Victims of Trump's irresponsible anti-immigrant crusade include American citizens

And that's commercial break.

Nice.

Ooh, hear that?

My neck cracked.

So satisfying.

Speaking of satisfying, I just used a Clorox toilet wand.

Ooh, with the cleaner already in it.

Yes.

All in one, the brush just clicks on.

Click.

Then you swish, swish, swish.

Ah.

And pops right off into the trash.

Just click.

Swish.

Bop.

Clorox.

Clean feels good.

Clean feels good. Oh, we're back.
Use as directed. Thanks to at home for joining us this hour.
So we really count on local news organizations a lot on this show. We, of course, are mostly covering national news and national politics, particularly in this historic moment where we're basically deciding as a country whether or not we are staying a democracy or not.
We are a national show. This is a national news network.
We cover stories of national importance. But stories of national importance and stories of national political importance don't always happen in the capital of the nation.
They don't always happen in D.C. In fact, they most often do not happen in D.C.
I would say, for example, that it is a huge story of national political import that the Trump administration is now having federal agents arrest judges. But when that happened this past week, it wasn't something that happened in Washington.
It was something that happened in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper was all over the story with in-depth reporting on what led up to the arrest and the allegations the Trump administration was making against the judge and the handling of her arrest and her standing in the community and her background and the horror with which her arrest was greeted in Wisconsin when protests erupted spontaneously, immediately at the Milwaukee County Courthouse where the judge had been arrested.
And then there were more protests at the Milwaukee FBI field office. And then the next day, there were yet more protests at the Milwaukee FBI field office.
We saw local news stations like WISN 12 News, the ABC station in Milwaukee, and WTMJ4, the local NBC station in Milwaukee. They've just been all over those protests with their correspondents there and cameras there covering them in depth.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the paper was all over the big press conference that was held yesterday at the Milwaukee County Courthouse with local political leaders and Democratic state legislators and lots of clergy, lots of faith leaders, all speaking up to defend this judge who Trump had arrested. Today, the local Fox station in Milwaukee, Fox 6, is covering the legit, stunning development that this judge who was arrested, she has now added to her legal defense team the single most famous, most accomplished, most respected, very conservative lawyer in the whole country, the legendary Supreme Court litigator Paul Clement, just a, I mean, a person without parallel to his legal reputation in conservative circles.
He will be joining the defense team for the Wisconsin judge, Hannah Dugan, who Trump had arrested. The local CBS station, CBS 58, today covering local Milwaukee residents who have cases that are pending in Judge Dugan's courtroom.
People who are now basically left in limbo by what Trump has done in arresting their judge in their case. So it's been really good local coverage from all of these different local news outlets and more.
And this is absolutely a story of national importance. This is a big, bright neon red line that Donald Trump is crossing here, right? Using armed federal force against judges.
But honestly, we would be up a creek trying to cover this story nationally without Milwaukee's local press showing us all how and leading the way and giving us the depth that we need to be able to cover that story. And so that's just one example.
But we rely on local news every day. Here, for example, is NBC 25 in Macomb County, Michigan today, covering over the entire course of the day today, the big contingent of protesters that started turning up hours early today so they would be in position when President Trump arrived in

Warren, Michigan tonight to give his speech. We had good coverage, too, from the local Fox station

from MidMichigan Now. Seeing that coverage, we've also been able to get in touch with some of the

organizers of the protest against Trump today who provided us with these photos showing us yet more

