NEW HAVEN – As a “correspondence battle” rages between Avelo Airlines top executive and the state attorney general over a contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for deportation flights, local residents near southern Connecticut’s only commercial airport are giving the low budget airline an earful.
“I want to speak about business and corporations are benefiting from the deportation machine,” Luis Luna, a member of New Haven Immigrants Coalition (NHIC), said to a crowd of more than 100 protestors outside Tweed New Haven Airport on Thursday, April 17. “Avelo just got a contract. There are so many companies that are profiting from detention.”
Luna was joined by a handful of speakers representing the coalition, which has an online petition calling for boycotting the Texas-based airline until it ends the long-term contract it has with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to fly migrant deportees ordered by the Trump administration. As of April 22, the petition has drawn more than 34,000 signatures.
That protest as well others throughout the country have been precipitated by the deportation and incarceration in a prison in El Salvador of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia due to a mistake made by ICE in deporting him last month.
According to published reports, the airline will operate three Boeing 737-800 aircraft out of Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona, beginning on May 12. Avelo will be acting as a subcontractor for a larger contract with CSI Aviation, a charter medical flight provider from New Mexico. Avelo offers flight out of both Tweed and Bradley International airports in Connecticut.
On its website, Avelo advertises for flight attendant positions for Mesa, Arizona, and New Haven. The ad mentions “this opportunity is for a charter program for the Department of Homeland Security. Flights will be both domestic and international trips to support DHS’s (Department of Homeland Security’s) deportation efforts.”
Letter war
In a letter to state Attorney General William Tong dated April 15, Avelo CEO Andrew Levy said there is a “fundamental misunderstanding” of how the federal government contracts the flights that were the subject of a letter Tong sent April 8 to the Avelo executive.
In response to Tong’s request to see a copy of the DHS contract, Levy wrote: “A copy of the relevant federal contract can be obtained from the DHS via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.” He also referred any questions about the nature of the flights to the DHS.
Anna Juarez, who is of Mexican descent and a member of NHIC, put the onus on Avelo for agreeing to the contract with DHS.
“Today’s response from Avelo is totally unacceptable because it contains no response at all,” said Tong in an April 15 press release. “Their overly legalistic and technical letter is insulting and condescending to the people of Connecticut who have invested in and committed millions of dollars to Avelo’s success.”
Tong pointed out the responsibility of the state to review the DHS contract since it may include the flights of innocent people being taken against their rights.
“As I said last week, the State of Connecticut has an obligation now to review this business decision and to consider the viability of our choice to support Avelo,” he added. “State and local governments have both worked to support Avelo’s expansion into Connecticut in recent years, including granting an exemption on the aviation fuel tax and upgrading airport infrastructure.”
Many of the speakers raised the point that the airline was brought to the state through economic assistance from the state and had an obligation to recognize all residents’ rights.
“I know I’m here because Avelo gave me no other choice,” Juarez said. “And even worse it’s for the people forced to use Avelo who are dehumanized and in chains.
“Our work began the night after the election when several local leaders, activists, friends and neighbors formed an idea that became a strong and powerful alliance. We have been hosting ‘know your rights’ trainings, doing street outreach, and operating a rapid response line.”
She pointed out to the crowd positioned right across from the Avelo terminal that not a lot of “brown” people showed up to the rally because they are afraid.
New Haven values
Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, called for Avelo to consider the values of the New Haven community that surrounds Tweed airport.
“In the four years that this airline has been here, you would have thought that its leadership would’ve taken time to learn about New Haven, our city and our values,” she said. “Public officials rolled out the red carpet. We gave them tax breaks. We even said we would support them by upgrading the airport infrastructure.”
She laid out four core values that describe New Haven residents:
“• We are a welcoming city with a rich history of welcoming refugees, so much so that we are recognized as a cutting-edge city with amazing policies that others around the nation have copied.
- We have a track record of protecting immigrants when ICE has come to town.
- Every single time that public officials have coalesced around us for immigrant rights, we have won, whether it was ID fight or the raids of 2007.
- Our activists are a bunch of stubborn bad asses. We are relentless.”
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who faced some pro-Palestinian protestors o
f his own at the rally, sent a message to Levy.
“Avelo has to change its course,” the longtime senator said. “To the president of Avelo: you really stepped in it. You made a bad mistake. You made a legal mistake. You made a financial mistake. And most important you made a moral mistake.
“What we have to say to Avelo is, come clean, show us the contract. Get rid of that contract. Break that contract.”
