Avelo Kicks Off Deportation Flights Amid Vigil

(Updated) A day-long vigil protesting Avelo Airlines’ newly launched deportation flights out of Arizona culminated with a group of local religious leaders gathering at Tweed Airport to condemn the budget airline for its ​“moral and spiritual depravity.”

That call was issued by Bishop John Selders of Moral Monday CT, who, along with approximately 100 protesters, gathered outside of the Morris Cove airport Monday afternoon to continue a month-long pressure campaign against Avelo for partnering with the Trump administration to run deportation flights out of Arizona. 

Those ​“removal” flights sparked outrage in early April when Avelo Airlines announced a new position for a full-time flight attendant, to be based out of Mesa, Arizona. The posting came with a disclaimer that the job ​“is for a charter program for the Department of Homeland Security. Flights will be both domestic and international trips to support DHS’s deportation efforts.”

Avelo CEO Andrew Levy has defended the decision to partner with the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as a way to offset financial troubles stemming from stiffer passenger-travel competition at Tweed. The company has faced public condemnations here in New Haven, a main hub for Avelo flights, from Mayor Justin Elicker, the Board of Alders, and State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney. The decision has also sparked a war of words (and Freedom of Information Act requests) between Avelo CEO Andrew Levy and state Attorney General William Tong, and multiple protests.

The gathering of close to a dozen local religious leaders from 5 to 6 p.m. Monday was the culmination of a protest that began at 6 a.m. to mark the beginning of Avelo’s DHS contract. 

Protesters lined the sidewalk of Burr Street, holding signs advocating for due process for people detained by immigration authorities and comparing the program to the Holocaust.

In an emotionally charged and often deeply personal speech, Rabbi Herb Brockman, the rabbi emeritus at Hamden’s Congregation Mishkan Israel, likened Avelo’s role in the Trump deportation program to railway companies that provided aid to Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. 

“If we know anything, history will be their judge. At the end of the war, those railroads were found guilty of participating with the Nazis and taking those people, and they ended up having to pay billions of dollars in reparations for what they did,” Brockman said. ​“It was blood money, and in the end, they were responsible to pay for what they had done. Avelo will pay for what it has done, that is history’s judgment.”

Brockman began his speech by quoting the biblical prophet Micah (“what doth the Lord require of thee only to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly before God”), and invoked both the Pledge of Allegiance and the writings of George Washington in discussing his youthful pride in the American tradition. 

America, Brockman said, had been a place of refuge for his parents, who fled antisemitic violence in Eastern Europe. He grew up proud of the country because it accepted immigrants like his family, and he feels firmly that the Trump administration’s rejection of immigrants and refugees is a betrayal of the country he remembers, a message that resonated with the largely older crowd of protesters. 

“We were not a perfect union, but we were striving to be a perfect union,” he said. ​“But every morning I wake up, I ask what has happened overnight, what evil has occurred?”

Also on hand was Rev. Kelcy Steele, the pastor at Varick Memorial AME Zion. He frequently punctuated his speech by leading chants of, ​“Shame on Avelo!” 

Steele also quoted scripture, first mentioning the Gospel of Mark’s prescription to love God, and then the commandment to ​“love your neighbor as yourself.” He described the protest as a form of ​“righteous resistance” to what he sees as criminal actions by the Trump administration. 

The Dixwell-based pastor touched on the administration’s refusal to commit to providing due process legal protections to every person in the United States, something multiple protesters also discussed in conversations with this reporter.

“These aren’t strangers, but they are Connecticut residents. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, the mothers and fathers who raise our children, the one who stands next to us in grocery stores and sanctuary pews, and yet they are disappearing at courthouses, at food pantries, on the streets by masked federal agents, sometimes armed, always silent and always cruel,” Steele warned. ​“Shame on Avelo! They are snatched not for justice, but for profit.”

Steele likened the deportations to human trafficking, saying that passengers may be handcuffed and shackled to their seats, a potential risk in case of an in-flight emergency, and an issue that Tong raised last month.

