PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Salem residents are pushing officials to terminate its contract with an airline that has chartered deportation flights.

At Salem City Council on Monday, several community members testified in opposition to the agreement with Avelo Airlines. In October 2023, the company became the only commercial airline to serve the Salem Municipal Airport in about 15 years.

Later this April, just a few months after President Donald Trump took office and began ramping up immigration enforcement, the low-cost airline revealed it had signed a contract to charter the Department of Homeland Security’s deportation flights from Arizona’s Mesa Gateway Airport.

Several Salem residents have urged the city to terminate its agreement with Avelo to show support for the community members who have been impacted by the federal immigration crackdown.

“All across the country people are getting picked up from streets being separated from their loved ones and are living in a period of terrorization because of [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement],” one testifier said. “Is this what you all believe in? Your silence and your inaction tells me you do, because if you truly cared about your community… you’d be advocating to protect your own community and you’d end the Avelo contract and take any challenges that fall when you decide to stand on the right side of history.”

But Salem leaders have pointed to the potential financial impacts of ending the contract.

Records show the city is currently using $850,000 in grants from the Federal Aviation Administration to fulfill its “Minimum Revenue Guarantee” with Avelo. Residents and businesses have contributed another $350,000 toward the guarantee that expires this October, according to the City Attorney’s Office.

If the MRG were challenged, officials estimate the FAA would demand the money back and Salem could be ineligible for further grants.

The city has also signed an “operating agreement” that allows the company to use the airport for commercial, public and private charter flights. The agreement, which requires Avelo to comply with federal, state and local policies, will expire in 2032 at the earliest.

According to the city, the current contract could only be terminated if the airline fails to perform the obligations of the agreement. In an email, an Avelo spokesperson confirmed to KOIN 6 that officials would “have to payout the contract if they terminate it early, as any business contract stipulates.”

During Monday’s public hearing, Brent DeHart of Fly Salem argued that opponents of the contract are “angry” about federal issues rather than local issues.”

“If Avelo ceased to exist, folks, there would be no change to the federal administration’s policies or number of deportations — so I’m personally frustrated that a private sector, young airline that has brought something good to Salem is the target of such hostility,” DeHart said, in part. “We can’t cancel, as a culture, every company that contracts with the federal government.”

Several council members expressed their opposition to the federal government’s handling of the. Ward 2 City Councilor Linda Nishioka added that leaders could decide against renewing the Avelo contract later this fall, but discontinuing or terminating it could be “fiscally risky.”

Salem Police Chief Trevor Womack previously highlighted Oregon’s status as a sanctuary state, meaning that local and state law enforcement is prohibited from helping with federal immigration efforts unless a judicial warrant is issued.