Florida officials on Tuesday took responsibility for charter flights carrying migrants to Sacramento, after days of silence

since

the first group landed in California

on Friday

.

The transportation had been designated as potentially illegal by the California government. Gavin Newsom, who raised the possibility of kidnapping in a Twitter message directed to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday.

Florida officials rejected claims that the migrants had been transported against their will or under misleading circumstances.

Alecia Collins, a spokesperson for Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, characterized the two flights that arrived Friday and yesterday as a “voluntary move.”

“Through oral and written consent, these volunteers indicated their desire to go to California. A contractor was present and made sure they arrived safely at an outside NGO. The specific NGO, Catholic Charities, is used and funded by the federal government ,” Collins said in a statement.

The statement includes a video showing more than a dozen people signing paperwork and boarding a private jet. It later shows a person saying they have arrived in California. The video features people laughing and dancing, and a man talks about his experience migrating through Central America.

Collins said the video depicts the relocation of people who are in the country illegally; it does not specify the departure or destination cities of the flight. The Times could not independently verify where and when the photos were taken.

Anthony York, a Newsom spokesperson, denounced the release of the video.

“This is exploitative propaganda being spread by a politician who has shown that he does not want to sink to rock bottom in his desperate attempt to score a political point,” York said in a statement. Governor Newsom put it best. The governor of Florida is petite and pathetic, and this video is another reminder of that.”

York also criticized the DeSantis administration for using Florida taxpayer dollars to send migrants from “Texas through New Mexico to California to get votes in Iowa and New Hampshire.” GOP nomination.

Sixteen migrants from Venezuela and Colombia were transported from Texas to New Mexico and flown on a chartered plane to Sacramento, where they were dropped off at a church on Friday, California officials said.

A plane carrying 20 migrants arrived in Sacramento on Monday. Both groups were flown by the same contractor and carried documents proving their transport was to the state of Florida, California Department of Justice officials said.

Newsom, along with Atty. General Rob Bonta pinpointed DeSantis as the culprit behind the unannounced arrivals long before the state of Florida recognized his role. DeSantis himself has yet to comment on the flights, an unusually muted response to his similar action last year when he arranged for migrants to be transported from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Collins said in her statement that the movement of migrants across the country is not uncommon, and implied that Newsom’s charge of breaking the law was hypocritical.

“From leftist mayors in El Paso, Texas and Denver, Colorado, the displacement of those illegally crossing the United States border is not new,” she said. “But suddenly when Florida sends illegal aliens to sanctuary, it’s false imprisonment and kidnapping.”