Moral principles drive faith leaders to speak out against Trump on immigration, foreign policy

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So he grew up in New Hampshire. He was born and raised in Keene, New Hampshire. He then left New Hampshire to go to military school. He went to VMI, to the Virginia Military Institute. He was actually valedictorian of his class at VMI. He then went on to Harvard. He was going to be an English literature major at Harvard, but he soon changed his mind. He felt a calling. He was called to the priesthood. And so he left Harvard. He enrolled in the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And it is while he was enrolled at seminary, he was still a seminarian, that he got permission from the seminary to complete some of his classwork remotely. Not in Massachusetts, but in Alabama. It was 1965, the roiling summer of 1965. And he went to Lowndes County, Alabama, right in the Alabama black belt. He went there to serve the poor. He tutored kids, tried to get people hooked up with programs that could help them financially. He helped integrate a whites only Episcopal church in Lowndes County, Alabama. He registered people to vote there. Specifically, he registered African-Americans to vote in Lowndes County. His name was Jonathan Daniels. And in 1965, he was 26 years old, 26 year old Episcopal seminarian. On August 14th, 1965, Jonathan Daniels, this young man, the seminarian, he put on his clerical collar and he took part in a peaceful picket of segregated whites only businesses in a town called Fort Deposit, Alabama, in Lowndes County. They wanted those businesses to serve everyone regardless of race. They protested for it. Local police in Lowndes County arrested every single person taking part in that picket. And they put them all in a garbage truck and they drove them in the garbage truck to the Lowndes County Jail in Hainville, Alabama. And all of the people, about 30 people who participated in that protest, they were all held in the Lowndes County Jail in Hainville for six days. And on August 20th, at the end of those six days, in the stinking heat of that hot, hot August, the protesters were let out and they were just dumped outside. No transportation to anywhere. No warning. They were just dumped out in the street. And then picture this, this young seminarian. Again, he's wearing his clerical collar, which he has now been wearing for six days in jail. He's 26 years old. And he's with another priest, another white priest, a Catholic priest who's about the same age as him. He's newly ordained as a Catholic priest. He's 27. And these two priests, age 26, 27, both white men, both dressed for work as priests, both dressed in their clerical collars. They get out of jail after six days spent in there. And when they get out, well, they and their fellow protesters are trying to figure out how are they going to get a ride? How are they going to get back to where they live? How are they going to let people know that they're out? These two priests and two young women who had also taken part in the protest, who had also been locked up, they decided they would cross the street from the jail and go get a Coke, go to a local store and get something to drink. It's a really hot day in August. It's these two priests, these two young white men and two young black women, again, who had also been part of the protest. And one of the young women, her name is Joyce Bailey. She's 19 years old. The other young woman, Ruby Sales, is just 17. But the four of them, the two priests and these two teenage girls, they walk over to the store to go get a soda. And Jonathan Daniels, the Episcopal seminarian, he borrows a dime from 17-year-old Ruby Sales so he can buy a soda. And the four of them walk up to that store. And as they get up to the door of that store, a white man with a shotgun swears at them and tells them to get off this property or I'll blow your bleeping heads off. And that man standing at the door of the store, he levels the shotgun and he aims at 17-year-old Ruby Sales. And this Episcopal seminarian, Jonathan Daniels, he sees that the man is actually going to fire the shotgun. and he pushes 17-year-old Ruby Sales out of the way, he throws himself in front of the gun and he takes the full blast from the shotgun to his chest and he is killed. And he's laying there on his back on the ground, bleeding to death. 17-year-old Ruby Sales survives. The other priest, 27-year-old Richard Morrisrow, he grabs the other young woman, this 19-year-old Joyce Bailey, and he runs with her. And the man at the store with the gun, having killed this Episcopal priest, this Episcopal seminarian, having killed Daniels, he fires again and he shoots the Catholic priest in the back and leaves him for dead. And 19-year-old Joyce Bailey survives and 17-year-old Ruby Sales survives. And Richard Morrisrow, the Catholic priest, 27 years old, he is shot in the back. He's shot in the spine. He is very nearly killed. He spends months in the hospital. But Jonathan Daniels dies there. He is killed there at the door of that store in Hainville, Alabama. And when they put his killer on trial in that Lowndes County courthouse, it was an all-white jury. And the man who killed that seminarian, he claimed self-defense, self-defense, an armed man claiming self-defense against these two young priests and