The Albany County Legislature is set to introduce a measure that would prohibit all of its agencies from using public funds to travel on, promote or partner with any “deportation airlines.”
The resolution comes after Avelo Airlines, which operates flights out of Albany International Airport, ended its contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to charter deportation flights in January.
Before Avelo ended its contract, advocates and New York lawmakers had been pressuring the county to stop the company from operating out of the county-run airport.
Jeffery Kuhn, the 35th District Democratic Legislator, is sponsoring the resolution and says it basically states that county officials will not do business with airlines that participate in “deportation flights.”
“No Albany County personnel or employees will fly on those airlines for any sort of official business. It does not because we cannot, it does not sort of barring any airline from using the Albany County International Airport. We do not have the authority to as the Legislature to do that,” Kuhn said.
The measure states, in part, “that no Albany County financial resources may be used to promote, market, or partner with any deportation airlines in any capacity.”
That includes participating in promotional events and county-sponsored advertising or co-branding campaigns.
Kuhn says those are examples of ways that the county would not do business with participating airlines if the measure is passed.
“It’s essentially just to go on the record that we don’t approve of that as a way to profit, to profit from that and so we are going to elect, as we have the right to do, not to do business with those airlines,” Kuhn said.
Leyla Kiosse is the operational lead for Albany Indivisible – an advocacy group that has called for Avelo Airlines to depart from its Albany operations.
Kiosse says the resolution is a good first step.
“I’m happy to see that the resolution is coming forward and I certainly hope it’s something that the county passes because in addition to ensuring that there is no county cooperation, the county needs to make it clear that they don’t support what is happening in this country,” Kiosse said.
Avelo operates flights between Albany and North Carolina.
The Legislature is also slated on Monday to introduce a separate resolution that limits the county’s cooperation with federal immigration agencies outright. (will link here)
That proposal says the county would continue to comply with federal immigration laws but would not cooperate with any operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol.
But Kiosse wants to see the county do more because – in her view – both resolutions are more about symbolism than substance.
“I mean they are taking a stance, but they’re taking a stance in the most watered down way I think. It’s important that they make a statement but I think they need to be more aggressive,” Kiosse said.
As for Kuhn, he says the county has to start somewhere and can only act with the authority it has.
“If there are other things that we can be doing, we can continue to explore those going forward, but obviously we wanted to do something to get on the record that we would discourage ICE from operating en masse in Albany County,” Kuhn said.
