Activists and labor union leaders are demanding that Delta Air Lines stop flying children to states where they are bound for immigration detention centers, and to address how they’ve worked with federal immigration agencies.
About a hundred people attended a virtual news conference Friday to denounce Delta Air Lines for flying 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father to Texas in January, where they were then detained.
Organizers behind the effort are demanding to meet with Delta Air Lines officials, and plan to send the company’s CEO, Ed Bastian, a letter requesting answers about the company’s involvement in Operation Metro Surge.
“Delta Air Lines is not a passive actor,” read the letter. “By providing transportation and prioritizing revenue in logistical support of these actions, your company became part of the deportation system that caused real harm to Minnesota families and communities.”
MN50501, a volunteer-run non-profit focused on democracy through community action; the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; Minnesota’s Hospitality Union; and the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation and Service Employees International Union Local 26 (SEIU-26) which represents airport workers, organized Friday’s news conference.
“They [Delta Air Lines] can still be part of the solution, and they can help us recover as a community,” Greg Nammacher, president of SEIU-26, said at the news conference. “We need to know the truth. We need for these collaborations to stop.”
Ramos was detained by federal immigration agents in Columbia Heights on Jan. 20 alongside his father, Adrian Conejo Arias. Ramos and his family had fled Ecuador due to violent crime and entered the United States seeking asylum, Conejo Arias told MPR News.
Columbia Heights school officials have said that federal agents used Ramos as “bait” to knock on the door at his house in a failed attempt to lure out other family members. A photo of his detainment that day, in particular, the image of his blue knit hat with bunny ears, went viral on social media, turning him into a national symbol for children swept up in federal immigration enforcement.
Ramos and his father were detained at the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, until a federal judge ordered them released. They returned to Minnesota on Feb. 1. A U.S. immigration judge denied their asylum claim, and the family’s attorneys are planning to file an appeal.
Nammacher said he’s seen commercial airlines, including Delta Air Lines, take a stand in politics, showing it has the power to make a difference. In 2018, American, United and Frontier Airlines asked President Donald Trump’s administration to not put migrant children separated from their parents on their flights. Airline leaders said Trump’s immigration policy of separating families does not align with their values. On the same day of the announcement, Trump signed an order to end the policy.
“When these powerful airlines spoke out at that time, Trump announced at the end to get rid of the family separation policy. In fact, it was the very same day,” Nammacher said.
Delta Air Lines announced earlier this week that it was suspending special services for members of Congress because the partial government shutdown disrupted U.S. travel.
“Two days after Delta weighs in on this topic, the Trump administration changes their position,” Nammacher said. “We know Delta particularly, and the airline industry as a whole, has incredible power in this moment, so the question is, ‘Will they use it?’”
Nick Benson, a member of MN50501, said he filed a public records request with the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Police Department and obtained video footage of Ramos and his father boarding the Delta flight in January.
“My heart sank when we got the video back, because it clearly showed that Liam and his dad along with the Spider-Man backpack were walking through the terminal at MSP with a trio of escorts, and they checked into that flight to San Antonio,” he said. “It turned out that families were getting flown out right under our nose on Delta flights. How many other children were flown on those flights by Delta to San Antonio?”
The 14-minute long video shows Ramos and his father entering a terminal being escorted by two women and a man dressed in plainclothes. Ramos, wearing a black and white checkered long sleeved shirt, holds his father’s hand. One of the women stands in front of Ramos and his father, presenting their boarding passes to an employee at the boarding door. Ramos, his father, the woman and the other two escorts all then board the flight.
There is no audio in the video clip.
Benson also noted that Delta allowed ABC News to follow Ramos’ return to Minnesota on one of its flights in February, but the airline hasn’t mentioned that it flew Ramos and his father to Texas in the first place.
“I think it’s important to temper the feel-good PR that we’re getting from Delta on this with the reality that we’ve seen footage of one kid flying back home on Delta,” Benson said. “There are many more who are flown to Texas, and are still there as far as we know.”
A Delta Air Lines spokesperson told Sahan Journal the company has no comment on the matter.