these two teenage girls, needless to say, all of whom were unarmed. He claimed self-defense against them, and he was acquitted. It took one hour and 43 minutes of thinking about it. The following year, that killer did an interview with CBS News in which he proclaimed that he had no regrets about it. He said, quote, I would shoot them both tomorrow, by which he means both of those men in clerical collars. Seventeen-year-old Ruby Sales went on to become a seminarian in her own right and an important civil rights activist herself. Jonathan Daniels went on to become a saint, quite literally. The Episcopal Church, decades later, named Jonathan Daniels officially a Christian martyr. His feast day in the Episcopal Church is not the day he was killed, August 20th. It's actually August 14th, the day he was arrested for peacefully protesting before they killed him. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who is honored today with a federal holiday in his name, when he heard about what happened that day in Hainville, Dr. King said, quote, one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry was performed by Jonathan Daniels. in New Hampshire, where Jonathan Daniels is from, in Concord, New Hampshire, the Episcopal bishop there now in 2026 said that he had Jonathan Daniels on his mind when he gave new advice to the Episcopal priest who he oversees now in New Hampshire. It was at a vigil for Renee Good, who was shot and killed in Minneapolis by an ICE officer, when Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire, Rob Hirschfeld, said that he had asked his clergy in New Hampshire to prepare, quote, for a new era of martyrdom. I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness. And I've asked them to get their affairs in order. to make sure they have their wills written. Because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable. I've asked them to get their affairs in order. In an interview this weekend with NPR, Bishop Hirshfield explained what he meant by that very dramatic pronouncement. He said, quote, what I said to the clergy was, I'm just asking you to live your life without fear of death. Be prepared. I'm not asking you to go look for that bullet. I'm simply saying, be ready. Have your affairs in order. Have your soul ready in case you find yourself in trouble. The bishop said, quote, not everyone can be a Jonathan Daniels, but we're increasingly called to go into places that feel dangerous. While that Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire was doing that interview with NPR yesterday at the same time, Catholic Archbishop Timothy Broglio was doing an interview with the BBC. Now, Archbishop Broglio is the archbishop who serves the U.S. Armed Forces for the Catholic Church. And Archbishop Broglio was asked in this BBC interview yesterday about the prospect that President Donald Trump may order the U.S. military to invade Greenland, to try to seize Greenland for the United States. Archbishop Broglio told the BBC, quote, it would be very difficult for a soldier or Marine or a sailor by himself to disobey an order such as that. But strictly speaking, he or she would be within the realm of their own conscience. It would be morally acceptable to disobey that order. So, yesterday, in one day, we have the Episcopal bishop in New Hampshire explaining that his clergy need to have their wills written and their affairs in order because they may be called to stand up against tyranny in the United States right now to the point of dangerousness, to the point where their lives may be at risk, to the point where he is talking about martyrdom in his church. The same day the Catholic Archbishop for the U Armed Services says it would be morally acceptable for U service members to refuse orders from this president to invade a country that he is currently threatening All in one day Then today the very next day the three highest ranking Catholic clerics in the United States cardinals who oversee Washington, D.C. and Chicago and Newark, all released a joint statement lambasting the foreign policy adventurism of the U.S. government right now, saying it calls into question the, quote, moral role of our country. And, you know, that's a lot all at once. I mean, whether or not you're a religious person, even if you are a religious person, whether or not these developments are from your faith tradition, I think it's safe to say there's something going on when big, mainline, mainstream religious leaders of very, very large, very influential religious denominations in the United States, start talking in terms this stark. Start literally talking about martyrdom. Start trying to bring their moral force to bear against the behavior and actions of a U.S. president and the U.S. government that he commands. Tonight here on the show, we're going to speak live with Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago. He is going to be here live in just a minute. Look busy. Tomorrow marks one year since Donald Trump has been back in office for his second term as president. And as we speak tonight, on the eve of that one year anniversary, Our allies in Denmark and France and the UK and Germany and Norway and Sweden and the Netherlands and Finland, all of those countries, all our allies have all sent troops to Greenland to try to protect that island from us. Canada says they may