photo credit: Michelle Marques
Avelo Airlines ticket counter at the Sonoma County Airport in early 2025.

Local organizers Indivisible Sonoma County are taking a lap in a win against Avelo Airlines. KRCB spoke with the grassroots group about Avelo’s decision to halt deportation flights.

On January 7^th, 2026 Avelo Airlines announced it would stop working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to fly detainees out of the country.

The airline, which previously flew out of the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, faced considerable backlash when it announced the deportation flights in the spring of 2025.

“I was really outraged that they were doing this. We have a large immigrant community here in Sonoma County,” said Roxanne Goodfellow of Indivisible Sonoma County. “And the fact that our tax dollars were subsidizing Avelo to fly immigrants out of our country just seemed very immoral to me. As far as Indivisible Sonoma County, I think that they as an organization… we all felt that.”

Roxanne Goodfellow is with the Truth In Media subcommittee at Indivisible Sonoma County. She says they organized together with a group called StopAvelo.org to protest every Sunday at the Sonoma County Airport from April until August last year when Avelo stopped service locally.

“People would wave and honk and drive by. Some people didn't feel as enthusiastic about what we were doing. There was some a little bit of opposition,” said Goodfellow. “Nothing ever overt, aside from maybe some hand signals or whatever. But, I do believe that we were the first airport to have them leave out of all the airports. And when that was announced, then they announced Humboldt, they announced Burbank, and then they left California.”

Goodfellow says she thinks Indivisible Sonoma County inspired others to make their voices heard.

“We received media coverage from almost every single Bay Area news company, including Rachel Maddow, and she acknowledged our work,” Goodfellow said. “And that gave us the impetus to continue on.”

When Avelo Airlines announced it would cease all deportation flights, admitting the program had become too costly and controversial to continue, Goodfellow says Indivisible Sonoma County felt vindicated.

“We were ecstatic. We still have work to do because there needs to be some kind of accountability held for the people that - on behalf of the people that they deported,” said Goodfellow. “And granted, what happened with Avelo, that good news was definitely offset by the news of the young woman that was killed in Minnesota. It made us realize that we're just one small but effective part of the whole resistance movement against particularly ICE.”

The Stop Avelo organization issued a press release as well, saying the airline didn't wake up one morning and decide to pivot its business strategy. Instead, the advocacy group says the airline was quote, “forced to retreat because tens of thousands of people made their participation in deportation flights a toxic asset,” end quote.

Goodfellow says Indivisible Sonoma County is planning local protests now against the recent actions in Venezuela as well as to decry the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis.