SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Eight Venezuelan migrants who arrived in Sacramento last week on Thursday and Friday said they have no idea how or why they ended up in Sacramento.
The group was seen leaving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in downtown Sacramento days after landing at the Sacramento International Airport.
One of the Venezuelan men said he and a group of seven others crossed the Mexico-U.S. border illegally and turned themselves into Immigration. Afterward, he said an organization in Texas then helped them purchase airplane tickets from San Antonio all the way to Sacramento.
"The documentation that we carried from immigration - with that, we'd simply show it and they'd look at it and it was fine," he said. "It was something because they said we were paroled. So, we were free here," said the asylum seeker from Venezuela who did not want to be identified.
The men have no clue why they were sent here. It's a situation happening in the midst of Republican governors in Florida and Texas flying immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities.
No one has claimed responsibility for the situation at this time.
"We don't think that it necessarily was DeSantis or anything like that, but it does feel like there are people who maybe are watching what DeSantis is doing and thinking 'Oh, well, maybe I will participate in that," said Autumn Gonzalez, who is with NorCal Resist.
NorCal Resist is helping the men with food and a place to stay. The asylum seekers are now left with many questions and no family to fall back on.
"What is one supposed to do? Well, we're in the United States. Let's see how we can resolve this. The important thing is we're in the United States, but this isn't what we had planned," said the man from Venezuela.
They were taken to Sacramento ICE offices to find out where to go from here and to find answers. For now, the men are staying at a local hotel.
"We're kind of finding our rhythm, and the guys are thinking they want to stay here in Sacramento. So we're helping them to figure out what the path is gonna be to that. It looks like we're going to rent a couple of apartments for them," Gonzalez said.
ABC10 reached out to ICE, but they said it was a question for the Department of Homeland Security. ABC10 also reached out to them, but is still waiting to hear back.
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