CT faith leaders denounce Avelo Airlines as deportation flights start – CT Mirror
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by Emilia Otte, CT Mirror
May 12, 2025
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Over a dozen faith leaders from across the state of Connecticut stood outside Tweed New Haven Airport on Monday evening in protest of Avelo Airlines’ first deportation flight transporting migrants from Arizona to El Salvador.
The clergy, who represented a variety of faith denominations, spoke to a crowd of people carrying signs and chanting “Shame on Avelo!”
Josh Williams, the pastor of the Elm City Vineyard Church in New Haven, asked how many members of the crowd had flown on a flight chartered by Avelo. A number of hands shot up. Williams said he had flown on the airline as well.
“ I’ll tell you why I did … it was cheap, easy and convenient,” said Williams. “And it turns out that things that are cheap, easy, and convenient aren’t always good or right.”
This is not the first protest at Tweed Airport against Avelo Airlines. Early last month, about 50 people gathered outside of Tweed to protest the company’s decision to contract with the state Department of Homeland Security to charter deportation flights.
A second protest took place at Tweed on April 17, where U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., called on Avelo to “do the right thing” and break their contract with the federal government. An online petition calling for the boycott of Avelo has nearly 37,800 signatures.
Bishop John Selders of Amistad United Church of Christ in Hartford decried that the deportations were taking place without “due process of law.”
“ When systems fail, we have the moral right and the faith-filled obligation to raise our righteous voice and bear witness,” said Selders. “ We must bear witness in response to the moral and spiritual depravity decisions that promote money and profits over people and humanity.”
Courtney Goff, communications manager for Avelo, told The Connecticut Mirror in an email that their major priority regarding Monday’s protest was to ensure that everyone was safe.
“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,” Goff wrote.
Faith leaders who were present Monday repeatedly quoted portions of the Bible that referenced the duty to welcome strangers who enter into a foreign land, and to love one’s neighbor.
“Scripture doesn’t speak specifically to AI or tariff policy between nations, but it does say really clearly how we are to treat immigrants. It says in the Book of Leviticus that you are to treat the immigrant as yourself because you know what it’s like to be a stranger,” Jamie Michaels, senior pastor at the First and Summerfield United Methodist Church in New Haven, told CT Mirror.
Helena Martin, a Ph.D student at Yale who is also an Episcopal priest, said she felt it was important to show people the truth about what it meant to be Christian.
“ It is being a faithful Christian to advocate for due process and for caring for our neighbor. Being a Christian has nothing to do with separating families and deporting people without caring about who they are,” she told CT Mirror.
Rabbi Herbert Brockman of Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden recalled the pride he felt as the child of immigrants reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. He said his parents experienced poverty and violence before coming to the U.S., and he emphasized how the end of the pledge was a commitment to justice that could be connected back to the prophets of the Old Testament.
Margarita, an immigrant from Ecuador who did not give her last name, also spoke at the rally. She told the crowd through an interpreter that her husband had gone for a routine immigration check in Hartford two months ago, and had been detained. Four days ago, he was deported to Ecuador.
Margarita asked for help so that she and her 9-year-old son could return to Ecuador as well. The organization Unidad Latina in Accion has set up a GoFundMe page to help raise money for their return.
Margarita told CT Mirror in Spanish that she and her husband had come to the U.S. so that their son could receive an education and a better life. But she currently has no job, she said, and she and her son have had to stay in a church. She said her son enjoys school.
“He doesn’t want to leave, but he says ‘I miss my dad,’” she said.
Avelo’s contract with DHS has also prompted state officials to take action. In April, the legislature’s Judiciary Committee voted to expand a bill regulating the ways that state and local police can or cannot cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under the provision, companies would be added to the list of entities that are able to be prohibited from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The new language in the bill would require that “any principal or key personnel of the person, firm or corporation” that decides to apply for a contract with a state agency “will not cooperate with any federal immigration authority or engage in any contract for purposes of the detention, holding or transportation of an individual” protected under the state’s Trust Act.
If the company refuses, the state would be directed to award the contract instead “to the next highest ranked proposer or the next lowest responsible qualified bidder” or to seek new bids.
During the Judiciary Committee meeting in April, Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the committee, noted that Avelo does not pay Connecticut’s state aviation fuel tax.
On April 8, Attorney General William Tong sent a letter to Avelo Airlines CEO Andrew Levy asking questions about the company’s policies for deportation flights and expressing “deep disappointment” at the company’s decision to contract with the Department of Homeland Security.
Levy responded a week later, saying that there seemed to be a “fundamental misunderstanding how the federal government contracts the flights that are the subject of your [Tong’s] letter.” He suggested that Tong submit a Freedom of Information Act to obtain the contract between Avelo Airlines and the Department of Homeland Security.
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Emilia Otte is CT Mirror’s Justice Reporter, where she covers the conditions in Connecticut prisons, the judicial system and migration. Prior to working for CT Mirror, she spent four years at CT Examiner, where she covered education, healthcare and children’s issues both locally and statewide. She graduated with a BA in English from Bryn Mawr College and a MA in Global Journalism from New York University, where she specialized in Europe and the Mediterranean.
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