send troops as well. Because all of NATO is still standing by each other, even if we now appear to have left and crossed over to the other side, potentially threatening war now against NATO. President Trump's bizarre letter to the government of Norway this weekend, complaining that him not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is reason enough for him to now righteously consider invading Greenland and seizing it for himself. I mean, that was one of the single strangest moments in the history of the American presidency. And it means that America truly, maybe more so than at any other time in the history of our nation, it means that America truly stands alone in the world. And for good reason. I mean, who are our real allies now? Like Russia, maybe? North Korea? I mean, I guess El Salvador, since we might want to use their torture prisons there again. I don't know. Who do we stand with now? Who would stand with us? These were protests this weekend in Denmark and Copenhagen. Huge protests in Copenhagen. This was one of the largest ever protests in Greenland as well. People there were wearing red hats that said MAGA, M-A-G-A, make America go away. People in Greenland are now making contingency plans in case of a U.S. invasion. People in Greenland now looking out at ships and fighter jets from our ostensible NATO allies posted up there in defense against the United States, which is threatening to invade and seize that nation. While threatening Greenland and NATO, this same president simultaneously is threatening to use the U.S. military, to use active duty U.S. troops against the American people in Minnesota as his ragtag paramilitary federal agents continue to run wild in the city of Minneapolis. Reaction against that all around the country continues. There are big protests today on the Martin Luther King holiday in Philadelphia. People marched today in Philly. Also, big crowds today marched in Austin, Texas, at the Texas State Capitol. There were protests this weekend against Trump and against ICE in Denver, Colorado, at the State Capitol, Colorado. There were protests against ICE and against Trump in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and in Akron, Ohio, and in Boston, Massachusetts, and out in the cold and the snow in Morristown, New Jersey. In Fargo, North Dakota, people turned out this weekend to protest against Trump and ICE when it was minus six degrees outside. Minus six in Fargo for these protests. Protests this weekend against Trump and ICE in Alameda, California, along miles of beach in Alameda. Protests in Portland, Maine this weekend because it is widely expected that Trump's federal agents will mount their next attack in Maine, in Portland and potentially in Lewiston, Maine, and people of Maine are getting ready. This was Minneapolis this weekend, where ongoing protests and community response to the thousands of federal agents overrunning that city included one big protest by Minnesota postal workers. ICE out of Minnesota, they're postal workers, and so they are very clever, included this sign in the shape of an envelope from ICE to Minneapolis, return to sender, ICE out forever. This is the stamp from ICE, care of U.S. government, to Minneapolis. Return to sender. Minnesota protests this weekend also included the annual powder horn sled races, which, look, this is a sled. She included this big bottle of de-icer, like windshield de-icer for your car. Also a big container of horchata. I'll take my horchata warm because F ice. And then when the horchata sled went down the hill, it threw the ice cubes out the top. Get it? Also a bowling ball knocking down a bunch of dictator bowling pins. Trump was right up front as the first dictator bowling pin. They all fell down. Also a flying chicken sled with the chicken having a big whistle to blow to let people know if ice is present. That's a good one. protests continuing day and night in Minnesota at the ICE facility in Minneapolis, that federal building there, literally day and night protests continuing there. We're also seeing continued anti-ICE protests at the ICE facility just outside Chicago in Broadview, Illinois. Thinking about these ICE facilities, ICE processing facilities, ICE holding facilities, here's a little bit of a heads up, something to watch out for. You've all seen, right, ongoing protests and occasionally very intense protests at these ICE facilities in places like Broadview, Illinois, and in Minneapolis at the ICE facility there. We've seen flashpoint protests at the ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, and the one in Tacoma, Washington. You've seen all that over the course of the past year, right? Well, here's something that we are now noticing. We're now noticing protests in sort of communities in uproar, really big local responses in far-flung, out-of-the-way towns all over the country. as ICE now starts to try to use some of the billions of dollars Trump and the Republicans just gave them as they use that money to try to build new facilities and prisons and prison camps all over the country. They have now cited where they want those places to go. They're trying to repurpose vacant warehouses into prison camps. Everywhere they are trying to do that, they are being pushed back. And oftentimes it doesn't make more than local news. But when you start looking for it. You see