As doctors who take care of immigrants and refugees, we have a concrete request of Gov. Wes Moore. He can do it today, it doesn’t involve the General Assembly, and it would make immigrants safer across the country.
Gov. Moore is not shy about his support for immigrants. Visitors to his website will read, “For Wes Moore and Aruna Miller, the American immigrant’s story is personal. Wes is the son of an immigrant, and Aruna is an immigrant herself.” Only weeks ago, Moore spoke up to defend immigrants against President Donald Trump: “The Trump administration is demonizing immigrants and violating due process to advance their cruel and reckless political agenda.” But what if Moore could strike a blow in Maryland to distinguish himself among immigration advocates?
Avelo Air is a private airline that had been losing money before it started operating flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As ICE deportations have ramped up, Avelo has played a leading role in a number of states to further Trump’s lawless agenda that aims to round up immigrants (whether or not they are legally here) and either detain them or send them abroad in the dead of night. Avelo alone flew 20% of ICE flights in July 2025.
ICE flights, including those operated by Avelo, commonly violate the constitutional rights of immigrants. Such flights are routinely degrading and dangerous. On all ICE flights, including those operated by Avelo, people are shackled in handcuffs, waist chains and leg irons. Some are carried up the gangway, face covered. Such shackles remain on the detainees for their entire flight. And such flights can be lengthy — one, lasting 26 hours, originated at BWI Marshall Airport.
Understanding Avelo’s relationship with ICE (which does not have its own airplanes and must depend on contracts with unscrupulous private airlines), a number of states and municipalities have canceled their airports’ contracts with ICE or placed other restrictions on their relationships with the company. For example, the Eureka, California, city council has voted to stop using Avelo for official business. Lawmakers in New York have introduced legislation to withdraw support from ICE flights. New Haven, Connecticut, has forbidden its employees from using city funds on Avelo.
Avelo Air has had a contract with the BWI airport since 2022. The airport is a public concern, under the auspices of the Maryland Aviation Administration, itself part of the Maryland Department of Transportation.
Back to us and our patients. We see people who are on the run from oppressive regimes in other countries, coming to the United States, to Maryland, because they want to live under tolerance, a better life for themselves and their kids. But our patients aren’t showing up. Or they are, and then, later, they get abducted by ICE. This is not in keeping with the history of our state, founded, in part, as a haven for religious freedom.
Luckily, in trying to further his own re-election, and perhaps (who can say?) to buttress his own future chances for higher office, Moore has a chance to send Avelo packing from BWI. The leasing contract with Avelo allows Maryland to terminate the contract without cause with 30 days notice.
On Oct. 25, we will gather in Annapolis, together with some of the more than 7,000 signers of a petition asking him to cancel the contract with Avelo.
If the governor wants to support immigrants and show himself a forward-thinking progressive politician in doing so, the answer is no farther than the pen on his desk.
The authors are doctors and Maryland co-chairs of Doctors for Camp Closure. Zackary Berger is on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health and Berman Institute of Bioethics. Kate Sugarman is on the faculty at Georgetown University School of Law and the George Washington University School of Medicine.