Here’s Marco Rubio Lying Like A Liar About LEGAL Asylum Seekers’ Lawsuit Against DeSantis

Gosh, some people just don’t appreciate it when they and their families get used as props in a cynical campaign stunt by an American politician who merely wanted to stick it to the libs. That’s why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others in his administration have been hit with a class-action lawsuit filed by three of the 50 migrants whom DeSantis arranged to have scooped up in Texas and flown to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, with a brief stop in Florida so DeSantis could pretend the migrants were a problem for Floridians, too.

The lawsuit, filed in US District Court in Massachusetts Tuesday, says that DeSantis, Florida Secretary of Transportation Jared Perdue, and other defendants yet to be identified “designed and executed a premeditated, fraudulent, and illegal scheme centered on exploiting [the asylum seekers] for the sole purpose of advancing their own personal, financial and political interests.” DeSantis’s scheme involved “trolling streets outside of a migrant shelter in Texas and other similar locales, pretending to be good Samaritans offering humanitarian assistance.”

Among other sleazy actions, the suit says that DeSantis’s agents in Texas exploited the migrants’ poverty and hunger, and made

false promises and false representations that if Plaintiffs and class members were willing to board airplanes to other states, they would receive employment, housing, educational opportunities, and other like assistance upon their arrival.

On Fox News last night, DeSantis told Sean Hannity that the migrants had “all signed consent forms” before the flights, but the lawsuit says the forms were not fully translated into Spanish, and the migrants were pressured to sign so that they could get food to eat — or at least a $10 McDonalds gift card. So generous!

In his Popular Information newsletter, Judd Legum earlier this week broke the story that the migrants were given fake brochures made to look like publications from the state of Massachusetts, describing benefits from the state’s refugee resettlement program. But because they’re not part of any refugee program, the migrants weren’t eligible for anything of the sort, not that DeSantis’s fraud and kidnapping crew cared about such details.

Among other insults and mistreatment, the lawsuit recounts how

When those induced onto the planes disembarked in Martha’s Vineyard, it turned out that no one was expecting their arrival, and uncertainty quickly ensued. In Texas, the Doe Defendants had given telephone numbers to Plaintiffs and told them to call with any questions. But once the planes landed in Massachusetts, the Doe Defendants were suddenly nowhere to be found and unreachable by phone. Destitute and stranded, the Plaintiffs were now even more vulnerable to precarious conditions.

Just disgusting. We hope they take DeSantis and Florida to the cleaners.

In a Twitter video today, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), an actual attorney who absolutely should know better, griped about how completely insane it is that these terrible people are being allowed to sue for damages, simply because they were abused and had their rights violated.

See that? Right in his tweet, Rubio lies that they “enter[ed] by violating our laws, which again is A LIE.

Rubio then fulminated about how these people — who immediately turned themselves in at the border to request asylum, and are in fact here legally while they wait for an asylum hearing — are “allowed” to sue for damages, simply because harm was done to them. That’s actually pretty common in all countries that allow lawsuits, really! He also complained about how unfair it is that liberals and the media want “millions of people” in the US illegally to be cared for forever, “but only if they stay in Florida, only if they stay in Texas,” which is in fact not even remotely a thing something that anyone actually demands, so fuck him again.

In conclusion, kidnapping and luring with false promises are still crimes even if you do them to someone who you think shouldn’t be in the USA, so once again Marco Rubio is just the worst, fuck him forever, and also…

OPEN THREAD!

[Popular Information / Alanza Americas et al v. DeSantis / Popular Information]

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