I'm sorry. coverage.
We've also been able to get in touch with some of the organizers of the protest against Trump today who provided us with these photos showing us yet more sort of depth and texture about this protest against Trump today. It shows you more of the signs.
Lots of people wearing black, for example, as a sign of protest against President Trump's visit today. But we count on local news reports everywhere, every day.
Here, another example. This is KARK in Little Rock, Arkansas, with good coverage on Arkansans who have been protesting this week on overpasses and on local interstates with signs that say impeach Trump and the American flag flown upside down in the symbol of distress in deep red Arkansas.
Here's KTLA in Los Angeles today with very good coverage of the big protest that happened today in downtown Los Angeles by L.A. County union workers.
KTLA reporting that while today's Los Angeles protest was big and disruptive in its own right, you see them blocking that intersection there. This protest today in Los Angeles is also being seen as just a preview of what is expected to be a much, much larger protest in Los Angeles on Thursday this week, on May Day, May 1st, when we're expecting more protests all over the country against Donald Trump.
so in the middle of this moment in american history where we've got an attempted authoritarian takeover of the United States government and a lot of people in the United States fighting back against that. Covering that, you have to know that, yes, some of that fight back happens in Washington, right? Some of it does.
Tonight, for example, we've learned that Democrats in the U.S. Senate are going to be holding the floor all night long in protest of Trump's corruption and to spotlight the destruction of his first hundred days.
But particularly looking at the way Trump has been using the presidency already to make himself money, we're going to be checking in on that all-night action in Washington tonight as Democrats hold the floor, we believe, overnight and into tomorrow. So there is some stuff happening in Washington most days, but most of the fight back against Trump hasn't been in Washington.
It's been all around the country, including in red states, which among other things has been forcing a lot of Republican elected officials to face, you know, to contend with just how unpopular Trump is and how much the country really widely disapproves of what he's doing. Because those Republican elected officials do not want to go down with the ship when they look at what's happening to Trump's approval ratings and particularly Trump's approval ratings on the issues.
So we focus a lot on local news for all the obvious reasons. But tonight, I want to show you something that I think is very important from a local news station.
And this is not about someone fighting back against Trump. It is actually not about politics at all.
It is about the character of what Trump has done to the government and what Trump is doing to the country. It's about what he has agents of the federal government doing in the United States.
The real-life consequences of this shambolic mess that he has made of the U.S. government in just this short amount of time that he has been back in office.
So this is from KFOR, which is the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City. They aired this report last night in their 10 p.m.
local news. They told us today that they had such an overwhelming response from their viewers reacting in shock to this story.
That they continue to work the story today.

They featured it again tonight with updated reporting on their primetime broadcast at

dinnertime. So I'm going to show it to you.
I mean, I know everybody in the national media is

doing their, you know, 100 days of Trump reviews or whatever right now. Honestly, here's mine.

For me, I think this local news report, this is kind of all you need to know about this president and his character and the character of his leadership and the government that he runs and what he is doing to this country. Just watch this.
New at 10, a family traumatized after armed federal agents busted into their home as they were sleeping and took almost everything they own. Problem is, they were not the people agents were supposed to be looking for.
News 4, Spencer Humphrey is here with their frightening ordeal. Spencer, what's going on here? Yeah, we'll get this.
That family just moved here about two weeks ago from out of state. And this is how their life in Oklahoma got started.
They say they told federal immigration agents they had the wrong people, but those agents kept treating them like criminals, even though they're all U.S. citizens.
Fear. I did feel at times I was going to die.
So much fear. I kept praying.
I said, God, please let me live through this moment. Humiliation.
I meant I was a zero. I was nothing.
Pure disbelief. I just couldn't understand how is this happening to us.
All just for wanting a fresh start. You come to Oklahoma and you get treated like this.
For what? This woman, who we're calling Marissa and her three daughters, came to Oklahoma from Maryland looking for a slower, more affordable pace of life. They rented this house in a nice, seemingly safe northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood.
Her husband planned to join them this past weekend. But any semblance they had of comfort went out the window when 20 men armed to the teeth busted through it Thursday morning.
I don't know who they were. They had guns.
It was dark. All the lights were off.
They were federal agents, Marissa says, with the U.S. Marshals, ICE and the FBI.
And I kept asking them, like, who are you? What are you doing here? What's happening? And they said, we have a warrant for the house. They ordered Marissa and her daughters outside into the rain before they could even get dressed.
They wanted me to change in front of all of them, between all of them. The thing is, the suspect names on that search warrant were not Marissa's or anyone in her family's.
They were, however, names listed on mail still arriving at the house. Former residents, perhaps.
We just moved here from Maryland. We're citizens.
That's what I kept saying. We're citizens.
She says they didn't care. We weren't criminals.
Why were they treating us like criminals? We were here by ourselves. We didn't do anything.
The agents ripped apart every square inch of the house,

taking their phones, laptops, documents, and their life savings in cash as evidence.

