A Southern Connecticut State University basketball player named Deng Deng was arrested by federal immigration agents on September 4 at Tweed New Haven Airport, while wearing his SCSU shirt, after immigration officials say he stayed in the country longer than his visa allowed. He is now held at a detention facility in Rhode Island, more than 100 miles from his Connecticut community, while a federal judge has stepped in to keep him from being moved even farther away. He deserves a fair hearing, not to disappear into a distant facility before his case is even heard.

This didn't happen by accident. Immigration agents now carry official access badges to Tweed Airport and park in law enforcement spaces there, according to the airport's operator, Avports. Community members and legal observers say agents have been aggressive on airport grounds, and local advocates report several other people detained at Tweed and at Hartford's Bradley Airport in the same stretch of time.

Avports and the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority don't have to make this easy. Airports have discretion in how they manage credentialing and coordination with outside agencies, and residents deserve a public, transparent policy on when and how immigration agents operate on airport property, not a quiet badge-and-parking-spot arrangement decided behind closed doors.

Students, travelers, and neighbors should be able to move through their local airport without fear of being pulled aside and sent hundreds of miles from home. Sign the petition to demand Avports and the Tweed Airport Authority set clear, public limits on ICE access at Tweed, before another community member is swept away with no warning.