it everywhere. Here, for example, is local news coverage from Durant, Oklahoma. Locals there packed a town meeting and the local government in response rushed to pass a brand new ordinance that gives the city of Durant, Oklahoma, the power for the first time to say no to a jail or detention facility being put up in their town. They've got a 1.2 million square foot warehouse space that ICE wants to use to build a prison camp. But in Red State, Oklahoma, this local community, Durant, Oklahoma, and the Choctaw Nation, which is headquartered quite nearby, they are both very firmly saying no, they will not stand for it. Red State, Oklahoma. Also, look, Roxbury, New Jersey. Now, New Jersey is a blue state, but Roxbury is pretty much a red town. Roxbury has an all-Republican local government. But after locals in Roxbury, New Jersey, got word that ICE wanted to use a half-million-square-foot warehouse in their town to put up an ICE prison camp there. Locals started protesting like mad, and now the all-Republican town council in Roxbury has passed a resolution saying, no, you are not going to be allowed to build that here. Hutchins, Texas. In Hutchins, Texas, ICE is trying to build an immigrant prison camp there, too. They've got a million-square-foot vacant warehouse in Hutchins, Texas. Locals have been protesting, and now the mayor is coming out firmly and publicly and saying they are not going to allow ICE to put in a prison camp in Hutchins, Texas, either. It is something we do not need in our city and something we do not want. Orange County, New York. Again, New York, a blue state, but Orange County has generally leaned red. Residents of Orange County packing town halls and local public meetings, at least one of which had to be moved to a larger meeting site to accommodate the size of the crowd clamoring to get in. The village board and the mayor and the local Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan, the Republican County executive in Orange County, all now saying no, ICE will not be allowed to build a new ICE facility. They will not be allowed to build an ICE prison camp in Orange County, New York. It would be catastrophic for the local community. In Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, ICE said it wanted to build a prison camp there, a huge one, to hold 7,500 people. Kansas City, Missouri City Council responded by passing a ban, a five-year ban. Any non-municipal detention facility cannot be opened in that city for the next five years. That's a resolution introduced by the mayor. The ordinance was passed by the Kansas City, Missouri City Council. No, ICE, you cannot come in here and put a prison camp in here. Down to North Mississippi, Bahalia, Mississippi, locals there this past week, protesting at the site where ICE wants to build a prison camp at a vacant warehouse in their town as well. Northern Mississippi saying no to that. In Social Circle, Georgia, which is 45 miles east of Atlanta, you see the headline there, Georgia town of 5000 vows to fight ICE plan to warehouse 9000. Even local Republican officials, even local Trump supporters saying they will not let ICE turn a vacant warehouse in Social City, Social Center, Georgia, excuse me, Social Circle, Georgia, into a huge immigrant prison camp. People protesting there against it. Get ICE out of Social Circle. Hagerstown, Maryland. They're going to have a big protest tomorrow in Hagerstown. It'll include, among other people, their U.S. Senator, Chris Van Hollen, their congresswoman, April McLean, Delaney. protesting tomorrow against ICE's plans to try to build a prison camp in Hagerstown, Maryland as well. Salt Lake City, Utah. People went out in deep, dense, cold fog on Friday morning, visibility just a few feet. They convened at a local site where they'd heard that ICE or federal officials might be coming to inspect a local facility in Salt Lake City to see if it was a place they could put a new ICE prison camp. Salt Lake Tribune says like 50 people showed up in this incredibly dense fog to try to be there, to try to show any federal officials who turned up that they were going to face local resistance if they wanted to put in an ICE prison camp in Salt Lake City The feds didn brave it They never showed up Friday morning But then people in Salt Lake City came out Sunday morning and protested against it anyway, essentially saying, don't you dare try it here. We're not going to stand for it here. No ICE detention camp here. Tonight, we're going to talk to an organizer from the successful campaign to get Avello Airlines to stop flying deportation flights for ICE. Remember, we've been covering protests against Avello Airlines for months. Avello is a commercial air carrier that wants to fly people like, you know, on vacation or on business trips while they were simultaneously also chaining up people in shackles and handcuffs and flying them on their planes on deportation flights for ICE. People protested all over the country against Avello for that. At every airport they had operations, peaceful, relentless protests for months to pressure Avello into stopping taking money from ICE, stopping helping ICE with their deportations. And you know what? That Avello campaign succeeded. Avello Airlines has now announced that they have ended their contract with ICE. They are no longer flying their deportation flights. We're