
NEW HAVEN, CONN.—The nationwide boycott movement demanding Avelo Airlines terminate its contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation flights is growing.
New Haven was joined by 25 cities in a national day of protest on May 31 to advance the issue.
During a seven-hour vigil at Tweed Airport, protesters lined the entrance gates “to mourn and stay in solidarity with those who have been and will be removed without due process,” said the Community Engagement Team of the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, which organized the action.
Participants wore black funeral garb, brought flowers, and carried portraits of those who have been unlawfully removed.
Anger erupted in April when the public became aware that Avelo had contracted with the Department of Homeland Security to operate deportation flights for ICE. Protests drew members of the immigrant community, clergy, state and local elected officials, and others who oppose the unprecedented mass deportation policies of the Trump administration, which are currently being challenged in court.
A petition pledging to boycott Avelo Airlines until it stops the flights has garnered 38,000 signatures.
“This business decision of deporting using commercial planes contradicts New Haven’s values, especially for a company that markets itself as ‘New Haven’s hometown airline,’” said Mayor Justin Elicker. “Travel should connect people, not separate families.”
The deportation flights began on May 12 from the Mesa Gateway Airport in Arizona, where protests have also been held.
When Connecticut Attorney General William Tong requested information on the DHS contract and the flights, the company arrogantly directed him to make a “Freedom of Information Act” request. Tong also asked the airline to confirm that it won’t operate deportation flights from any Connecticut airport and that it will never operate flights with shackled children.
Reacting to the corporation’s non-response, Tong said, “It is clear all they intend to do is take state support and make money off other people’s suffering.” Avelo, which established its East Coast hub operations in New Haven in November 2021, enjoys an aviation fuel tax break from the State of Connecticut.
The national day of protest came two days after New Haven and five other Connecticut cities appeared on a DHS list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” that the Trump administration ordered to “immediately review and revise their policies to align with Federal immigration laws and renew their obligation to protect American citizens, not dangerous illegal aliens.”
East Haven, Hamden, Hartford, New London, and Windham were also on the list.
Last December, the New Haven government began working with immigrant rights groups and community allies to build relationships and prepare for whatever actions the federal administration would take against the city. The New Haven Immigrants Coalition, with a strong component of youth leaders, holds weekly know-your-rights trainings and has helped the city create a list of resources.
The city has joined San Francisco and several other municipalities suing the Trump administration in federal court, arguing that withholding funds from municipalities that limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement is unconstitutional.
At a press conference called by Mayor Elicker in response to the DHS list, he affirmed that New Haven is following the law and is proud to be a welcoming city—a status it has embraced since 2007.
“We are not afraid, they want us to be afraid, but we are going to come together,” said Ambar Santiago-Rojas, a high school student and leader of the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, who had just helped lead a walkout of 300 students for school funding. “The undocumented community, and the Black community, women, LGBTQ, and students must come together, and we will come together,” she said.
Rev. Scott Marks, director of New Haven Rising, the community organization related with Unite Here, condemned the attack on the city saying, “Imagine the workers who make this city work, who are undocumented, the nervousness that they may have. We want to fight to make sure that this city remains safe.”
During the national day of protest against Avelo in New Hampshire, where Avelo Airlines flies routes out of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, protesters stood along the I-293 exit in Manchester leading to the airport. Among them was State Rep. Seth Miller from Dover, who purchased two billboards near Tweed New Haven Airport that read: “Does your vacation support their deportation? Just say AvelNO!”

When the billboard company took down the ads, Miller went to cour,t suing Avelo on First Amendment grounds.
“I’m under no delusion that Avelo stopping these flights means these flights stop,” he said. “But it makes it a little harder, makes it a little more expensive. It means other people have to do it. And once that’s done, we’ll go after the next ones,” said Miller.
Lakeland is one of three cities in Florida that held actions on the national day of protest, along with Palm Beach, Fort Myers, and Sarasota.
“Avelo is a financially struggling company, poorly managed, poorly financed, and by their own admission is taking the ICE contract in order to maintain their bottom line and to profit,” said Matthew Boulay at a press conference called by the Stop Avelo campaign in Lakeland. “It’s profit over people. It’s blood money. It’s shameful.” he said.
A protest in Houston, Texas, was held outside Avelo’s national headquarters on Greenway Plaza. In Rochester, N.Y., protesters held signs and banners on the Brooks Avenue overpass at I-390 near the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport opposing Avelo’s collaboration with ICE.
Protests were held in three Oregon cities, including at the Eugene Airport, Mahlon Sweet Field, from which Avelo operates weekly flights directly to the Hollywood Burbank Airport in Los Angeles. where a protest was also held. Organized by Indivisible, the call from that protest declared: “Let’s stand together against fascism, family separation, and corporate complicity. No more silence. No more flights.”
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., said in a news release issued in conjunction with the protests: “Given the Trump administration’s mission to indiscriminately deport our nation’s immigrants—without due process, in violation of the Constitution and federal immigration law, and, in some cases, in defiance of court orders—it is deeply disturbing that Avelo has determined that its partnership with ICE is ‘too valuable not to pursue.’”
Protests were also held in Albany, N.Y.; Arcata, Santa Clarita, and Sonoma, Calif.; Chicago; Detroit; Kalispell, Montana; Las Vegas; McLean, Va.; Medford and Salem, Ore.; Raleigh-Durham and Wilmington, N.C.; Traverse City, Mich., and Wilmington, Del.
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