I have to feed my children.

I'm going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around.

Like, how do you just leave me like this, like an abandoned dog?

And when they left, they told her something. I know it was a little rough this morning.
It was so denigrating. Like, you do all of this to a family, to women, your fellow citizens, and it was a little rough? You have literally traumatized me and my daughters for life.
This family has virtually nothing. And I said, when are we going to get our stuff back? He was like, it could be days or it could be months.
Nothing but questions. What if I would have been armed? What if you're breaking in? What am I supposed to think? My initial thought is we're being robbed.
My daughter's been daughter's being kidnapped. Nothing but likely lifelong trauma.
We have guns pointed at our faces. Can you just reprogram yourself and see us as humans, as women? A little bit of mercy.
Care a little bit about your fellow human mate, about your fellow citizen, like fellow resident. We bleed too.
We bleed just like anybody else bleeds. We were scared.
You could see it in our faces and we were terrified. Marissa says the agents refused to leave any contact information or business cards.
She believes the agents wore logos connected to ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the FBI.
Today, the U.S. Marshals Service says their team was not involved.
We also reached out to the FBI, asking about that agency's level of involvement. Last week, they told us they assisted in this case.
Late this afternoon, they told us they were not on the scene. They told us to contact Homeland Security, so we did.
A spokesperson told us they would look into it and get back with us. So far, we've heard nothing.
As for the family's phones, electronics and cash, they have no idea which agency has their belongings or how to get them back.

Local reporting from KFOR, the NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City. I have to tell you a couple of things about this.
First of all, we've put in our own request for comment to the U.S. Marshal Service, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Now, the woman who this happened to, she says that the agents were wearing insignia from the U.S. Marshal Service, ICE, and the FBI.
But also, and this is very interesting, the U.S. Marshal Service told KFOR that their agents were not involved.
And the U.S. Marshal Service told us the same thing tonight.
Their Office of Public Affairs told us that they contacted the U.S. Marshals team in Oklahoma.
Quote, they were not involved in this incident. We had no one there.
Okay, that leaves the FBI and Homeland Security. Now, the FBI initially told KFOR that they were assisting on this case.
They were assisting Homeland Security. So call them.
But then today, the FBI changed its mind in terms of its account of what involvement the agency had had. And they said, actually, FBI agents weren't there, weren't involved at all.
Okay. I don't know how to explain that change, but that's the change.
Homeland Security, meantime, isn't saying anything at all. Not to KFOR and not so far to us, although we live in hope.
And you know, your mileage may vary on how much you care about whether or not these federal government agencies agree to give a statement to the press or a statement to the Rachel Maddow show, right, about the actions of our own government in a case like this. You may or may not care about whether or not they're talking to me,

whether they're talking to us. But what if you're Marissa? What if you're the woman this happened to? No word about who these people were, forcing you and your daughters outside into the rain in your underwear at gunpoint, tearing apart every inch of your house, taking your phones and your electronics and cash from your house, just smashing the place up, taking all of your stuff, including

your money, and then leaving.

And then there's no one to call.

No way to get anything back.

Not even, as she said, not even a business card.

