Nantucket Police Confirm Flight Won't Bring Migrants

NANTUCKET — Nantucket officials had been on alert for the possibility of a new migrant flight headed to the island — but police said Monday a chartered plane headed to the island will only contain a group of business people from the Midwest.

Over the weekend, Nantucket police said they had been notified about a flight set to arrive on Tuesday with "many similarities" to the migrant flights that arrived on Martha's Vineyard on Sept. 14. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent the 50 migrants to the island from San Antonio, Texas, in what many local officials called a political stunt.

Nantucket police said they had contacted the charter company, and were told the plane set to arrive on Tuesday would be carrying a business group from Chicago. Nantucket police updated a news release issued Saturday just after 11 a.m. Monday.

"The company confirms the scheduled flight will be carrying executives from an investment company. We believe this information to be credible," the updated news release said.

Still, town officials said they would be ready if a migrant flight did arrive.

"In the event there is an arrival of a plan carrying migrants, the Nantucket Police Department and many other town departments have a detailed plan to manage such a situation," the weekend news release said.

After the Venezuelan migrants arrived in Martha's Vineyard, local volunteers and nonprofits scrambled to provide shelter. The migrants were then transported to Joint Base Cape Cod. As of Friday, all the migrants had been resettled, the Boston Globe reported.

According to multiple reports, a former Army counterintelligence specialist named Perla Huerta went to a migrant resource center in San Antonio and offered gift cards and jobs in Massachusetts to Venezuelans to lure them onto planes. A sheriff in San Antonio is investigating the incident for possible criminal charges, and a federal class action lawsuit has been filed against DeSantis and other Florida officials on behalf of the migrants.