If you haven’t heard of Avelo Airlines, you’re not alone. The budget airline, founded in 2021, is based in Texas and has just two direct flights from Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Yet about 100 people gathered Sunday near BWI to raise awareness about the airline — and protest its role in deportations.

Avelo Airlines signed a contract with the federal government this year to provide deportation flights for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to NPR, and that decision has sparked demonstrations across the country.

In Maryland, protesters met outside the Maryland Area Rail Commuter station near BWI and walked to a pedestrian bridge over Interstate 195. They held up signs to drivers on their way to and from the airport that read “Avelo Airlines fuels fascism,” “Avelo is disappearing people for Trump” and “Evilo.”

The protesters said they wanted to pressure the airline and discourage people from flying with Avelo.

“We recognize the right of individuals to peacefully assemble and assert their freedom of speech,” Avelo spokesperson Courtney Goff said in a statement. “Avelo’s main priority continues to be maintaining the safety and timeliness of our operation that over 7.3 million Customers across the country continue to enjoy.”

Avelo’s founder and CEO previously told media outlets that the deportation flights are a “sensitive and complicated topic” and that the company made the decision to help stabilize its finances. In recent weeks, however, the company said it would end its West Coast operations.

“It’s toxic to your brand,” said Kate Sugarman, an organizer with Doctors for Camp Closure, of the deportation flights. “We want to make sure that Avelo and every other airline knows that it is unacceptable to have any kind of cooperation with ICE.”

Doctors for Camp Closure, Ground ICE and the Greater Baltimore Democratic Socialists of America organized Sunday’s protest near BWI, Sugarman said.

Since President Donald Trump returned to office this year, ICE arrests in Maryland have doubled, according to a Baltimore Banner analysis of federal data, and agents are increasingly targeting immigrants who entered the country illegally — but have no criminal charges or convictions.

Some Marylanders, including a 43-year-old Hagerstown mother of four, are being arrested and deported for nonviolent crimes that took place years or decades prior.

Sugarman, a 64-year-old family medical doctor from Montgomery County, said most of her patients are immigrants. She began protesting inhumane conditions in ICE detention facilities during the first Trump administration, Sugarman said, but she’s now protesting ICE’s operations more broadly.

“We’re trying to throw sand in every aspect of the ICE machine,” she said.

Before Sunday’s march, people found shade near a parking garage and sang songs of protest and solidarity, led by the Rapid Response Choir.

Peter Burkholder, a 60-year-old federal employee from Hyattsville, founded the group this year. He said the choir has participated in dozens of events, injecting optimism into otherwise grim moments.

“We’re angry and scared,” Burkholder said. “Anger and fear won’t get us through it. Joy and hope and solidarity is what’s going to get us through these times.”

Around 11 a.m., an activist with a megaphone went over the game plan: Protest peacefully, avoid talking to police officers and drink lots of water.

As the heat index topped 100 degrees, protesters made their way to the pedestrian bridge. Aside from an occasional breeze, it felt like standing in a microwave. But, with every honk and thumbs-up, the protesters gave a cheer.