These are U.S. citizens.
And this kind of stuff, the Trump administration thinks they will never have to answer for any of this stuff because they think the American public doesn't care about how immigrants are treated or that the American public actually wants cruelty and abuse toward immigrants. And so if it's federal agents who are working on anything related to immigration, well, carte blanche, no one will care what they do.
That has been, I think, their working assumption since they have been in power these 100 days. But you know what? For one, the polling and the protests say that the American people don't think that at all.
Not at all. But also, what we are learning is that once the government is treating anyone this way, any supposed line there is, any supposed barrier there is that's based on citizenship or immigration status, that gets real blurry real quick.
I mean, this woman and her daughters, these are citizens, U.S. citizens in Oklahoma City.
And we keep seeing U.S. citizens turn up in stories that are ostensibly about immigration enforcement or something having to do with immigration.
I mean, Trump's immigration agents have told at least nine U.S. citizen lawyers, doctors, teachers, that they had one week to get out of the country or else.
U.S. citizens, where are they supposed to go? First, it was two U.S.
citizen lawyers in Massachusetts that we learned about. Then next, we learned about a U.S.
citizen doctor from Cromwell, Connecticut. A few days after that, we learned about a U.S.
citizen lawyer in Utah. He got this letter saying, it's time for you to leave the United States.
The federal government will find you. He's a U.S.
citizen. The next day, we learned of a U.S.
citizen lawyer in San Diego. Same threat.
Then we learned about another U.S. citizen lawyer in Austin, Texas.
The day after that, we got new reporting on a U.S. citizen lawyer in Houston, Texas.
This guy is born in Connecticut. He's a lawyer working in Houston.
The Trump administration comes to him and threatens him to get out of the country immediately or else. Where is he supposed to go? The day after that, we learned of another U.S.
citizen lawyer in Los Angeles, told by the Trump administration to get out of the country immediately with all the attendant threats. I mean, it just keeps happening.
Here's another one reporting from Wisconsin Public Radio. Headline, the federal government will find you.
Immigration officials wrongfully told a Fox Valley man to leave the United States. Department of Homeland Security told a retired college administrator to depart the United States immediately.
The letter to this random retired college administrator and teacher, an American citizen born in western Pennsylvania, tells him, If you do not depart the United States immediately, you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal from the United States.

Do not attempt to remain in the United States. The federal government will find you.

Please depart the United States, the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.
Well, at least they said please in that one. Now, in some cases, reporters who have been following up on these bizarre cases where U.S.
citizens are being told to get out of the country, in some cases, reporters following up on these cases have been told by the Trump administration that these threats were sent by mistake. But not in every instance and not to everybody who has received these threats.
I mean, we've had Trump's immigration agents try to arrest Puerto Ricans in Newark and in Philadelphia, people from Puerto Rico who, by definition, are U.S. citizens by birth.
But apparently the Trump administration has not been able to figure that out, so they've been arresting people anyway. In Arizona this month, Trump's immigration agents arrested a U.S.
citizen in Arizona, held him for 10 days in an immigration prison, even though he is a U.S. citizen.
Leon County, Florida, a week and a half

ago, they locked up another guy, U.S. citizen, initially would not let him go, even when his birth certificate showing his birth in the United States was handed over to the court.
And now they have started sending U.S. citizen children out of the country, including one case Friday night in which the deeply conservative Trump-appointed judge in Louisiana who got the case said that he had a, quote, strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S.
citizen with no meaningful process. That judge, I got to tell you, in an extraordinary action, also himself personally tried to get the mother of that U.S.
citizen child on the phone after Trump's immigration agents had flown her out of the country. The judge tried to get her on the phone himself so he personally could ask the mother whether or not what the Trump administration was saying about her and her child was true, since they offered him no proof at all, and he doesn't have to believe them when they offer no proof.
They offered him no proof at all of what they were saying about this mother before flying that U.S. citizen out of the country without a single moment's appearance in court.
And so the judge turned himself into a detective trying to find the mother himself to get her on the phone to do some fact-finding, to figure out what had happened here since nobody was before him in court, just the government saying stuff without proof.

The administration says that this mother chose to take her children with her.

But in both cases where we've had families like this, where we've had U.S. citizens

sent to other countries, despite the fact that they are citizens. We've got lawyers

for the mothers in both of those instances saying that the mothers were not given that option.

You sometimes hear this statement that, you know, everything they're now trying to do to

