CNN
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ migrant relocation program deliberate to move “roughly 100 or extra” migrants to Delaware and Illinois between September 19 and October 3, based on paperwork obtained by CNN by way of a public data request.
The paperwork are memos despatched to the Florida Division of Transportation’s state buying administrator from James Montgomerie, the CEO of Vertol Methods Firm Inc., the corporate that Florida contracted to rearrange transport for the migrants.
The memo explicitly states that Vertol Methods would offer the companies to move the migrants, “from Florida.”
Two “tasks” have been deliberate, based on a September 15 memo. “Mission 2” would transport “as much as fifty” migrants to Delaware; “mission 3” would transport “as much as fifty” migrants to Illinois.
Each tasks have been scheduled to happen between September 19 and October 3.
A second memo, dated September 16, mixed the tasks into one and estimated their price as $950,000.
The memo additionally stated the migrants may very well be transported to a “proximate northeastern state designated by FDOT based mostly on extant circumstances.”
CNN reached out to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker for remark however didn’t instantly obtain a response. A spokesperson for Delaware Gov. John Carney stated he had no remark.
Vertol Methods was paid $1.6 million by the state of Florida, together with a fee of $950,000.
The flights to Delaware and Illinois by no means occurred. Nonetheless, flight plans have been filed with the FAA that indicated there was a second set of flights deliberate from San Antonio to Delaware.
A 3rd memo, dated October 8, notes that Vertol prolonged the mission dates to December 1, which means that the flights might nonetheless happen.
On September 14, two planes picked up 48 migrants from San Antonio, Texas, and transported them to Martha’s Winery, Massachusetts. The flights, paid for by the state of Florida, briefly stopped to refuel in Crestview, Florida, and the Carolinas.
DeSantis has tried to sidestep criticism of the flights, saying they have been essential to cease the movement of migrants on the supply earlier than they got here to Florida.
“If you are able to do it on the supply and divert to sanctuary jurisdictions, the prospect they find yourself in Florida is way much less,” DeSantis informed reporters in September.