Fox News is promoting a reportedly false explanation from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration about its use of state resources to fly migrants from Texas to California, where they were abandoned.
This move follows a similar stunt by DeSantis last September, when migrants were lied to on his behalf and abandoned on the Massachusetts island of Martha’s Vineyard. Several of the deceived migrants sued DeSantis, and some of the individuals involved may soon face criminal charges.
Even though news outlets reported that some of the migrants flown to California told government officials and community organizers that they were misled and felt abandoned, Fox anti-immigration reporter Bill Melugin and several Fox programs shared a video reel and claims from the DeSantis administration that the flights were voluntary and the migrants gave full consent to them. Melugin, who was provided the video by Florida officials, has a history of pushing antagonistic and misleading right-wing narratives about immigration.
Florida taxpayers funded two flights of migrants from Texas to California
On June 4, The New York Times reported that 16 migrants were flown from near El Paso, Texas, to Sacramento, California, by a company paid by the state of Florida, according to documents in the migrants’ possession, “and dropped off outside a church building” last Friday with a “false promise of jobs.”
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in an interview that language barriers may have misled some migrants into signing apparent waivers before boarding the flight. He added that they didn’t all understand that they were going to California and that not all of the passengers signed the documents. Bonta added that the migrants “weren’t fully informed and it wasn’t fully consensual.”
The Times also quoted Cecilia Flores of community organization Sacramento ACT, who spoke with some of the migrants: “They feel they’ve been lied to; some of them have said they were abandoned.”
On June 5, the Times reported that a second flight of migrants arrived on Monday through the same operation. The migrants arrived the same day that California Gov. Gavin Newsom criticized DeSantis on Twitter, calling him a “small, pathetic man” and suggesting that the migrant stunt was tantamount to kidnapping.
On June 6, another Times report further explained that the migrants had been deceived into getting on the flights to California:
The migrants who arrived on Friday had been dropped off outside the Catholic Archdiocese of Sacramento, Mr. Bonta said, and left “dazed and confused, violated and hurt on the doorstep of an archdiocese that wasn’t even open.”
He said the migrants had both told him personally and signed statements saying that they had come to California because the contractor, Vertol Systems Company, had falsely represented the transport as a way to obtain desperately needed employment.
“It was a lie,” Mr. Bonta, a Democrat, said. “It was false. You can’t consent based on deception.”
As was the case with the migrants transported to Martha’s Vineyard, locals and community organizations leapt into action to care for the suddenly arrived migrants in Sacramento. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, activists working with the migrants “said that the migrants had no idea where they were headed” and that “they were deceived.”
Fox News, spearheaded by Bill Melugin, has promoted and defended the DeSantis team’s apparently false claims that the migrants consented to the operation
On Tuesday, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin posted several tweets pushing DeSantis’ narrative about the cruel stunt, including sharing a propaganda reel provided to him by Florida officials showing some of the migrants signing consent papers, celebrating, and expressing thanks.
Melugin repeatedly emphasized Florida officials’ claims that “the migrants went voluntarily, gave verbal & written consent” and the flights “were completely voluntary.” But he ignored the earlier reporting that the migrants were misled and later abandoned.
This pattern continued on Fox’s programs Wednesday, which again failed to mention that multiple migrants told officials that they were misled:
- Fox & Friends aired parts of the same video tweeted the previous day by Melugin along with a chyron that read: “FL officials say migrants went to CA willingly.” White House correspondent Peter Doocy said: “We’ve got this video that shows these migrants signing waivers. Officials are telling us that these are waivers where these migrants say they are going voluntarily west.”
- Later on the show, co-host Steve Doocy hosted two Republican congressmen from Florida to respond to Newsom’s tweet to DeSantis. He pushed DeSantis’ framing of the migrant flights, saying, “Ron Desantis has put out some video the state of Florida has where the people who got on to those migrant flights that wound up in California recently, they all signed waivers. They said, ‘Oh, thank goodness we have arrived in California,’ and they said, ‘We made it to California. Thank God.’ And a woman asked the migrants in Spanish, ‘Did any of you feel that you were treated badly?’ and in unison they said, ‘No.’” Doocy later added, “They seemed very happy they were in California.”
- Anchor Bill Hemmer said, “The Sunshine State confirms it arranged the flights, and they say they were voluntary. In a video released by Florida officials, some of the passengers say the conditions were great.” Correspondent Jonathan Hunt added, “The Florida Division of Emergency Management released this video of the group of migrants, who appear to be happy to be traveling, singing at times and expressing gratitude,” but then also said, “Now the video, of course, was heavily edited and released by Florida officials. And we don't know from this video the details of the documents the migrants are seen signing. Neither do we know whether before they were loaded onto the plane they knew they were going to California. But at least one of them seems happy on arrival.”
- In a later segment, anchor Dana Perino and guest Dave Rubin ridiculed Newsom for his outraged reaction, with Rubin saying he “should be thrilled right now” because he “wants to run a sanctuary state.” He also complained that the Biden administration was “not protecting the border,” even though unauthorized border crossings are down.
- Outnumbered also played parts of the video tweeted by Melugin, and the hosts portrayed the migrants as celebrating their flight but failed to mention reporting that they told government officials and activists that they were misled.
Bill Melugin has been instrumental in shaping Fox’s anti-immigration coverage and drawn praise from white nationalists
Media Matters senior writer John Knefel extensively profiled Melugin in May 2022, noting that he had racked up well over 400 appearances on Fox in the year since he was hired as a Fox correspondent. He played an essential role in Fox’s awful coverage of thousands of Haitian migrants in the Del Rio sector of Texas in September 2021. Melugin was also a driver of a dishonest April 2022 Fox narrative about supposed terrorists crossing the border.
White nationalists and other far-right extremists have also embraced Melugin’s immigration coverage on Fox. His reporting is regularly mentioned and praised on racist, anti-immigrant websites including VDARE, Infowars, and other extremist outlets.
As Knefel explained earlier this year, Melugin can be seen on Fox News almost daily, typically framing migrants as potential terrorists or drug smugglers — bigoted, debunked characterizations designed to paint immigrants as threats rather than as vulnerable human beings. He’s willing to engage in absurd fearmongering to hype the danger that migrants pose, and his work since joining the network in May 2021 has served as the foundation for some of former Fox prime-time star Tucker Carlson's most explicit segments advancing the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory. Melugin’s willingness to provide cover for DeSantis’ cruel immigration stunts is just another day at work for him.
