As Ron DeSantis made the campaign rounds in Iowa, a Texas sheriff’s office recommended bringing criminal charges against whoever orchestrated transporting 49 asylum seekers from San Antonio to Massachusetts last fall.

Bexar County, Texas Sheriff’s Office confirmed both felony and misdemeanor charges of unlawful restraint will be filed against those behind the transportation of Venezuelan migrants by air from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

At the time of the airlift, DeSantis said its mission was to expose “liberal hypocrisy” over the “sanctuary jurisdictions” in northern, Democratically-run cities. Critics claim it was a horrible publicity stunt and tantamount to human trafficking.

The pending charges add to a list of backfires for the Florida governor as he tried to get his fledgling presidential campaign off the ground. On June 6, a federal judge, declaring “gender identity is real,” blocked portions of Florida’s law banning gender-affirming care.

And then there was GOP front-runner Donald Trump poking holes in DeSantis’ favorite campaign slogan.

“I hear woke, woke, woke – it’s just a term they use,” Trump told a crowd in Iowa. “Half the people can’t even define it. They don’t know what it is.”

While in Iowa, Florida first lady Casey DeSantis modeled a black leather jacket with an outline of Florida, and an alligator, emblazoned with the words: “Where woke goes to die.”

The fashion statement prompted a Twitter hashtag, “Walmart Melania.”

Elsewhere, former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie entered the race.

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr.