Advocates for migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard sue Ron DeSantis | Ron

Attorneys representing the Venezuelan migrants and refugees allegedly duped into flying to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Florida governor and other state officials.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday challenging what it called the “fraudulent and discriminatory” scheme to charter private planes to transport almost 50 vulnerable people, including children as young as two, from San Antonio, Texas, via Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard last week without liaising to arrange shelter and other resources.

The two charter flights cost about $615,000 – $12,300 per person – of taxpayers’ money, according to the legal filing.

The civil rights suit is against the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis; the Florida transport secretary, Jared Perdue, the state of Florida, and their unidentified accomplices – who allegedly helped find and lure the asylum seekers on to the flights.

“No human being should be used as a political pawn in the nation’s highly polarized debate over immigration,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of LCR, which is providing pro bono legal assistance and accompanied the migrants to a military base on Cape Cod for shelter.

The lawsuit is seeking to stop the Florida Republican officials from duping migrants and refugees into crossing state lines – and damages of at least $75,000 per person for the harm suffered.

The plaintiffs include a woman known in the filing as Yolanda Doe, who boarded the flight with her husband and 11-year-old son, among other Venezuelans, and Alianza Americas, a national network of grassroots organizations supporting refugees and migrants.

According to the complaint, seen by the Guardian, the Venezuelan plaintiffs “fled to the United States in a desperate attempt to protect themselves and their families from gang, police, and state-sponsored violence and the oppression of political dissent”.

It goes on: “In or around September 2022, the defendants and their unidentified accomplices designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting this vulnerability for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests.”

According to the legal filing, the scheme included looking for vulnerable people by “trolling streets around a migrant shelter in Texas … pretending to be good Samaritans offering humanitarian assistance.” It said they were given $10 McDonald’s gift certificates and lured away from the shelter to a hotel on the promise that they would receive employment, housing, and educational opportunities if they would board a plane to another state. They stayed at the “free” hotel until enough people had been gathered to fill the planes.

On the day of the flight, the complaint says, the Venezuelans were falsely told they were flying to Boston or Washington DC. The planes took off from a private airstrip. Just before landing, the Venezuelans were all given a shiny, red folder that included other official-looking material including a brochure titled Massachusetts…