immigrants, they'll eventually try to do to U.S. citizens.
It's not that. It's not just that everything they're now trying to do to immigrants, they will eventually try to do to U.S.
citizens. It's that what they are trying to do to immigrants already, they are already doing to U.S.
citizens. These guys do not color inside the lines, right? And they are counting on us being inured to the cruelty and chaos and just flagrantly reckless incompetence of all of it, because they're saying this treatment is for immigrants and the agencies doing it are just the agencies who handle immigration related issues.
But it's not true. It's citizens too.
But honestly, even if it wasn't citizens, this is the behavior of our government with our taxpayer dollars operating under the constraints of our constitution which constrains how the government is supposed to treat all people in this country i mean a hundred days in if anything is clear it's that yes some of what they are doing is intentional including the cruelty but a lot of it is just them screwing up, just them being completely slipshod and shambolic and incompetent in ways that ruin people's lives and in ways that are just dumb. I mean, today, for the dumb column, we got news that Trump's handpicked defense secretary, who he picked off Fox and Friends weekend, Pete Hegseth, Trump insisted on putting this man above everybody in charge of the Pentagon, despite everything we know about Pete Hegseth.
Today, we got news that Pete Hegseth was sort of pounding his chest and typing in all caps and shouting about he, all caps, ended the Women, Peace and Security program inside the Pentagon. Yeah, I bet he hated that name.
He called it a, quote, woke, divisive social justice Biden initiative pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. He said, good riddance.
He's ending it today, except the program he's talking about was actually created by Donald Trump. Something Trump bragged about for years as one of his big national security accomplishments in his first term.
The legislation to create this program was sponsored by a congresswoman named Kristi Noem. She's now Trump's Homeland Security Secretary.
In the Senate, it was sponsored by a man named Marco Rubio, who's now Trump's Secretary of State. What did Pete Hegseff call it? He called it a woke, divisive social justice Biden initiative pushed by feminists and left-wing activists.
By which he means something created by and bragged about by Donald Trump and his captain. Because with the vast resources of the U.S.
Defense Department at his disposal, Donald Trump nevertheless found someone to put in charge of the Pentagon who apparently can't Google. Hasn't learned that yet.
Donald Trump told the Atlantic magazine in the interview they did with him this week, quote, I run the country and the world. My dude, you and your administration cannot run a group chat.
You cannot figure out how to fire the guy who can't run the group chat because you're afraid that that would mean you're going to have to start firing everybody who keeps screwing up so badly. I mean, today, today, just like take a random glimpse at the news any day.
Just today, the Trump administration, oops, announced that they would reverse themselves and try to bring back the firefighters cancer registry that Trump, for some reason, killed a couple of weeks ago, even though he's the one who created it and bragged about it in his first term. Today, the Trump administration, oops, announced that they would reverse themselves and try to bring back the people who scream coal miners for black lung disease after Trump inexplicably fired almost everyone at the coal workers' health surveillance program.
Now, oops, oops, they're trying to get them all back. If we have learned everything, it is not incompetent or evil.
It's not a multiple choice thing. It's more like check all that apply.
At 100 days, Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating of any president in the history of modern polling.

The U.S. trade deficit is the worst it has ever been in U.S.
history. U.S.
stocks in his 100 days have underperformed the rest of the world by the widest margin in more than three decades. He thinks he rules the world.
What he runs is a shambolic, cratered federal government

that has agents randomly terrorizing Oklahoma City moms and their daughters

and forcing them out into the rain in their underwear in the middle of the night

and then leaving with all their money.

Senate Democrats are up all night tonight doing everything they can. We're going there live next.
Stay with us. MSNBC presents Maine Justice.
Each week on their podcast, veteran lawyers Andrew Weissman and Mary McCord break down the latest developments inside the Trump administration's Department of Justice.

The administration doesn't necessarily want to be questioned on any of its policy. I think what we are seeing is Project 2025 in action.
This is it coming to fruition. Maine Justice.
New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen now.
MSNBC Films presents a six-part documentary series,

David Frost Versus, on the next... Listen now.
This week on my podcast, Why Is This Happening, New York Attorney General Letitia James. It's important that individuals understand that in our system of justice, that there are judges independently analyzing all that we put forth.

They make a determination as to whether or not our cause of action, our claim, has any merit based on the law.

Politics stops at the door.

That's this week on Why Is This Happening.