Near the end of the eight-person speaker series of religious leaders, a secular protester leader took the microphone with a more focused demand. Luis Luna, an organizer with the Connecticut Immigrant Support Network, encouraged attendees to make the trip to the state Capitol on Thursday for another interfaith gathering — a lobbying day in support of changes to state immigration law.

Luna is pushing for reforms to broaden the state’s Trust Act, which currently prevents local law enforcement from sharing information with federal immigration authorities in most cases. Specifically, he is looking to include an enforcement mechanism that would allow private individuals to sue police officers who violate the law. 

His two requests to the protesters? ​“Call the governor,” and tell him to support these changes, and ​“come to the lobbying day” to convince lawmakers to amend the law. Luna’s speech was positively received, before protesters slowly dispersed to their cars to end the day-long demonstration. 

The Morning Shift: "Stop Supporting Family Separation"

Monday’s vigil began at around 6 a.m. At 9 a.m., Anne Watkins stood at the Burr Street entrance of Tweed New Haven Airport with fellow attendees Hope Chávez and Meg Graustein. Music played from a wireless speaker, and the crew sipped from Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cups amid posters and signs reading ​“NO ICE FLIGHTS” and ​“STOP Supporting Family Separation.”

Chávez noted that protests are happening at other Avelo hubs Monday, too. She said she and the other New Haven organizers wanted to create something where people could come and go as they pleased, ​“to add to this vigil and to this roadside memorial” of lives that have been impacted by ​“lack-of-due-process removals and mourning those who are to come.” 

“We’re being very careful not to use the word ​‘deportation’ because in many cases people are actually not being deported, they’re not being taken back to their country of origin to live their life there,” she said. ​“They are being removed to prisons in other countries without access to legal representation or any form of due process. … That’s what makes this particularly horrendous.”

While the Independent did not receive confirmation from Avelo or DHS that Avelo has begun chartering deportation flights out of Mesa, Ariz., flight tracking site flightaware.com indicates that Avelo Airlines flight XP48 took off from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway at 8:15 a.m. MST Monday. That flight landed at Alexandria International Airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, at 12:29 p.m. CDT. Migrants have previously been transported to an international airport in Alexandria, Louisiana before being deported from the U.S. The airport is the site of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention and removal staging facility. 

In response to a request for comment about Monday’s vigil at Tweed, Avelo spokesperson Courtney Goff said, ​“The safety and well-being of our Crewmembers (employees), Customers and all individuals involved is our highest priority. While we recognize the right of individuals to peacefully assemble, Avelo’s main priority will continue to be maintaining the safety and timeliness of our operation.”

She also confirmed that Avelo’s contract with DHS began on Monday.

Goff redirected all specific questions about the flights to take place out of Arizona to DHS.

DHS also did not answer specific questions about Avelo’s deportation flights out of Arizona. Instead, the agency provided a comment on behalf of DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin, who dismissed Monday’s protests in New Haven as ​“a tired tactic to abolish ICE by proxy,” as Avelo is a ​“sub-carrier on a government contract to assist with deportation flights.”

At Monday’s protest, Watkins made clear that she and many in New Haven strongly disagree with Avelo’s decision. ​“Andrew Levy, Avelo’s CEO, has said that New Haven will benefit from their contract with DHS and with ICE because their finances will be better,” she said Monday morning. ​“We disagree.”

Chávez said that it is impossible for Levy to remove himself and Avelo from the reality of President Trump’s policies. ​“You may very well be participating in illegal removals. They can’t make that choice once they sign that contract, they can’t say, ​‘This person, not that person.’”

At one point, a passing driver honked in support of the vigil and raised a thumbs up from the inside of his truck.

Chávez said that organizations like CT Shoreline Indivisible, New Haven Indivisible, and Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) are scheduled to participate in demonstrations later on Monday. 

Anything to say to those flying Avelo on Monday?

