Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who initially took credit for the flights to Martha's Vineyard, is also named as a defendant in the legal case.
The amended lawsuit, filed by Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, now includes former Army counterintelligence agent and Alamo City native Perla Huerta, 49, according to the newspaper.
The suit accuses Huerta of recruiting asylum seekers from San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center for the flights with the help of other operatives working with the DeSantis administration. Those operatives allegedly include DeSantis Chief of Staff James Uthmeier and Florida Public Safety Czar Larry Keefe. The petition also names James Montgomerie, the president of Vertol Systems, the company contracted by the Florida state government to charter the flights, according to the daily.
DeSantis and the state of Florida are also named as defendants.
The migrants were manipulated into boarding the planes that stranded them Massachusetts, according to allegations in the suit highlighted by the Express-News. That made it nearly impossible for them to attend their immigration proceedings or comply with the conditions of their release, Lawyers for Civil Rights argues.
The suit requests that a judge prevent future migrants flights organized by DeSantis operatives and is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, according to media reports.
Huerta grew-up in San Antonio, graduated from here and still has family in the area, the Express-News reports.
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