going to talk with one of the people involved in that successful protest campaign against Avello Airlines to ask how they did it. I mean, the Tesla takedown protests worked to get Elon Musk out of the U.S. government and ultimately to end his Doge thing. The Avello Airlines protests worked to get them out of deportation flights for ICE. And now we are seeing protests all over the country, anywhere they want to try to put an ICE prison camp, in any town of any size, in any state, no matter how liberal or how conservative. We're also seeing corporations like Target being pressured to tell ICE to get out of the state where they are headquartered in Minnesota, to tell ICE that they cannot stage in Target parking lots or enter Target stores for their operations without a warrant. We're seeing Home Depots continue to be protested, like this one in Phoenix this weekend. Home Depot continuing to face pressure to tell ICE to not use their parking lots, to not use their stores for their operations. We're also seeing protests now in the seat of power in Washington, like this really big one a few days ago at the headquarters of Customs and Border Patrol in Washington, D.C. Tomorrow, on January 20th, we are expecting people all over the country to stage walkouts from their jobs and their schools as a fitting way to mark one year exactly since Trump has been back in power and this disastrous year since. On this MLK Day, we are seeing Americans bring moral force of every imaginable kind. And moral force, bringing it to bear against the attempted overthrow of our system of government and the violence that's being used to try to achieve that. Moral force, nonviolent moral force and faith, the most powerful things in the world. We've got a big show tonight. Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago is here with us next live. Stay with us. What do you know about the Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas? It's where our government imprisons immigrant parents, children, and even newborns, a place with putrid drinking water, food with bugs and worms, and even a confirmed measles outbreak. These conditions are unsafe and inhumane. The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, is the only legal aid provider inside Dili, day in and day out. We're there right now, defending immigrants' rights to due process and filing emergency petitions to free families illegally detained. You can fuel our fight to protect the rights of our children, our neighbors, and all of us. Donate at freeallfamilies.org. That's freeallfamilies.org. This message comes from the International Rescue Committee. In Gaza, Sudan, and crisis zones around the world, the IRC is working to deliver emergency aid to those who need it most. Donate today by visiting rescue.org slash rebuild. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard this Air Force message. From now on, enjoy complimentary high-speed Wi-Fi powered by Starlink available in all our cabins. Stay connected to the people and things that matter most. Your emails, your music, your current favorite series, or even a live sporting event. With Air France High Speed Wi-Fi, bring your world on your journey. Elegance is a journey. Air France. Available on certain flights. Progressive rollout in 2026. Reserved for Flying Blue members. The free loyalty program. Exactly one year ago today, it was the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration for a second term as president. And the Catholic Archbishop of Chicago, one year ago today, delivered this message to the country. Well, I wish the new administration success in promoting the common good. The reports being circulated of planned mass deportations targeting the Chicago area are not only profoundly disturbing, but also wound us deeply. For members of faith communities, the threatened mass deportation also leaves us with the searing question. What is God telling us in this moment? People of faith are called to speak for the rights of others and to remind society of its obligation to care for those in need. If the indiscriminate mass deportation being reported were to be carried out, this would be an affront to the dignity of all people and communities. and deny the legacy of what it means to be an American. If the indiscriminate mass deportations being reported were to be carried out, this would be an affront to the dignity of all people. Said one year ago tonight, Cardinal Supich, Cardinal Blaise Supich, Archbishop of Chicago. Eight months later, Donald Trump launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, sending massive numbers of federal agents effectively to terrorize that city and hunt immigrants in the streets, hunt immigrants and ultimately hunt their defenders. Cardinal Cupich responded by saying this. Families are being torn apart. Children are left in fear and communities are shaken by immigration raids and detentions. These actions wound the soul of our city. Let me be clear. The church stands with migrants. Weeks later, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops made headlines when they issued a statement on behalf of the 200 plus bishops in the U.S. condemning the administration's policy of indiscriminate mass deportation. Cardinal Cupich was a key voice in drafting that statement. He has been outspoken about the moral imperatives of this moment. And