Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said on Monday that his law enforcement agency intends to investigate the relocation of migrants from San Antonio to the East Coast, which he alleges was done deceptively, per San Antonio and Austin-based media outlets’ reports.
According to Salazar, San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT reported, up to 50 migrants at the Migrant Resource Center in San Antonio were “lured” onto a charter plane with promises of jobs and housing and flown to Florida and Massachusetts.
The sheriff of Texas’ fourth largest county asserted that an individual who coaxed the migrants was paid a “bird-dog fee,” KSAT reported.
The migrants, who are reportedly seeking asylum in the U.S., ultimately disembarked in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, which is an estimated 2,000 northeast of San Antonio.
"They were promised work and solutions to several of their problems … They were unceremoniously stranded [there],” Salazar said, Austin ABC affiliate KVUE reported citing San Antonio CBS station KENS and The Texas Tribune.
The ordeal is the latest salvo in the U.S.’s illegal immigration problem, which Republicans claim the Biden administration has failed to address.
Among those who purportedly vowed to take it upon themselves to protect the borders is Gov. Greg Abbott.
Since earlier this year, Abbott has bussed migrants who cross into Texas to what he called left-leaning cities – and according to KENS and The Texas Tribune – has supported the flights chartered by his GOP counterpart in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Until the Biden-Harris administration stops denying the border crisis they’ve created, Texas will continue bringing the border to their front door,” Abbott, who is seeking reelection in November, said in a tweet.
Salazar, a Democrat, argued that despite their immigration status, the migrants have rights that were probably violated, KSAT reported.
“They were lured there for little more than a video op and political posturing,” the sheriff said, per the station.
KSAT reported that Salazar hasn’t heard from Washington, D.C., but is open to any assistance.