Here's How We Pressured an Airline to End Its Contract With ICE [View all]

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https://truthout.org/articles/heres-how-we-pressured-an-airline-to-end-its-contract-with-ice/

Here’s How We Pressured an Airline to End Its Contract With ICE

ICE is not invulnerable. The Avelo Airlines win proves what happens when we refuse inevitability and fight together.

By Umme Hoque & Daniel Hunter , TRUTHOUT
Published January 14, 2026

The same day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a little-known airline named Avelo announced that it would no longer fly deportation flights. Though the announcement was overshadowed by the news in Minneapolis, it is a major victory: The biggest commercial carrier of kidnapped and detained souls is ending its estimated $150 million contract with ICE.

The campaign targeting Avelo was more than just a boycott. Like the historic grape boycott or the more recent Tesla Takedown movement, it required a mix of local and national organizing, direct action, and political pressure alongside the better-known boycott. Organizers targeted an ICE-enabling contractor with a public-facing brand, financial fragility, and political dependencies. This was not a symbolic protest — it was leverage. It sent a definitive signal to other commercial airlines to keep distance from ICE deportations and opened space for pressure on other ICE enablers.

Exposing a Hidden Pillar of Support

The campaign did not begin as a national strategy. It began the way many effective movements do: with people noticing something meant to remain unnoticed.

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