that was true again today. Today, he and two other U.S. cardinals, the archbishops of Washington, D.C. and Newark, released a statement about our country's, quote, moral role in confronting evil around the world. Quote, the events in Venezuela, Ukraine and Greenland have raised basic questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace. The sovereign rights of nations to self-determination appear all too fragile in a world of ever greater conflagrations. We renounce war as an instrument for narrow national interests and proclaim that military action must be seen only as a last resort in extreme situations, not a normal instrument of national policy. Joining us now is Cardinal Blaise Cupich. He is the Archbishop of Chicago. Cardinal Cupich, it's a real honor to have you with us tonight. Thank you for making the time to be here. Thank you, Rachel. Good to be with you. Let me ask you about this statement you and your fellow cardinals made today about about U.S. foreign policy. Why why did you feel compelled to make this statement? Well, we were at the consistory with all the other cardinals of the world, and we heard voices of great alarm about what was happening in the United States, particularly the breakdown of the consensus that we've had in the world since World War II about the way that we handle conflicts, the easy turn to war and violence and military action, the sovereignty of nations, and the dialogue that must go on with allies in order to solve difficulties. We saw that alarm in the voices and in the expressions of the cardinals from around the world. And then subsequently, right as we were leaving Rome, the Holy Father gave his talk to the diplomats of the world who are in the Vatican. And he gave us a language to speak to the issues that we believe need to be addressed following what we heard from the cardinals around the world. Obviously, the church is a nonpartisan institution, and we have a secular government, and we have the separation of church and state in our country. But the church obviously also speaks with moral force and speaks in some ways on behalf of the millions of Catholics of all different backgrounds in the United States. I wonder if it takes some bravery on your part and the part of your fellow cardinals to speak the way that you are and the way that you have against a secular administration and government leadership that has had no qualms whatsoever about not only denouncing, but taking as many actions as they can to harm those who criticize them. Well, first of all, we're citizens, too. We have a responsibility for the good of the nation and the common good of the world. So there really should not be any hesitation on our part to offer what we can from our own tradition, but also to recall in history how the world has come together since the Second World War in order to solve problems. I'm old enough to have lived in those years post World War Two, where I saw the United Nations come together, where treaties between allies, especially in NATO, were drafted. And when we see that those kinds of ways in which multilateralism has been built evaporate now, we can speak to those issues from our own experience, but also from the basis of our own moral teaching. Cardinal Cupich, we're speaking tonight while you are in Chicago. Obviously, that's your that's your diocese. Chicago has really been through a lot in these last couple of months. I have to ask for your reflections, not just on what the government did to put immigrant communities and immigrants and the people of Chicago broadly in such difficulty over the past few months, but the response of the people of Chicago. Your reflections on the way people responded to this influx of federal agents the mutual aid actions that people took to try to help immigrant families and immigrant communities and the way people peacefully protested against federal agents trying to stop the mass deportation campaigns that you have condemned? Well, I think there was an appreciation of the fact that Chicago is the immigrant city. We are, even this day, in the Catholic Church, we celebrate mass in 26 different languages. So we have our finger on the pulse of what an immigrant community is. And so we have organized from early on legal services for people, ways in which we can support them materially in terms of food and necessary ways in which they can visit hospitals or doctors to give that kind of support. And people have pulled together in order for that to happen. So I'm very proud of that. But I'm not surprised at the heart of who we are in Chicago here is a deep appreciation of our immigrant roots. Cardinal Blaise, Archbishop of Chicago. Sir, it is an honor to have you with us here this evening. Cable news, talking with somebody of your position in the church is is is a very rare thing. And I'm conscious of what an honor this is. Thank you, sir. Well, I hope it's maybe the first of other chances we can get together. Me too. Thank you, sir. All right. More news ahead here tonight. Stay with us. If you're a parent and want to help set up your child for success, then IXL is right for your family. As an effective and affordable online learning program, IXL covers math, language arts, science, and social studies using interactive practice problems for kids from pre-K to 12th Great. Listeners can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today at IXL.com slash 20. Visit IXL.com slash 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. Don't you wish everything was more rewarding? With Rakuten, almost everything is. You can earn cash back on those new shoes you've been wanting. You can save on the next trip you book. You can cash in on groceries. Just join, shop thousands of your favorite brands, and save. And when it's time to redeem those rewards, choose PayPal, check, bill points, or cash out with gift cards. So go ahead. Take a trip. Fill a cart. Order dessert. Rakuten is a world of rewards. Join today for free. Go to Rakuten.com or get the app. