'All we received was abandonment': Migrants sent to Sacramento by DeSantis speak out - Los Angeles Times
Category: News & Politics
Via: tacos • last year • 17 commentsBy: Mackenzie MaysStaff Writer (Los Angeles Times)
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SACRAMENTO —
They saw themselves in the video that Florida officials offered up as proof of their consent to travel to California, but they said it's not what it seemed.
They were happy, yes. That part was true.
They had finally made it to America after traveling thousands of miles over the span of three months from their home in Venezuela. They walked until their feet bled and caught a bus or a train when they could. Sometimes they went days without eating and collapsed with exhaustion.
The young husband and wife had held each other in the jungle, sleeping without even a blanket. They ran out of the rice and tuna they had packed and picked fruit from trees to survive. They cleaned windshields in exchange for donations or food when they traveled through cities.
"There were many moments of desperation and frustration and fear," the 34-year-old husband said in Spanish in an interview with The Times on Friday in Sacramento. "But with God, we felt at peace. It was not easy."
Four migrants recently flown to Sacramento by the state of Florida spoke to The Times and asked not to be identified, worried that it could impact their upcoming court hearings or put their families who remain in their home countries in danger.
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They are among 36 people who arrived on two chartered flights this month, a move that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken responsibility for as he runs for president and lambastes Democratic immigration policies.
After journeying from Central and South America to escape violence and poverty at home, they have unknowingly landed at the center of a political firestorm in the United States.
They say they were duped by Florida officials and that, while they are grateful to be in America, their plans have been disrupted, with immigration hearings now spread across the country and job opportunities stalled.
Members of the group — which also includes former residents of Colombia and Guatemala — said they came to California because they were promised that they would be given a home, higher paying jobs and attorneys to help them more quickly obtain permits to work legally.
When the married couple crossed the border to enter Texas, they said, it meant that it had all been worth it: that they could send money home to their children, whom they had left behind with a grandparent in Venezuela, with hopes of eventually reuniting.
The kids, ages 9, 10 and 13, don't have shoes, and they don't eat well, their father said.
So the smiles on the migrants' faces in the viral video touted by DeSantis were real. But that's because they were promised so much more, they said.
The contractors hired by Florida state officials, whom they met in Texas earlier this month, promised better-paying jobs elsewhere, they said. The husband and wife said they were pressured to sign paperwork in order to make the trip but didn't understand that doing so was intended to waive the state of Florida from fulfilling the promises made verbally.
"We didn't get what they told us that we were going to get. They said that if you take the flight, you can get shelter, you're going to get work, you're going to get food," the man said. "And all we received was abandonment."
He is tall and strong. But as he sat in the sanctuary of the Parkside Community Church, he nervously rubbed his legs whenever the topic turned to his children. Tears rolled down this face.
He was wearing denim shorts printed with stars and stripes and an American flag sweatshirt to match — clothes he had recently chosen at a local thrift store with the help of organizers who have cared for them since they were dropped off on the doorstop of a local diocese two weeks ago.
"I didn't know that all of us were being deceived," he said.
His 28-year-old wife wears a ponytail and grips a cup of coffee as she explains that she is thankful for the kindness the nonprofit and faith community in Sacramento has shown them, but that she wouldn't have come if she had known the truth.
During the few days they spent in El Paso upon arriving in the United States, they slept at a shelter and got to work immediately. He earned $80 a day working construction, while his wife earned $50 cleaning up the work sites afterward.
They only came to Sacramento because they thought they were going to earn more money, which would allow them to help their children faster, she said. Now, they have no jobs and must start all over again.
"I would've rather stayed there to make money," she said.
While Florida state officials have rebutted criticisms that the migrants were tricked in the name of a political stunt, some migrants who spoke to media for the first time on Friday say they were blatantly lied to.
Florida officials said in a statement last week that the flights were part of a "voluntary relocation" program and provided video of people appearing to sign waivers agreeing to go on the trip. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is investigating the matter and Gov. Gavin Newsom has floated kidnapping charges against DeSantis.
DeSantis administration officials did not return a request for comment on Friday when asked about the migrants' claims.