Search for Why Is This Happening wherever you're listening right now and follow. You've got an administration that in the name of waste, fraud, and abuse is destroying institutions.
His tariffs are increasing costs for the average family by more than $4,000 a year. Donald Trump has been a seemingly willing partner in being played by Vladimir Putin, his bro, his role model, perhaps.
Statement after statement, tweet after tweet by President Trump has puzzled, concerned, even alarmed our allies. He's going to invade Greenland, a NATO ally.
He's going to take back the Panama Canal. He's going to take over the Gaza Strip and make it Mara Gaza.
Democratic U.S. senators are holding the floor tonight in Washington, and it looks like they may be there all night.
They're doing this to put a spotlight on how destructive they say Trump's first hundred days in office have been. Some senators focusing specifically on the corruption problem that is roaring in this White House that has not yet become a main focus of public attention to what Trump's term in office has been like.
One of the senators who helped organize this effort is U.S. Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy.
He joins us now live from the Senate. Senator, I really appreciate you making time to be with us tonight.
Thank you. Yeah, great.
Thanks for having me. What are you and your colleagues doing tonight? Well, I mean, we're telling a pretty simple but heartbreaking story.
President Trump has used the first 100 days to hand over our government to the billionaire class, to make him and his Mar-a-Lago friends richer and to make us all poor in the process. And people are more pessimistic about the economy than ever before in modern times.
And what they're watching is a president who is shamelessly trying to raise costs for Americans in order to help himself and his billionaire pals. The story I told on the floor tonight was an especially heartbreaking one.
It was a story about Trump's attempt to try to normalize large scale, brazen, everyday corruption. What's happening right now is that Trump is trying to be so corrupt corrupt so publicly every single day to kind of lull everybody to sleep.

Just the other day, he announced that the top 25 purchasers of his crypto coin would get VIP access to the White House. He's essentially selling the building that we all pay for in order to enrich himself.
This is why Trump's approval ratings are cratering. And our belief is that if we tell this true story and if his approval ratings continue to come down, it'll make it harder for him to garner support on his own side of the aisle with very slim majorities to pass the kind of harmful legislation they're contemplating this summer, primarily this massive cut to Medicaid benefits.
That's insurance for 25 percent of Americans in order to pass along a new unnecessary tax cut for his billionaire crowd. Maybe we can stop that if we continue to tell the American people the true story of what's happening in this administration.
This crypto venture that he has opened in which anybody, including people in foreign countries, can give him any amount of money. And it's not going to a political action committee.
It's not

going to a campaign. It just goes into his pocket.
And he's now offering access to himself

in exchange for people who are willing to give him very large amounts of money to do this.

You've described this crypto venture as the most corrupt thing any president has ever done in the

history of the United States. I think you make a pretty compelling case about that.
If the Congress

Thank you. venture as the most corrupt thing any president has ever done in the history of the United States.
I think you make a pretty compelling case about that. If if the Congress and the U.S.
Senate were doing its job, what would be the appropriate response to that? Well, the first question is, why isn't the Department of Justice doing its job? I mean, this is corrupt on its face, but it is likely illegal.

