by McKenzie Funk
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Connecticut’s attorney general has sent his second warning in a month to the low-cost carrier Avelo Airlines, telling the startup it has jeopardized tax breaks and other local support by agreeing to conduct deportation flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Democrats in the Connecticut legislature, meanwhile, are working to expand the state’s sanctuary law to penalize companies like Avelo for working with federal immigration authorities.
The backlash comes after Texas-based Avelo signed an agreement early this month to dedicate three of its 20 planes to carrying out deportation flights as part of the charter network known as ICE Air. It also follows a report by ProPublica, which Connecticut Attorney General William Tong cited in an April 8 letter to Avelo, revealing flight attendants’ unease over the treatment and safety of detainees on such flights. The concerns airline staffers raised included how difficult it could be to evacuate people wearing wrist and ankle shackles.
“Can Avelo confirm that it will never operate flights while non-violent passengers are in shackles, handcuffs, waist chains and/or leg irons?” Tong’s April 8 letter asks. “Can Avelo confirm that it will never operate a flight without a safe and timely evacuation strategy for all passengers?”
Tong then issued a public statement on April 15 reiterating his concerns.
In 2022, before its current ICE Air contract, Avelo flew a series of charters for the immigration agency. A flight attendant captured photos of detainees in wrist and ankle shackles.
(Obtained by ProPublica)
In an April 3 email to Avelo employees obtained by ProPublica and other publications, CEO Andrew Levy called the deportation contract “too valuable not to pursue” at a time when his startup was losing money and consumer confidence was declining, leading Americans to take fewer trips. Avelo would close one of its bases, in Sonoma County, California, and move certain flight routes to off-peak days as resources shifted to ICE Air. Deportation flights would be based out of Mesa, Arizona, and would begin in May.
Avelo has a major hub in New Haven, Connecticut, and it recently expanded to Bradley International Airport near Hartford. In 2023, the airline won a two-year fuel-tax moratorium from state lawmakers after extensive lobbying.
Last Thursday, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal was among the nearly 300 attendees at a rally outside the New Haven airport. “Avelo has to change its course,” he said. “To the president of Avelo: You really stepped in it.”
Members of the public are raising objections as well. An online petition calling for a boycott of Avelo unless it drops its new ICE contract has collected almost 35,000 signatures since April 6. And protests are spreading from Connecticut to cities the airline serves across the country, including Eugene, Oregon; Rochester, New York; Burbank, California; and Wilmington, Delaware.
Tong’s letter to Avelo demanded that the airline produce a copy of its ICE Air contract. The attorney general also asked if Avelo would deport people in defiance of court orders, pointing to March flights to El Salvador carried out by another charter airline, GlobalX, after a federal judge ordered that the planes be turned back. Neither ICE nor GlobalX responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment.
Levy answered Tong with a one-page letter. In it, Levy suggested that if Connecticut wanted more information about Avelo’s ICE Air contract, it should file a public records request. (Federal statistics show that such requests to ICE typically take months or years to be answered.)
If the attorney general wanted to know more about the use of shackles on deportation flights, Levy continued, he should ask the Department of Homeland Security. If Tong wanted to know more about evacuation requirements, he should address questions to the Federal Aviation Administration. For Avelo’s part, Levy assured Tong, the airline “remains committed to public safety and the rule of law.”
“Regardless of the administration or party affiliation,” an Avelo spokesperson told ProPublica in an emailed statement, “when our country calls our practice is to say yes. We follow all protocols from DHS and FAA.”
A Democrat-sponsored bill to expand Connecticut’s sanctuary law has now cleared its House Judiciary Committee in a 29-12, party-line vote, over the strong objections of Republicans, and awaits a full vote on the floor. If it passes, any companies — including airlines — proposing to do business with the state must pledge not to “cooperate or contract with any federal immigration authority for purposes of the detention, holding or transportation of an individual.”
Meanwhile, Avelo’s fuel-tax moratorium expires on June 30. So far, no legislation has been introduced to extend it, and activists are urging Connecticut lawmakers to let the tax break die.