One migrant showed The Times the paperwork that he was given by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, which references a "voluntary transportation program" and agrees to not bring any lawsuits against the state of Florida in exchange for free transportation. That man did not sign the waiver, which also asked signatories to agree that their decision to take the trip was not in exchange for "representations or promises" made regarding employment, benefits, healthcare and other assistance.
But that's exactly what the migrants who spoke to The Times said happened.
A 27-year-old man from Guatemala said he was separated from his girlfriend and his 4-year-old stepson by immigration officials once they arrived in America.
He is eager to work and earn income to be able to move them to Sacramento from New York, where they are now living in a shelter.
The journey for the young family was difficult. The shelters were often full in Mexico, and they had to sleep on the streets, he said. They put up to six sets of pajamas on their son when it was too cold outside.
He worked as a security guard in Guatemala but the money was never enough to make ends meet and violence was everywhere.
"If anybody leaves their country, it is because of need, not because they want to," he said. "I don't really ask for anything else from life, just to be able to have work and to have my family with me."
He has seen the news. He knows that his trip here has reignited a national debate about immigration reform and exacerbated a nasty battle between DeSantis and Newsom. He knows that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this week in a similar move sent migrants to Los Angeles.
He said he has tried to ignore it and focus on his mission to reunite his family but he couldn't take it anymore. He is angry that he was told he would have a lawyer who would help him and his girlfriend build a life together. Instead, he said, he was left in a parking lot with nothing.
He said he was rushed to sign a waiver before he could fully read it, and never saw a copy in Spanish.
"They're saying a version that really makes no sense," he said of Florida officials. "What I really want you to get across is that they promised us something and they still haven't fulfilled that."
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It’s apparent that the transport of such people is nothing more than a political stunt, performed dishonestly at the expense of human beings. There is no real attempt at problem solving here, just exploitation.
California keeps saying they are a sanctuary state and would welcome the illegals. Why aren't they sending the buses and planes to pick them up and bring them to their state without waiting for someone else to do it for them? That is a rhetorical question, we all know the answer.
California keeps saying they are a sanctuary state and would welcome the illegal
Every time Florida or Texas sends illegal migrants to blue state sanctuaries we immediately gets stories about much the illegals hate the states they moved to and how much better it was in the state that shipped them off.
Not sure why sanctuary blue states are so quick to publicize how much better migrants like being in states that do everything they can to keep them out.
So then try working with California. Did Florida or Texas try that? No. They worked in secret and lied to the people they were moving. Nothing to be proud of there.
That is an excuse, nothing more. They are being sent to places like New York and California and when they get there they just complain about them being there. Have any sanctuary states reached out to any border states to try and ease their burden? No. They just silently let it happen until a few illegals come to their doorstep
Which part? An excuse for what, exactly?
I don’t follow New York much, but I don’t see California complaining about them being there. Do you have a quote? What I do see is complaints about manipulating people dishonestly just to score political points. I see complaints that the people were sent to California and told that housing and jobs were waiting for them when they weren’t. And then I see people in California stepping up and doing their best to help.
A few? There are more illegal aliens in California than anywhere else. Estimates range from 500,000 to a million more than Texas. California also has more foreign-born people (illegal and legal) than any other state. Stop acting like California doesn’t understand what it’s like to have immigrants coming into the state.
It should also be criminal since they are transporting these people under false pretenses.
Yep! The real exploitation and political stunt is the Biden's administrations wide open border policies. I don't believe Biden promises them jobs, housing, or anything else either. The Democrats are doing little to nothing to solve their self-created problem
You won’t get an argument me that our immigration policies don’t need work, but which Biden policies in particular are you thinking of?
DeSantis takes the immigrants from Texas and flies them to California. Interesting that he does not send the immigrants from Florida to CA. One has to wonder why, oh there is that problem that the big Ag and others are complaining that they do have enough labor to harvest the crops.
Shame that California isn’t living up to its promise as a sanctuary haven for illegals.
Actually they are. If you want to read more,
L.A. Latinos welcome 42 migrants bused from Texas as ‘brothers and sisters’
Then they should return to their place of original origin
She just admitted to working illegally in this country, they should be immediately deported.
They should be grateful to have made it across the border. Now how they succeed is up to them. It's shameful the Dems made promises to them they never intended to keep.