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

really happy to have you here.

So he grew up in New Hampshire.

He was born and raised in Keen, 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 gonna 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 Royal Inxommer of 1965.

And he went to Lowns County, Alabama,

right in the Alabama black belt.

He went there to serve the poor.

He tutored kids.

He tried to get people hooked up with programs

that could help them financially.

He helped integrate a white's only Episcopal church

in Lowns County, Alabama.

He registered people to vote there.

Specifically, he registered African-Americans

to vote in Lowns 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, white's only businesses

in a town called Fort deposit, Alabama, in Lowns County.

They wanted those businesses to serve everyone,

regardless of race.

They protested for it.

Local police in Lowns 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 Lowns County jail in Hanville, Alabama.

And all of the people,

about 30 people who participated in that protest,

they were all held in the Lowns County jail

in Hanville 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 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 gonna get a ride?

How are they gonna get back to where they live?

How are they gonna 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 women 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 is laying there on his back on the ground,

bleeding to death.

17-year-old Ruby sales survives.

The other priest, 27-year-old Richard Morris wrote.

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 Morris wrote,

the Catholic priest, 27-year-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 Lounge 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.

Took one hour and 43 minutes to think about it.

The following year, that killer didn't interview

with CBS News in which he proclaimed

that he had no regrets about it.

He said, quote, I would shoot them both tomorrow,

which he means both of those men in clerical collars.

17-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 20.

If 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 Hanville,

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,

and conquered 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 priests

who he oversees now in New Hampshire.

It was at a vigil for Renee Good,

who was shot and killed Minneapolis by an ICE officer

when Episcopal Bishop in New Hampshire Rob Hirschfield

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 guises 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 the interview this weekend with NPR Bishop Hirschfield

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.

Well, that Episcopal Bishop in New Hampshire

was doing that interview with NPR yesterday at the same time.

Catholic Archbishop Timothy Brolio was doing an interview with the BBC.

Now, Archbishop Brolio is the Archbishop who serves the US Armed Forces

for the Catholic Church.

And Archbishop Brolio was asked in this BBC interview yesterday

about the prospect that President Donald Trump may order the US military

to invade Greenland, to try to seize Greenland for the United States.

Archbishop Brolio 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 and one day, we have the Episcopal Bishop in New Hampshire

explaining that his clergy need to have their wills written and their affairs on 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 US Armed Services

says it would be morally acceptable for US 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 US government right now,

saying it calls into question the, quote, moral role of our country.

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, a very, very large, very influential religious denominations in the United States,

start talking in terms of this stark, start literally talking about martyrdom,

start trying to bring their moral force to bear against the behavior and actions of the US president

and the US government that he commands.

Tonight here on the show, we're going to speak live with Cardinal Blaise,

Supage 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 may be 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 Al 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 US 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 US military to use active duty US troops against the American people in Minnesota,

as his rag-tag 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 march 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 Morstown, 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.

Protest this weekend against Trump and ICE in Alameda, California, along miles of beach in Alameda.

Protest in Portland, Maine this weekend, because it is widely expected that Trump's federal agents

will mount their next attack in Maine in Portland, 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, their 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.

It's included this big bottle of D-Icer, like windshield D-Icer for your car.

Also a big container of horchata.

I'll take my horchata warm because F-Ice.

And then when the horchata slide, a 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.

Are 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.

Protest 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 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 are 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 used 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 like 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 to 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 1.5 million square foot warehouse in their town

to put up an ICE prison camp there, local started protesting like Matt.

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.

And 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 makes 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,

I said it wanted to build a prison camp there, a huge one to hold 75 hundred 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, by Haley, 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 5,000 vows,

to fight ICE plan to warehouse 9,000,

even local Republican officials, even local Trump supporters,

saying they will not let ICE turn a vacant warehouse in social center, Georgia,

excuse me, social circle, Georgia, into a huge immigrant prison camp.

People protesting there against it, guite ICE out of social circle.

Hakerstown, Maryland, they're going to have a big protest tomorrow in Hakerstown.

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 Hakerstown, 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't 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.

You'll 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.

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 got a big show tonight, Cardinal Blay's Superb of Chicago is here with us next live.

Stay with us.

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 Syrian 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 in a front 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 in a front to the dignity of all people.

I said, when you go tonight, Cardinal Blay's Superb 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 Superb 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 Superb was a key voice in drafting that statement.

He has been outspoken about the moral imperatives of this moment.

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

in 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 Soutichis, the Archbishop of Chicago.

Cardinal Superb is 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 to your fellow Cardinals made today about U.S. foreign policy.

Why did you feel compelled to make this statement?

Well, we were at the concessory 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 us 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 at 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 am old enough to have lived in those years post-war 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 Supic, we're speaking tonight while you are in Chicago.

Obviously, 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 that 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-Soupich, Archbishop of Chicago.

Sorry, it is an honor to have you with us here this evening.

A people news talking with somebody of your position in the church is a very rare thing, and I'm conscious of what an honor this is.

Thank you, sir.

Well, I hope it's made me the first of other chances we can get together.

Me too, thank you, sir.

All right, more news ahead here tonight.

Stay with us.

It's a small airline, it's called Avello, a V-E-L-O.

This year we've talked about 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?

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.

It had 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.

And 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.

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 and 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, to 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 Hock. 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. Hock, 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, I 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.

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 C.M. Brown, North Carolina, and our defendant group brand, a coalition started forming together of the groups called the Stop Avello coalition.

Other groups started getting involved like Mahente, and then 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 ICE's deportation regime, and eventually when 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, 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.

Umihak, a defendant recruit immigrant defense network that supported this pressure campaign on Avello Airlines, a successful campaign.

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 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 ICE 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.

Umihak, 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 US government and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

MS now 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 MS now colleagues Thursday night 8 p.m. Eastern.

I will see you there. The whole gang is going to be there Thursday night. All right, that does it for me for now.

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