You probably don't have to scratch very deep to find an instance where the president has received an enormous infusion of cash to his crypto coin from a CEO or foreign oligarch who is then asking for a favor from Donald Trump. I mean, this is unethical, corrupt, but likely illegal if any prosecutor worth their salt was trying to even scratch the surface.
But to the extent it's not already apparent that a president of the United States should not be running a backdoor bribery scheme, the equivalent of posting your cash app on the White House web page, then we should make it crystal clear that that's illegal. If we were doing our job, we would pass legislation saying that no president can monetize the White House by owning a crypto coin that he uses the official channels of the White House to sell to the public, to CEOs, to Saudi princes and anybody else who has business before the United States Congress.
So before the White House. So this should have a prosecutorial response.
But yes, of course, if Democrats were in charge of the Congress, we would have a legislative response as well. Democratic U.S.
Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who among his colleagues is going to be at the Senate, looks like most of the night tonight. Thank you very much for your time, sir.
Appreciate you being here. Thank you.
All right. We've got much more news ahead here tonight.
Stay with us. It's President Trump's first 100 days and MSNBC's Alex Wagner will be covering it all from the front lines.
What issue matters to you the most? Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the president's policies and promises. Do you think now that he's pardoned everybody, he can count on this group of people again? Search for Trumpland with Alex Wagner wherever you're listening and follow.
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Sign up for MSNBC Daily at msnbc.com. So here's another story that you may not have heard much about, but I think it's about to become a much bigger deal.
Earlier this month, you might remember us reporting on a feisty protest at a little airport in Connecticut, the New Haven, Connecticut Airport. There's a small airline there called Avello, which markets itself as a consumer airline for the general public.
But Avello has also signed a contract with the Trump administration to use their Avello planes and pilots and flight attendants and everything for deportation flights. The protests against Avello Airlines at New Haven Airport have become a regular thing, and they've been getting bigger over time.
Connecticut U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal showed up recently at one of these protests to join the protesters there.
But here's the thing. It is no longer just New Haven.
This has started happening all over the country at any of the airports where Avello flies. Avello has got to go.
Dozens of activists line the entrance to Charles M. Scholl's Sonoma County Airport, urging people not to fly Avello Airlines.
The budget carrier, which still serves Santa Rosa, is now facing backlash after announcing it would soon begin operating ICE deportation charter flights out of Arizona after an agreement with the Trump administration. This group from Indivisible Sonoma County holding this protest following other demonstrations nationwide this week.
I think that they're selling out, basically. And I have flown a Velo in the past, and I won't anymore until they stop this.
That was Santa Rosa, California this past weekend. There have been protests at the airport in Rochester, New York, and in Wilmington, Delaware, and in Burbank, California, and in Daytona Beach, Florida.
If there is an airport where Avello Airlines flies, chances are there has been a protest there this month, and maybe more than one. One online petition calling for a consumer boycott of Avello has over 35,000 signatures so far.
And you know, when it comes to the principle of the matter here, when it comes to the Trump administration's deportation program and locking people up indefinitely in a foreign prison without any opportunity to contest the allegations against them, it is one thing to be engaging with this as a member of the public. The public, and you can see this in polling, you can see this in protests, you can see this on people's signs that they're holding up on street corners now about how repulsed they are about what Trump is doing and the way he's treating immigrants and the way he's handling deportations.
I mean, among the public, there's a big national backlash against that. But it's one thing to be a member of the public and have a feeling or two about that.
It's another thing to be a for-profit, public-facing company trying to get the American public to purchase flights on your airline while you are also participating in this policy with the Trump administration. You are using the same planes that they want you as a consumer to pay to fly on to also fly Trump deportees to other countries.
Same planes. Same airline.
Well, that all has come to a head, not only in these protests, but also in a very particular way in the state of Connecticut. As I mentioned, Avello has its largest base in New Haven, Connecticut.
The airline recently expanded to a second airport in Connecticut after getting sort of a sweet tax deal from the state government. But now Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has written to Avello

Airlines saying there might be a problem here, saying, quote, the state of Connecticut has an

obligation now to consider the viability of our choice to support Avello. We are owed answers

on Avello's homeland security contract to determine whether Avello's business practices

can remain compatible with such state support. In addition to requesting a copy of Avello's

Thank you. on Avello's Homeland Security contract to determine whether Avello's business practices can remain compatible with such state support.
In addition to requesting a copy of Avello's contract with the Trump administration, Connecticut Attorney General Tong demands answers to a number of very specific questions, including, quote, can Avello confirm that it will never operate flights while nonviolent passengers are in shackles, handcuffs, waist chains, and or leg irons, and unable to safely evacuate in the event of an emergency. Avella responded not by answering any of those questions, but by instead telling Connecticut's attorney general that he has a, quote, fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, and telling him that if he wants a copy of the company's contract with the Trump administration, he's welcome to file a Freedom of Information Act request with the Trump administration.
The company did, however, add this, quote, Avello remains committed to public safety and the rule of law, as evidenced by our public, continuous, and persistent compliance with all federal regulations governing commercial air travel in the United States. Yes, that's required if you would like to offer commercial air travel in the United States.
Attorney General Tong called Avello's

letter, quote, insulting and condescending to the people of Connecticut who have invested in and

committed millions of dollars to Avello's success. What's more, telling the office of the Attorney

General to pound sand

and to ask the Department of Homeland Security for a copy of their contract through FOIA

is a callous back of the hand that shows they really don't care what we think.

Quote, it is clear all they intend to do is take state support

and make money off other people's suffering.

