The shackles are complimentary
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a truth and reconcilation commission to detail the many crimes of the Trump 2.0 administration. The November 6 Committee tried that. A majority of voters last fall reelected the multiple felon and career con man anyway. The best I can hope for right now is for everyone associated with Trump 2.0 to carry pariah status to their graves. Pray they don’t take our republic with them.
That doesn’t mean Trump collaborators won’t face consequences in this world (if not the next). ProPublica last week revealed how Texas-based Avelo airlines could have its tax breaks and local support disappeared like the deportees it flies out of the country under contract to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):
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.
On the opposite coast, Californian protesters chanted, “Avelo has got to go” at the entrance to the Sonoma County Airport:
Dozens of activists lined the entrance of Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, urging people not to fly Avelo Airlines.
The budget carrier, which still serves Santa Rosa, is now facing backlash after announcing it would soon begin operating ICE deportation charter flights out of Arizona–an agreement made with the Trump Administration.
“We are asking folks not to give their money to anyone who is deporting individuals without due process of law,” said Laura Powell from Indivisible Sonoma County.
“Due Process Not Profits”
Constitution State residents at Tweed New Haven Airport feel the same, NPR reported Tuesday morning:
REPORTER JOEL ROSE: Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the airport after the company announced a deal to operate deportation flights for ICE. John Lugo is an activist from New Haven who helped organize the demonstration.
JOHN LUGO: It’s outrageous. Like, a company that operates from New Haven, in one of the most welcoming cities for migrants, right now, they’re going to be making profits, like, deporting people back to their countries.
ROSE: Facing financial headwinds, Avelo struck a long-term deal to work with U.S. immigration and customs enforcement. The company says three of its planes will begin operating charter flights for ICE based in Arizona starting May 12. They’ll join the small fleet of ICE Air Operations carriers that try hard to keep out of the spotlight.
TOM CARTWRIGHT: There is no transparency, and that’s by design.
ROSE: That is 71-year-old Tom Cartwright, a former banking executive turned volunteer activist. Cartwright started tracking ICE Air using public flight tracking data during the first Trump administration. Now he’s become the go-to source for information about ICE flights. Every day, Cartwright says, between eight and 10 planes carry passengers in shackles and leg chains both inside the U.S. and on deportation flights around the globe. The system has worked roughly the same way under administrations of both parties. Cartwright says the airlines that operate these flights for ICE are subcontractors, usually private charter airlines that fly for many different clients.
Carrying signs such as “Due Process Not Profits” and “Don’t Let Your Family Vacation Support Family Separation,” a crowd of about 200 protesters booed and chanted as Avelo airplanes flew overhead. Stationed on the corner of Burr and Dean streets, the gathering was three times larger than the previous protest and included U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73, State Rep. Juan Candelaria and three New Haven alders.
“You made a bad mistake, you made a political mistake, you made a legal mistake, you made a financial mistake and, most importantly, you made a moral mistake,” Blumenthal said at the event, referring to Avelo. Blumenthal condemned the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign in his speech, criticizing the lack of due process and the use of Salvadoran prisons to house deportees.
Old-school Democrats believe that undefined “kitchen table” issues are what Americans care about most, not abstractions like constitutional provisions. Tell that to the NRA. Now that Trump 2.0 is disappearing residents seemingly at random, revoking visas of international students (then restoring them), deporting green card holders, jailing international travelers, and terrorizing its own citizens, suddenly abstractions like “due process of law” are very, very relevant.
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