Thread by @MiamiHerald

Emmanuel, a 27-year-old Venezuelan migrant, saved Perla Huerta’s number in his phone as “Perla Hermosa” — Beautiful Perla.

He thought she was wonderful.

“You could see her happiness in her face,” he said.

Then everything fell apart. 🧵

While the media has focused on Huerta, a Miami Herald investigation found Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' San Antonio migrant relocation operation was far bigger and better organized than previously known. miamiherald.com/news/local/imm…

The investigation uncovered more than half a dozen recruiters and support staff on the ground in San Antonio.

A friendly and familiar face to the unprecedented number of Venezuelan migrants passing — legally — through Texas, Emmanuel quickly became a top recruiter of passengers, probably second only to Huerta herself.

A pawn in the hands of a professional handler working on behalf of a governor seen as a likely Republican contender for president in 2024, Emmanuel said he believed he was part of a benevolent mission run by a kind and compassionate woman.

Huerta, a 43-year-old former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent working for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, told him she was a military veteran.

He trusted her.

Now, he is cooperating with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office’s organized crime unit in its ongoing criminal investigation into the operation.

Emmanuel’s texts and social media interactions provide an intimate view into the mysterious and manipulative “Perla” at the center of a well-organized, short-lived, covert operation directly overseen by DeSantis’ top aides and backed by more than $1.5M from Florida taxpayers.

Emmanuel, who helped recruit migrants for the flight that ended up in Martha’s Vineyard on Sept. 14, said he never dreamed that offering people a free flight away from the overcrowded shelter in San Antonio could be political, much less possibly illegal.

Copies of his WhatsApp messages reviewed by the Herald show Emmanuel pleading with Huerta to answer her phone after people in Martha’s Vineyard called him in a panic, saying no one was expecting them, they were scared, and Huerta wasn’t answering their calls.

Huerta responded — 33 agonizing minutes after Emmanuel sent the first text. “Let me make some calls,” she wrote back. “The state has to be responsible for them.”

Huerta defended her actions over WhatsApp.

“They will do better than any other group [of migrants] and they have the attention of the whole country,” Huerta wrote. “And I continue to be the worst woman in the world.”

Emmanuel said he kept recruiting for Huerta after she promised him the program wasn’t political, helping to gather people for the next flights, which emails show would be sent to Delaware and Illinois between Sept. 19 and Oct. 3.

Those flights didn’t happen, however.

On the eve of the planned Delaware flight, the sheriff announced his investigation as press swarmed the airport in anticipation of the scheduled departure that had been noticed on a flight tracking website.

The flight was canceled.

The San Antonio operation was hastily dismantled, to be potentially resurrected at a future date yet unknown. And Emmanuel’s life became a blur of spare rooms and hotel beds, Red Bull and nicotine.

“I am sorry for what happened in Massachusetts, but I didn’t know what was happening,” Emmanuel told the Herald. “I’m trying to show my face so that people know [what really happened].”

Not long after the migrant relocation project blew up, an unexpected event in Florida underscored the need for physical labor, including migrants.

Hurricane Ian devastated Southwest Florida, ruining countless homes and creating an immediate dire demand for workers.

One place to find muscle was at homeless shelters across the country, filling up with migrants spurned by government officials in states like Texas and Florida.

Hundreds of migrant workers are believed to be streaming down to Florida following Hurricane Ian.

Three of the people who were recruited for DeSantis’ migrant relocation program — that would have routed them from Texas to states other than Florida — also headed to the Sunshine State for hurricane cleanup. miamiherald.com/news/local/imm…

One of them, Pedro Escalona, a Venezuelan migrant who was originally scheduled to be on a charter flight to Delaware from San Antonio.

He then learned the flight had been scuttled and caught a plane to New York City, where he ended up in a homeless shelter.

How he then got to Florida — the state that wanted to dump him and others in Delaware — and onto a seven-day-a-week Fort Myers work crew is the story of America’s conflicted relationship with migrant workers.

One week they are demonized, the next they are in demand, only to become an expendable part of a workforce hired by companies that profit off vulnerable laborers.

The pattern was the same for many of the migrants: hard work and long hours, followed by allegations of bad behavior, a final paycheck, then abrupt removal from the hotel — sometimes at the hands of police.

“I feel like I’m nobody... treated like an animal...horrible,” said Escalona.

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