“I have a lot of empathy for folks who, for numerous reasons, this may be the only accessible airline to them,” Chávez said. She doesn’t want to shame anyone who can’t buy another ticket or fly another airline to see their family, she said. ​“But for everyone who has the capacity, everyone who has the means and the privilege, and chooses not to redistribute their funding to fly Breeze [Airlines] or fly out of Bradley [International Airport] — they’re complicit in this too.”

Boycotting, she said, is one of the ways anyone dissatisfied with Avelo can make their voice known. She noted that Tweed’s board has stated that they won’t take a position, and so ​“the only way for us to have a sustained meaningful impact is to affect their bottom line.”

“If the only funding they can get in the door is this DHS money and they can’t sell tickets out of Tweed, they will go away,” Chávez said. 

The Noon Shift: "We're In A State Of Mourning"

“What they [Avelo] are doing is cruel and un-American,” said Holly Jarrell, who was holding signs with her husband Tim at around noon when the Independent checked in on the second shift of Monday’s protest.

“The flights are outside of the legal process, they terrorize communities, and Avelo is complicit,” said Tim Jarrell.

The couple, who hail from Haddam, said they walked their two Australian cattle dogs earlier in the morning, and then drove out to participate in the protest.

They are two of about 20 people that Chávez said will be rotating and stewarding the protest, and growing the fence memorial throughout the day until it culminates in the 5 p.m.-to‑6 p.m. hour.

“Our daughter-in-law brought flowers for Mother’s Day,” said Tim Jarrell, ​“and we thought it appropriate to offer some as a tribute to those whose lives have been disrupted.”

In addition to the Jarrells’ flowers, there were a dozen other small bouquets, images of deportees, signs and several stuffed animals, including a tiny mouse.

No one was quite sure who brought the tiny stuffed critter or what it meant to the bringer, said Chávez, although it surely suggests vulnerability.

“The goal is to fill the fence,” she added, ​“as we’re in a state of mourning.”

The Jarrells, who described themselves as hardly professional protesters but your basic retired couple from Haddam, have been appalled by Avelo’s contract with the Trump administation and its ​“terrible reflection of our country.”

“I’m generally an introvert,” added Holly, ​“and don’t come out to protests,” although the Jarrells did for the April 5 Hands Off nationwide event, where they protested in Hartford.

“But this isn’t the country I grew up in. When you see an issue like this in your own backyard, this trampling of rights, it’s important you say something.”

“Our niece teaches in Brooklyn,” Tim Jarrell added, ​“with immigrant students. Her students and their parents are terrified,” he reported.

In the half hour the Independent talked to the Jarrells, this reporter counted about 30 cars that slowly drove by along Burr Street, and perhaps a dozen horn honks of support. One angry person shouted, ​“Go home, get a fucking job.”

Then long-time area resident Trina Yoxall rolled down the window of her black sedan and engaged the Jarrells and Andrew Epstein and Alex Johnson, two other volunteers who had joined the sign-holding line.

“I’m not against what you’re doing,” Yoxall said. ​“I just don’t appreciate you’re not also supporting us,” that is, in the neighborhood, who have been protesting airport expansion and the attendant problems.

Epstein said he is new to New Haven and heard about the protest via Jewish Voice for Peace, of which he is a member, and Democratic Socialists of America chat sites.

He said he works in the film business and has several times traveled out of Tweed to Charleston, for example, on jobs. But no longer.

“It’s a bummer we are not using Avelo [any more]. There are warm, beachy places to go on Avelo and it’s far better than leaving from LaGuardia, but not at this cost.”

After school got out Monday afternoon, the plan was for Epstein’s wife to bring their two kids down to Burr Street to participate in the vigil.

Mona Mahadevan contributed to this report. 

This article has been updated with a comment from Avelo, with a confirmation that Monday is the start of Avelo’s deportation contract with DHS, and with information from flightaware.com about Avelo’s Monday morning flight from Arizona to Louisiana.