Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
It is the first time the state of Florida has disclosed the number of confirmed flights arriving in the state since the summer. The governor's office has scrambled in recent weeks to uncover who is facilitating the mystery flights landing in northern Florida daily, but the Biden administration has refused to disclose any information, one official said.
"Over 70 air charter flights [on] jetliner airliners coming from the southwest border have landed at Jacksonville International Airport," said Larry Keefe, DeSantis's public safety czar. "On average, there's 36 passengers on each of these flights. And that has been going on over the course of the summer through September."
Keefe, who was the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida until early 2021, said the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Health and Human Services will not tell the state of Florida who is overseeing the flights, the names of those on the flights, or where the migrants are being taken. None of the agencies or the White House responded to a request for comment.
"We're in a sad situation of trying to run an investigation. Who is facilitating this travel? How are they getting here? Who are the support people? Who are the sponsors?" Keefe asked.
Jacksonville is located on the eastern side of the state, along Interstate 95, the major highway that runs up and down the East Coast. Florida officials are aware that the groups being flown in are then being transported by charter bus north and south on the interstate.
"We don't know definitively or specifically as to why Jacksonville is the chosen place," Keefe said. "[We're] having to watch and observe — in effect, spy on the government to see what it is that they're doing in the middle of the night out of these airport facilities."
Keefe added that the state government was informed of the flights by local law enforcement.
In October, the New York Post reported similar flights arriving in Westchester, New York, throughout the summer.
The Florida flights have come under special scrutiny by the state after an incident involving a 24-year-old Honduran man who was arrested on suspicion of murder.
Keefe said the state is investigating whether Yery Noel Medina Ulloa, who lied to Border Patrol and local Jacksonville police when he claimed to be 17 years old and known by a different name, may have been on one of the night flights because he pretended to be a minor and would have been detained in federal custody with minors.
The victim, Francisco Javier Cuellar, was fatally stabbed in his home on Oct. 6. An arrest warrant filed by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office stated that security cameras in Cuellar's home appeared to show Ulloa "stabbing the victim numerous times and repeatedly hitting him with a chair."
Cuellar, a father of four, was a legal resident from Mexico and had hired Ulloa at his grocery store in Jacksonville.
Comment: Biden has no shame: