"A $70m aircraft the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is considering for deportation flights has a luxurious interior and will be used to transport Trump administration officials to engagements in comfort, according to a report published Friday."
#DHS #LuxuryJet #DeportationFlights #GovernmentSpending #ICENews #ICE
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/20/luxury-jet-dhs-deportation-flights-trump-officials
"Trump policy allowing swift deportations to alternate countries rejected by US judge"
"A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration had adopted an unlawful policy that allows for the rapid deportation of migrants to countries other than their own without providing them a chance to object and raise concerns for their safety."
#USpol #USpolitics #ImmigrationEnforcement #DeportationFlights
Rights Groups Challenge UK-France Deportation Flights
Rights groups ask airlines to stop UK-France deportation flights for asylum seekers, citing human rights issues. Find out who is affected and what happens next.
#DeportationFlights, #UKFranceDeal, #AsylumSeekers, #HumanRights, #AirFrance
https://newsletter.tf/uk-france-deportation-flights-rights-groups-protest-airline-boycott/
Rights groups are asking airlines like Air France to stop flying asylum seekers back to France under a new UK deal. This is due to concerns about human rights.
#DeportationFlights, #UKFranceDeal, #AsylumSeekers, #HumanRights, #AirFrance
https://newsletter.tf/uk-france-deportation-flights-rights-groups-protest-airline-boycott/
Republicans and Democrats alike should not tolerate open defiance of a court order. #MeetThePress #KristiNoem #DeportationFlights
Why Avelo Airlines isn’t in my flight plans and won’t be anytime soon
LAS VEGAS
The last two years, Avelo Airlines has provided a cheap, conveniently-scheduled option for short-haul flights from here to smaller California airports at the end of Black Hat–Santa Rosa in 2023, then Burbank last year. But this time, that startup carrier put itself out of consideration because of a new set of routes it flies that nobody should want to board.
In May, the Houston-based carrier began operating deportation flights for the Trump administration under a contract it signed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in April. This is a deliberately cruel from of transportation, as ProPublica documented in an April report: Flight attendants for the charter airline Global Crossing Airlines reported that they were told not to provide more than the most basic medical care for detainees who were flown with their hands and feet in shackles, making any evacuation in an emergency difficult to impossible.
The union representing Avelo’s flight attendants raised the same concern in early April after Avelo inked its deal with ICE. “Having an entire flight of people handcuffed and shackled would hinder any evacuation and risk injury or death,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA’s statement read. “It also impedes our ability to respond to a medical emergency, fire on board, decompression, etc. We cannot do our jobs in these conditions.”
Whatever you feel about people who came to this country illegally, you should be able to recognize this treatment of them as an abuse of basic human rights. You should also know that the Trump administration’s obsession with mass deportation has led ICE to detain people with no criminal record whatsoever–including U.S. citizens.
Seth Miller, an aviation journalist who has occasionally loaned his expertise to my stories (also a poll worker like me, a woodworker like my brother, and since January, a Democratic representative in New Hampshire’s state house), decided to do something about that. He set up a site, AvelNo, and paid for two billboards near Avelo’s hub in New Haven, Conn., that ask travelers to stop flying Avelo until Avelo stops flying for ICE.
The airline responded by sending a cease-and-desist letter making the laughable allegation that the campaign, featuring a tweaked version of Avelo’s logo, infringed on Avelo’s trademarks and confused people. After Avelo persuaded the billboard operator to take down those signs, Miller filed a countersuit seeking a declaratory judgment upholding his First Amendment rights to criticize Avelo in those ways.
The airline has also offered insultingly shallow responses to inquiries by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D.) as it’s continued operating these deportation flights in planes painted in all white instead of its usual livery. I spotted one during a connection in Denver at the end of May and had to wonder about the condition of the human cargo inside that 737.
Last month, Avelo announced that it was exiting the West Coast entirely to focus on the East Coast–including a new route from Dulles to Tweed New Haven. But it doesn’t matter how many routes Avelo adds or how cheap its fares are, before fees to pick a seat and carry on or check a larger bag: That airline is dead to me until it stops treating the Trump administration’s human-rights abuses as a profit opportunity while trying to silence a fellow journalist for calling them out on it.
#AvelNo #Avelo #BlackHat #deportationFlights #humanRights #ice #ICEAir #immigration #las #LasVegas #massDeportation #SethMiller #TrumpAdministration
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