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. We optimize everything about our health routines except the air we breathe. And when your air is off, your body feels it first. The Blue Air Blue Signature Air Purifiers quietly remove tiny airborne pollutants and odors, supporting deeper sleep, better recovery, and clearer focus. Visit BlueAir.com and use code SIGNATURE30. It's a small airline. It's called Avello, A-V-E-L-O. This year, we've talked about it a whole bunch on this show because we took note fairly early in this Trump administration's first year. We took note that all over the country, people were starting to protest this little airline. It's really not a high-profile thing. It mostly serves smaller airports, places like New Haven, Connecticut or Santa Rosa, California. But when Trump came back to the White House, Avello decided they would make money by working with the Trump administration to fly deportation flights in addition to all the commercial flights they were offering to retail passengers. That combination translated into a lot of protests against Avello because, honestly, it's kind of a tough sell, right? You know, fly us to Key West for vacation and pay no attention to the waste chains and shackles we're also using to fly other passengers to legal black hole prison camps. For months, people protested against Avello Airlines at more and more airports across the country. Last summer, we reported that Avello had decided to pull out of airports in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State, and also Montana. They shut down all of their West Coast routes, saying the decision had nothing to do with the protests at all. But then on the East Coast, we saw the state of Connecticut cut off some state subsidies for Avello because it was carrying ICE prisoners on deportation flights. After that, Avello pulled out of the airport in Hartford, Connecticut as well. At the end of October, 13,000 petitions were delivered to the governor of Maryland, calling on him to cancel Maryland state contracts with Avello, calling on Avello to be banned from BWI, from Baltimore, Washington International Airport. month by month, protest by protest, petition by petition, from Baltimore to Hartford to Rochester, New York, to Wilmington, Delaware, to Burbank, California, Daytona Beach, Florida, everywhere. Americans kept the pressure on Avello in a million different ways. The airline was clearly feeling the pressure. And we know that because guess what? Avello Airlines has now announced that they are ending their deportation flights. They are ending their work with ICE. The airline saying in a statement that the deportation flights, quote, did not deliver enough consistent and predictable revenue to overcome its operational complexity and costs. We know a lot about what some of those costs were. In less than a year, Avello Airlines went from enthusiastically signing up to run deportation flights for Trump, to make some extra cash, to having to shut down multiple routes and pull out of multiple airports to getting out of the deportation flight business altogether. This is a victory, a very clear victory for the coalition of everyday Americans who decided to take this on, who decided they would pressure this airline to get out of Trump's deportation business. They did it and it worked. And it is worth understanding exactly how they did it. One of the organizers joins us next. Refuse inevitability. Refuse inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. The company Avello Airlines has now stopped providing deportation flights for ICE and the Trump administration. That's a decision that follows months of protests pushing Avello to do just that. When the organizers, some of the organizers of that effort to push Avello to make this decision learned that they had won. When Avello made its announcement that it was quitting ICE, two of the organizers who had supported that protest campaign wrote a sort of online explainer about how they did it and what they learned in the process. They said in part, quote, more than anything, this campaign proves the fragility of the system. ICE and the security forces of this current government are not invulnerable. This win proves what happens when we refuse inevitability and fight together. That lesson is dangerous to any system that survives on our silence and our resignation to the idea that we can't change anything. Because we can. And we did. And there's more to come. Joining us now is Umi Haak, one of the authors of that piece. She does trainings at Defend and Recruit, which is an immigrant defense network that's one of the many groups that supported this successful campaign to get Avello Airlines to