While the notorious “Perla” who aided in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ sick political stunt transporting migrants from Texas to Massachusetts has now been identified as a former combat medic and counterintelligence agent, there are no further answers into Perla Huerta’s involvement in the GOP campaign. Efforts to reach her have been unsuccessful, The New York Times said.
The Texas Tribune reports that LULAC, the nation’s oldest Latino-led civil rights organization, has now increased to $10,000 a reward “for information that leads to locating, arresting and prosecuting” the recruiter. While attorneys unrelated to LULAC said they will now seek to name Huerta in a lawsuit filed by migrants tricked under the scheme, “[a]uthorities have not publicly identified her as a suspect or person of interest in any criminal investigation,” The Texas Tribune said.
RELATED STORY: Attorneys for migrants tricked by DeSantis say now-identified 'Perla' will be named in suit
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“LULAC initially offered $5,000 for information about the mysterious woman,” The Texas Tribune reported. “On Wednesday, LULAC officials said they were raising the reward in an effort to get the woman to answer questions under oath.” LULAC President Domingo Garcia told the outlet that the organization also intended to ask the Justice Department whether Huerta and DeSantis violated U.S. immigration code.
“We were able to identify her through a photograph on her Facebook page, and then the refugees in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, also confirmed that was the person who approached them and made them promise of three months’ paid work and free housing, free food and free resources—that were all false,” Garcia said in the report. “Now we are focusing, now that we know who she is, on trying to find her.”
Huerta was identified as a U.S. military officer who was discharged after 20 years this past August. Within weeks, she would be aiding DeSantis’ political campaign by luring migrants through false promises of jobs, housing, and other assistance. The New York Times offered a startling view into her tactics, which included preying on migrants at a supermarket. “He had told her he was searching for work, and she made him an offer he found hard to resist,” that report said. But because Huerta has remained silent, we don’t even know who recruited the recruiter.
Since her identification though, attorneys representing migrants who have filed a lawsuit over the stunt said they’ll seek to name her as a defendant, which “could pave the way to deposing her for details about the DeSantis administration’s potential involvement in deceiving the migrants,” Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent wrote. The lawsuit states that “to gain the Plaintiffs’ trust, and to induce unwitting cooperation with Defendants’ scheme,” DeSantis and “unidentified accomplices” offered them $10 McDonald’s gift certificates. Of course, we now know one of the “unidentified accomplices” as Huerta. The complaint achingly states that she waved these gift cards at people “suffering from chronic food insecurity.”
“After luring Plaintiffs by exploiting their most basic needs, the Doe Defendants then 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,” the complaint continued. Of course, this was all a lie.
“The old signs used to say, ‘Wanted dead or alive.’ We want her alive,” Garcia continued, according to The Texas Tribune. “And we want her to testify. Who paid, and why did they engage in such predatory behavior?”
We need answers and accountability, but we can’t forget where the buck stops. While Huerta lied to vulnerable people, and she should certainly have to answer for that, this all happened because it was DeSantis who decided he needed to create a problem. He decided that migrants would be his human props. Reportedly complaining that his state didn’t share a lengthy border with our neighbor Mexico, he then went to Texas.
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