‘WORST WOMAN’

Venezuelan Who Helped ‘Perla’ Recruit for DeSantis’ Migrant Flight Turns on Her

The man, identified only as Emmanuel, said he was led to believe he was working for a charity—not orchestrating a political stunt.

A Venezuelan migrant who helped recruit asylum-seekers to take a flight from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last month—paid for by Florida—has turned against his former boss and is cooperating with a Texas sheriff’s office investigation. The man, identified only as Emmanuel, told the Miami Herald that he thought he was working for a charitable organization when he was told by Perla Huerta to convince a group of his countrymen to board the flight to Massachusetts with the promise of homes, cash and jobs. But when the migrants touched down, shocking the nation, Emmanuel’s WhatsApp blew up with panicked messages from the migrants. He said he begged Huerta to answer the phone but she vanished, putting her Tampa home up for sale and scrubbing her online profiles. “They will do better than any other group [of migrants] and they have the attention of the whole country,” she eventually texted back. “And I continue to be the worst woman in the world.” Emmanuel now concedes he was duped by Huerta and he stopped talking to her around the same time he started cooperating with authorities.