosure. "Hey. We're gonna-- you're gonna get on this-- this plane. We're gonna take you from point A to point B. And I don't know what's gonna happen. There's nothing there set up for you when you get there, so you're on your own. You in or not?" I-- I would think some of those people may still say, "You know what? Yeah. I'll roll the dice." From what I understand, that's not what occurred here. They preyed upon people to get them onto those-- that plane. They exploited them, took advantage of the situation that they were in, a very desperate situation, and then took 'em there under false pretenses.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And when you say, false pretenses, you're saying they lied to 'em?
Sheriff Javier Salazar: Absolutely, they lied to them. They told them they were gonna get jobs there, and housing there, and, you know, just everything-- all-- "The answer to your prayers is-- is on this plane and will take you to the promised land. You know, the streets are paved with gold."
Rachel Self: Nobody, absolutely nobody, knew they were going to the island of Martha's Vineyard.
Rachel Self is a criminal defense and immigration lawyer who happens to live on the Island of Chappaquiddick, just off the eastern end of the Vineyard. Self, who speaks Spanish says the migrants who'd all followed the laws to enter the country, were now most worried about missing their mandatory immigration check-ins, which were scheduled all over the country.
Sharyn Alfonsi: And what happens if you miss that check-in?
Rachel Self: If you miss that check-in, there's a potential that you could be placed into proceedings and deported in absentia.
One migrant left the group for the mainland. Self arranged later check-in dates for the other 49.
Rachel Self: And at that point, It was just, "We've been pro-- we've been told this, told this, told this, you know, 'We're 'gonna give you jobs,'" "Are you my lawyer that I'm gonna get," you know, "Where's the house that I'm gonna be living in?"
As proof of the promises, most were clutching paperwork they say was handed to them 15 minutes before they landed on the Vineyard.
Rachel Self: It says, "Massachusetts refugee benefits, Massachusetts welcomes you." And this is not even a flag for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The governor's office said that packet included a map of Martha's Vineyard so it was obvious where they were going.
Rachel Self: It was not obvious where they were going. They didn't get that map until 15 minutes before the plane landed. I don't know about you, but I'm not aware of being able to change my mind mid-flight.
The pamphlet also advertised benefits and services, cash and housing assistance, employment programs, job placement and English classes.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So they didn't have access to any of that?
Rachel Self: None of that.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I mean, it says it's refugees. They're not technically refugees.
Rachel Self: They're not, no. They're-- they're parolees seeking asylum. None of these benefits apply to them and whoever perpetrated this scheme didn't realize that.
Rachel Self says if immigration officials determine the 49 migrants were victimized, they could receive justice in the form of something called a U visa.
Rachel Self: And in order to qualify for a U visa, you need two things. You need to have a certification from a law enforcement official that you were a victim of a crime. And you then need to show that you suffered as a result of the crime.
So, she flew to Texas with a stack of U visa certifications for Sheriff Javier Salazar to sign. After careful review, he did.
Sharyn Alfonsi: So if the intention of this stunt was to look tough on migrants, what did it actually do?
Rachel Self: Ironically, it provided them a completely independent available path to legalize their status here.
Only Daniel, Deici and their cousins remain on the vineyard, working odd jobs to pay the bills. The other 45 settled on the mainland. They've all begun the years-long wait for their asylum cases and U visas to be processed.
Rachel Self: It's Congress's failure to act that has caused this to become such a major broken issue in this nation. If people -- We used to parole people in the country and grant them work authorization in the same stamp. But now it takes years to get work authorization. So it creates this vacuum for labor abuses to thrive, housing abuses to thrive, human trafficking to thrive.
Sharyn Alfonsi: The governor's office has said that these migrants were abandoned, they were homeless, they were hungry and they gave them a chance to go to, quote, "greener pastures."
Sheriff Javier Salazar: Oh, my gosh. "Give me your tired, your hungry," right? He's-- he's certainly saying all the right things to make himself sound like a Boy Scout in this situation. But, again, you're a school-yard bully who took advantage of people that you thought were people of no consequence. And now, you're getting called on your crap.
No one in the Florida governor's office has been charged with any crimes related to the flights. They declined to speak to 60 Minutes about the operation. In June, Sheriff Salazar recommended felony and misdemeanor criminal charges against two suspects he would not name but described as the female recruiters involved in the operation. The sheriff's recommendation is under review by the Bexar County district attorney.
Sheriff Javier Salazar: So you can't see it from here, but about eight blocks over my left shoulder is the Alamo, where word is that there was a line drawn in the sand with a sword. And somebody said, "Not one more damn inch." Me presenting this case to the district attorney's office was me saying just that. Not one more damn inch.
Produced by Michael Karzis. Associate producers, Katie Kerbstat and Jacobson Kit Ramgopal. Broadcast associate, Erin DuCharme. Edited by Matthew Lev.