MONTPELIER — A group of organizations that advocate for immigrant rights in the state are urging Vermont lawmakers to pass a slate of bills they say would bolster protections for communities they serve — and counter recent changes at the federal level.
“We’re just asking the state to make sure there is some accountability,” said Jill Martin Diaz, executive director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, a legal aid nonprofit. The bills, they said, would let immigrant communities “know that we’ve got their backs, and help prepare our service providers to weather the storms ahead.”
One of the proposals, S.44, would put a new restriction on how state agencies and local governments could enter into policing agreements with federal immigration enforcement officials.
Under a law passed during President Donald Trump’s first term, only the governor — in consultation with the attorney general — could enter into such agreements, unless a “state or national emergency” had been declared, in which case local officials could do so on their own accord. The bill would nix that exception, though, and add language to the law reiterating that local governments must first consult the governor.
As it was introduced earlier this year, the bill proposed requiring the governor to get an OK from the Legislature before committing to an immigration enforcement agreement. But that measure did not make it into the version of the bill that cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning.
Gov. Phil Scott’s administration was opposed to the bill as introduced — and some members of the judiciary committee did not appear keen to go against Scott’s wishes, said Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, the bill’s lead sponsor. “There wasn’t a path forward” for the legislation in its initial form, White said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
Still, the latest version of the bill could be important because President Donald Trump has already declared a “national emergency” related to immigration, albeit one targeted at the U.S.’s southern border, said Falko Schilling, a lobbyist for the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, who spoke in favor of the bill Tuesday morning.
“We think that the state government should not be in the business of helping these types of investigations and potential prosecutions,” Schilling told the Senate panel.
Martin Diaz’s organization, along with the farmworker advocacy group Migrant Justice and the ACLU, among others, organized testimony supporting White’s bill — and several others being taken up in the Senate — throughout the day on Tuesday.
The groups are also backing a bill, S.56, that would set up a committee to study whether the state should create a new office coordinating social and economic services for people who have recently arrived in the state from other countries.
The “Office of New Americans” would be different from the existing State Refugee Office, supporters said, because it would have a broader focus on all new arrivals — including, but not limited to, those who are legally considered refugees.
Tracy Dolan, who directs the refugee office, would chair the study committee. She said her office fields calls “all the time” about cases that don’t fall under their charge, such as those involving people who want to enter the country on certain worker visas. The office does not have the resources to take on much of the additional work, she said, if any.
“I would say we are inadequate,” Dolan told members of the Senate Government Operations Committee Tuesday afternoon. “We get an A-plus for trying real hard, but I’m going to give us a C, or C-minus, for execution on some of these other things.”
There are 22 other states with similar “New American” offices already in place, and several other states are considering bills to stand one up this year, said Mike Zimmer, senior policy consultant at the Office of New Americans State Network. Zimmer told the government operations panel that he estimated Vermont would need two, or at most three, full-time positions to staff such an office in the future.
Immigrant rights advocates also voiced support Tuesday for provisions in a sweeping housing policy bill being debated in the Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs Committee. The measures would make it explicit in state law that someone could not be discriminated against when seeking to rent or buy housing because of their citizenship or immigration status.
The provisions would not preclude landlords, among others, from verifying someone’s immigration status in situations where it is required by federal law. At least two other states — New York and California — have similar language on the books already, advocates said.
Olga Cruz, a dairy farmworker and member of Migrant Justice, told the Senate panel that it’s often a challenge for migrant workers — many of whom do not have legal status in the U.S. — to find landlords who will rent to them. Speaking in Spanish through a translator, Cruz said the proposal could make it easier for some of her colleagues to get a safe and comfortable place to stay.
“This is important for our community,” she said of the proposal.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Immigrant rights groups push for new protections in state law.