Growing National Boycott Campaign Targets Avelo Airlines for its ICE Deportation Flights Contract

Interview with Umme Hoque, an organizer with Defend and Recruit, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

avelo deportation contracts

Avelo Airlines is the only known commercial carrier that is operating deportation flights from the U.S. under contract with Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security. One of its commercial passenger hubs is in New Haven, Connecticut, where it has grown from a few flights to as many as 14 per day, mostly to the Southeast and Puerto Rico.

When the company announced it was hiring for flight attendants for its deportation flights departing from Mesa, Arizona that were to begin in mid-May, local activists began a weekly protest of support for a boycott, outside Tweed New Haven airport. They launched an online petition that has garnered almost 39,000 signatures, many from people in other cities that Avelo flies from. Avelo’s CEO has openly stated the company took on the deportation flights to pad its bottom line, especially as it has encountered more competition, cutting into the company’s profits.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Umme Hoque, a Texas-based campaigner with the Defend and Recruit network, an immigration defense project of Siembra in North Carolina. Here she describes growing support for the Boycott Avelo campaign, culminating most recently in a national week of action from May 27 to June 5, that involved protests in more than 40 cities.

UMME HOQUE: So, we’ve been kind of watching some of the protests online, seeing the incredible work in Connecticut and the responses that they’re getting since that’s obviously one of Avelos main base locations. And we saw that there were a couple more happening and could really see that this is something that people wanted to get engaged in and that there’s a real opportunity here in terms of the fact that Avelo has made it so clear that they took this contract for financial reasons, and there’s obviously all this outrage across the country. So it seemed like an opportunity to bring more folks together to put more pressure on Avelo so that they actually drop this ICE contract.

MELINDA TUHUS: Is it easy for people in other cities to boycott a velo because they have other options?
UMME HOQUE: In some places Avelo is the only company, and in others there are other options. A lot of the flights that they’re flying are flown by other carriers like Budget or Southwest Airlines has a lot of the same coverage map as well. And both of these companies haven’t taken on signing an ICE contract.

And then even in places where people can’t find it easy to find another carrier. So for instance, in Delaware where that is actually the only operator out of that airline, the governor is still saying he won’t fly Avelo because of moral reasons, and he’s going to actually drive the extra whatever it’s going to take to go to a different airport to be able to make sure that they’re flying a different carrier. So I think that’s one of the really inspiring things we’re seeing too, is for people who, like others who are finding it just a little inconvenience, they’re still willing to do it to make a point. So that is really important and powerful in these times.

MELINDA TUHUS: From what I know and I haven’t researched it, but just from news reports, I know that Avelo flew at least one flight to El Salvador and I know they took a flight to Guatemala more recently. What do you know about how many flights they’ve done and where the flights have gone?

UMME HOQUE: So the flights are notoriously hard to track and purposefully so. They’re definitely trying to operate by stealth. I think the two that you mentioned and that sort of flight path are the ones that we’re most aware of.

MELINDA TUHUS: Do you have any direct information about, or anybody that you work with have direct information about what it’s like for those people who they take on those flights? I’ve heard that they’re handcuffed and chained around the waist — that really heavy duty kind of security — and it’s pretty scary to think if there was a problem, what would happen? Do you know if they are in fact at that level of security or not?

UMME HOQUE: That’s our understanding. The airline union, I’m sure you’ve seen their statement has already come out saying that they’re concerned about the health and safety around these flights. There’s a great ProPublica article I’m sure you’ve seen around the conditions of the flights and what we understand from folks, and we have heard from some people who are airport workers and then also from those things that we see online as well, that they’re horrific flights for people on them and that yes, the people on them are shackled. They’re not able to access toilets at times. If there were to be some sort of emergency or crisis, it would be almost impossible for them to get out because of the way that they’re actually held on these flights. The airline staff only receive so much support and training to be able to respond to this. So it’s seemingly a terrible traumatic experience for everyone that is actually a part of these flights.
MELINDA TUHUS: Do we know anything about the people that are being sent on these Avelo flights based on past experience of folks being picked up? I’m guessing a lot of them have no criminal record.
UMME HOQUE: Yeah, that’s our assumption as well. So the thing that we do know is that they’re the only known commercial airline that’s taking these flights and we know the types of folks who have been on there before, as mentioned before, because they’re trying so hard to make sure that people don’t know before the flights are going when they’re going. As we’ve seen, they have been taking folks who are actually legally able to stay in the country and putting them on ICE flights and sending them to various countries that they’re not even from.

So we are assuming that this is exactly the same case because we have seen evidence of that happening before and that’s why we’re really working so hard to stop them. We think that there’s a high likelihood that it’s basically just kidnapping for profit. So we’re not going to stop until Avelo drops the contract.

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