SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The next blow in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ battle to fly migrants out of Texas could land in Delaware.
Officials in Delaware said they were preparing for the possible arrival of a flight of migrants from Texas Tuesday afternoon.
The plane’s flight plan bears the hallmarks of DeSantis’ operation last week to fly 48 Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard. But as of 12 p.m. Eastern time flight records showed the Delaware-bound plane was still on the ground at a regional airport near Longview, Texas, well past its scheduled departure, and hadn’t made it to San Antonio yet. The reason for the delay wasn’t clear.
The flight’s ultimate destination appeared to be a Delaware airport near President Joe Biden’s vacation home, according to data posted on the website FlightAware. It was chartered by the same company, Ultimate JetCharters, that arranged two flights to Martha’s Vineyard last week on behalf of the state of Florida. The aircraft can hold roughly 30 passengers.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Delaware Gov. John Carney, a Democrat, said the state was continuing “to prepare for the possibility of migrants arriving in Delaware unannounced.”
The spokeswoman, Emily David Hershman, said state officials were working with community organizations “to make sure that migrants who arrive here have the support that they need” and were also coordinating with the federal government.
The Delaware flight was scheduled to travel from a regional airport near Longview to Kelly Field in San Antonio Tuesday morning. Its flight plan then had it stopping in Crestview in the Florida Panhandle before touching down at Delaware Coastal Airport in the afternoon. The airport is about 40 minutes from Biden’s vacation home near Rehoboth Beach. There was little sign of activity at Kelly Field on Tuesday morning.
The flight would have been the second instance of DeSantis using Florida taxpayer money to send migrants from a state other than his own — Texas in both instances — to the Northeast. Last Wednesday, the governor acknowledged chartering two flights that carried 48 Venezuelan migrants from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard, where former President Barack Obama owns a home. One of those two planes was also slated to be used for the Delaware trip.
DeSantis has said the efforts are intended as a message about the record-breaking numbers of migrants crossing the southern border — which he and other Republicans blame on Biden. The governor appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show Monday night to discuss the charter flights. He was accompanied by a graphic that said the flights were “just the beginning of efforts to relocate migrants.”
The governor had previously talked about busing migrants to Delaware, although he seemed to drop the idea.