Connecticut's Attorney General William Tong joins us here live next. There's a low-cost consumer airline called Avello that has its largest space in New Haven, Connecticut.
Recently, that New Haven airport, airports around the country served by Avello, have been the site of protests because Avello has announced it's signing a lucrative deal with the Trump administration to operate deportation flights. Now, Connecticut's Attorney General William Tong is getting involved.
He's written to Avello, quote, the state of Connecticut has an obligation now to consider the viability of our choice to support Avello. Joining us now is Connecticut's Attorney General William Tong.
Mr. Attorney General, I really appreciate you making time to be here tonight.
Thank you. Thanks, Rachel.
Let me ask if I've got any of this the wrong way around or if I've explained this in a way that basically hits the high points. Yeah, as the state's Attorney General, as Connecticut's Attorney General, I don't think we should be doing business with an airline that operates Ice Air.
I mean, we've received reports, There's public reporting that there are detainees, many of them nonviolent, who are shackled on these flights, including children, sick children, according to some reports, with no plan for how to evacuate these detainees and shackled people, including children, if there's a problem with the plane or they have to get off the plane. And I've sent a letter to the CEO of Avello Air asking him basic questions about what they're doing and whether this is true.
And he's essentially given us the finger. I understand that Avello has received pretty important material support from the taxpayers of the state of Connecticut when they expanded from their hub in New Haven to a second Connecticut airport to Bradley near Hartford.
They got a big fuel tax moratorium from the state, which is quite a lot of money. I also understand that that, from reporting in ProPublica today, that that fuel tax moratorium, again, very lucrative for them, is due to expire at the end of June.
Is that something that's on the table in terms of the arrangement now? People in the legislature and people across Connecticut are outraged, and they don't want to see that fuel tax renewed. They don't want to see a tax break for a company, again, that's running ice, air, and maybe a party to illegal deportations of people, potentially now American citizens.
Right. We're talking about a two year old, a four year old with cancer, American citizens who have been deported.
And is ice air is Avello part of those deportations and part of those flights? Look, I can't stop a company from operating a lawful business, but the state of Connecticut doesn't have to be their partner. We don't have to operate.
We don't have to be a partner and invest in a new terminal, for example. We don't have to give incentives for job creation and essentially revenue guarantees.
We don't have to give tax breaks, tax breaks over aviation fuel. We don't have to be their partner.
We don't have to be in bed with a company that's hurting people and making money off of other people's misery. Is the question here, I'm just thinking about the mindset of the company executives here and what we know is basically what they've given us in terms of statements, what they've said in terms of their position on this.

Is it your sense that the company is considering abandoning these contracts with the federal government so as to retain its relationship with states like yours? or is it your sense that they're choosing the Trump administration and they'll be willing to

basically give up the kinds of important relationships that they've had and lucrative arrangements that they've had that have allowed them to be a consumer airline of the size that they are? Yeah, I don't really know because they won't answer my questions. And they've told me to go pound sand and take a hike and they're not talking to me.
So I can only assume that they intend to make money off of other people's misery. And the explanations that I've heard is, well, you know, we're having trouble with our business and the only way we can survive is by running ice air.
And if that's the only way you can survive, then it sounds like you've got bigger problems with your business. I've also heard, come on, you know, it's legal.
Can't we just operate this unethical, immoral business so we can survive? And the answer is no. We don't have to be a partner to you in doing that.
And to the extent it violates the law. And by the way, we have a standing Supreme Court order that you have to provide due process to people before they are deported, you know, you're potentially putting your flight attendants and pilots at risk of joining you, the airline, and violating the law.
And if you're asking, can't we just violate the law to survive? The answer is no. Connecticut's Attorney General William Tong, sir, thank you very much for your time tonight.
And keep us surprised on this. This is an interesting developing story.
We've been monitoring these protests. We'd love to stay in touch with you about this.
Thank you, Rachel. All right.
We'll be right back. Stay with us.
All right. That's going to do it for me for now.

I will see you again 9 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow on MSNBC.

In the meantime, you can always find me on Blue Sky.

I don't know if you have Blue Sky yet, but I think you should try it.

I enjoy it.

I'm on Blue Sky at matto.msnbc.com.

I don't have any connection to Blue Sky other than the fact that I'm there and I like it.

I suggest it.