stop working with ICE. Ms. Haak, it's nice to meet you. Thanks very much for being here. Thanks for having me and thanks for all your incredible coverage of this campaign. It's just, yeah, it's a joy to be here. Well, let me ask you about the campaign. It seemed to me, covering it from the outside, like this started bubbling up sort of organically when people did their own research, did their own work and realized what Avello was doing, maybe while they were also flying commercial flights at their local regional airports. What were the origins of this and how did it coalesce into something sort of more cohesive? Yeah, this campaign really did begin because people started noticing something that they definitely didn't want us to notice. Deportation flights usually take place in the shadows. They're hidden from anyone knowing about them. But then some local organizers in Connecticut realized that Avello, which branded itself as a hometown, a hometown brand, had signed a contract to actually take these flights. And so they started some local organizing and there was a handful of protests across the country. And they launched this incredible boycott petition and called on all of us to boycott with them as well. And that caught attention of us at Siembrough, North Carolina and our defendant of crew brand. A coalition started forming together of the groups called the Stop Avello Coalition. Other groups started getting involved like Mahente. And we started digging into it more. And it became really obvious that Avello was a public company that had brand, customers, public funding. and they were on a quest for more funding. And it wasn't only in the state of Connecticut where actual citizens and taxpayers were actually paying for these flights because of subsidies. And so we realized that that made them an especially important and especially vulnerable target and started all working together to be able to leverage different strategies, to be able to really affect this pillar of support on ISIS deportation regime and eventually win this outcome together. You say an important and vulnerable target, important in the sense that obviously ICE was using Avello. They don't necessarily need Avello. But how does a campaign like this target or weaken the overall ICE deportation scheme that you're opposed to? Yeah, we know that ICE and depends on pillars of support that make it possible for ICE to be able to do anything. Being able to take passengers on an aircraft and kidnapping people and putting people on those flights is one of those ways of being able to do that. And so noticing that this company was a public company that had signed on for these flights, had said they had done it for financial reasons, that they were doing it for the money. And then also seeing that we would be able to not only could we could only not only affect this company, but also send a signal to any company or corporation that's thinking about doing business with ICE or doing business with ICE to show the resistance that's possible and that will be mobilized and organized if these contracts are taken. Allow that it was. That's why we say it's especially important and especially vulnerable as well. Important in the sense that public that important in the sense that its actions are key to what ICE is able to do. Vulnerable in the sense that it's got public facing needs that are visible to its opponents as well as to its potential customers. Umi Hawk, Defend and Recruit Immigrant Defense Network that supported this pressure campaign on Avello Airlines, a successful campaign. And Ms. Hawk, please stay in touch. I'd be really interested to hear about what you and your colleagues are working on next. I think this is a really important signal campaign that you were part of. Yeah, absolutely. And if folks are looking to get more involved, now is the time to get involved with organizing around immigration defense. And there's resources and tools on our website around other corporations that are enabling us, other ways that you can get involved in these coalition efforts. The fight doesn't stop now. We really do need to refuse inevitability. And now is the time, especially if you're not an immigrant yourself, to get involved in campaigns and protests and organizing so that we can turn outrage into action and then action into actual power. Umi Hawk, thank you very much. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us. One last thing, Thursday morning, 10 a.m. Eastern, Jack Smith is going to testify in Congress about his investigation into Trump's efforts to overthrow the U.S. government and overturn the results of the 2020 election. MSNOW is going to have live coverage of that Thursday morning when Jack Smith testifies live. But then Thursday night, we're going to have special coverage. I'm going to be there along with Nicole Wallace and Lawrence O'Donnell and a whole bunch of our MSNOW colleagues. Thursday night, 8 p.m. Eastern. I will see you there. The whole gang's going to be there Thursday night. All right, that does it for me for now. If you dread dealing with your insurance more than getting stuck in an elevator with an overshare. Bean burrito for lunch. You have Insuranoia. You should have NJM. They go to great lengths to do what's best for their policyholders. Insurance underwritten by NJM Insurance Company and its subsidiaries.