DeSantis administration to provide migrant flight records by Dec. 1

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) office indicated it will produce records related to migrant flights the state orchestrated from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., by Dec. 1 after a nonprofit sued DeSantis for the materials.

Florida’s Executive Office of the Governor (EOG) included the timeline in a Tuesday evening court filing as part of its response to the Florida Center for Government Accountability’s (FCGA) suit, which alleges DeSantis refused to produce the documents after the group submitted a request for them under the state’s public records law last month.

DeSantis’s attorneys said the nonprofit has not given the governor’s office a “reasonable amount of time” to produce the documents, noting that it received more than 90 records requests in a matter of days following the migrant flights and is working through 245 total open requests.

“Given the foregoing circumstances, it is obvious that EOG has not unreasonably withheld responsive documents from FCGA and that, to the contrary, EOG is entitled to a reasonable amount of time — not the mere ten days provided by FCGA before it threatened this suit — to satisfy the requests at issue here,” DeSantis’s attorneys wrote in the filing. 

“Given the large number of pending requests, it would be reasonable for EOG to take several months to fulfill FCGA’s requests, but EOG will nevertheless endeavor to complete production of the requests at issue in this matter no later than December 1, 2022,” the response continues.

DeSantis’s office chartered two planes to Martha’s Vineyard, a popular vacation destination for the wealthy, last month carrying roughly 50 Venezuelan migrants.

The nonprofit, which aids journalists in pursuing government records, first requested documents related to the flights on Sept. 20. That request came six days after the planes landed on Martha’s Vineyard, which sparked fury among Democrats.

The group made a second request for documents the following day and subsequently demanded the governor’s office complete both requests by Sept. 30. DeSantis’s office did not do so, and the group filed the suit 10 days after its deadline.

“Defendants’ refusal to provide the records is unreasonable, unjustified and amounts to an unlawful delay and refusal to provide the records,” the complaint states. “Plaintiff and the public are entitled to the records.”

DeSantis’s office on Tuesday rejected that argument, also noting it has now completed one of the group’s requests while working through the other.

A now-released trove of documents from the governor’s office included images of the migrants boarding the two planes and a series of texts showing a DeSantis official coordinating the flights.

“FCGA has no right to leap ahead of other requesters to have its requests satisfied at breakneck speed just because it may have the resources and wherewithal to engage in litigation,” DeSantis’s office told the court.

The Florida Republican is facing multiple lawsuits and investigations following the Martha’s Vineyard flights.

A group of the migrants on the flights filed a class-action suit against the governor last month, one day after a Texas sheriff opened an investigation into the flights.