Republican Gov. Phil Scott Tuesday disputed allegations from the Trump administration that Vermont is illegally providing safe haven to undocumented immigrants.
As first reported by VTDigger, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter to Scott last week saying Vermont had been identified as a “sanctuary” jurisdiction whose “policies and practices thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States.”
“This ends now,” Bondi wrote.
Bondi gave Scott until Tuesday to share his plans to “eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement.” She said the state faces financial consequences, including the loss of federal grants, if it doesn’t comply.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, full cooperation by state and local governments in immigration enforcement is a top priority,” Bondi wrote.
About 30 other jurisdictions received similar notices this week.
In a response to Bondi Tuesday, Scott said he believes Vermont’s designation as a sanctuary state “has been made in error.”
“Vermont does not have any law or policy that impedes the enforcement of federal immigration law,” he wrote. "In fact, the opposite is true.”
Bondi did not reference any specific Vermont laws in her letter. But she alleged that Vermont is violating two federal codes – 8 U.S.C. §§ 1373 and 1644 – that say states and municipalities can’t prohibit their law enforcement officers from sending information about a person’s citizenship or immigration status to federal immigration authorities.
Ava Ayers, an associate professor at Albany Law School, surmises that the Trump administration’s qualms might be with two state laws. One requires all Vermont law enforcement agencies to adopt what’s known as a “fair and impartial policing policy.” The other requires local agencies to get the governor’s approval before they enter into contracts with federal authorities that involve immigration enforcement.
Calling Bondi’s legal argument thin, Ayers described the letter as an attempt to “bully” states into participating in Trump’s deportation campaign.
“In my experience in state government, there are always folks who want to be cautious and folks who want to defend their principles,” Ayers said Tuesday. “And I think a letter like this is designed to empower the folks who want to be cautious, who want to say, ‘Let’s do everything we can to steer clear of this federal beast that’s breathing at our door.’”
Vermont’s fair and impartial policing policy prohibits state and local police from asking about a person’s immigration status, unless it’s relevant to a criminal investigation. It also prohibits officers from sharing personally identifying information about the person with federal immigration authorities, such as their physical address, license plate information, release date, or other information that federal authorities could use to locate someone who may be in the country illegally.
It would be much easier to do mass deportations if you had significant assistance from state and local law enforcement than if you have to rely on federal resources aloneIlya Somin
Jay Diaz is an attorney who formerly worked at the Vermont chapter of the ACLU, where he helped negotiate the policy.
Diaz said the policy was intentionally crafted not to conflict with the federal codes Bondi referenced. As Scott noted in his letter to the attorney general, Vermont law says that any state or local law enforcement policy that conflicts with those federal codes is automatically “abolished.”
Vermont has effectively adopted a “policy of noninvolvement with federal immigration law,” Diaz continued, and while the Trump administration may be seeking “full cooperation,” states are under no legal obligation to provide it.
Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, said there’s a reason the Trump administration wants to enlist local law enforcement agencies in its mass deportation agenda. Local police officers vastly outnumber agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“It would be much easier to do mass deportations if you had significant assistance from state and local law enforcement than if you have to rely on federal resources alone,” Somin said Tuesday.
Somin said efforts by the Trump administration to compel states to participate in the federal government’s immigration enforcement campaign violate federal law.
“Supreme Court precedent, ironically written mostly by conservative justices, says that the federal government cannot commandeer state and local law enforcement to aid in the enforcement of federal law,” Somin said.
Somin, who’s also a scholar at the Cato Institute, said state policies that limit police involvement in federal immigration enforcement are in their residents’ economic interest.
“Undocumented people make important contributions to the economy in many sectors … and so deporting them is harmful,” he said.
Somin said immigrants are also statistically less likely to commit crimes.
Diaz said Vermont’s policy of noninvolvement with federal immigration authorities also helps local police build relationships with immigrant communities that advance the core public safety mission.
“If people think there’s going to be immigration consequences, that they’re going to be put in jail when they’re the victim, then they’re not going to talk to us,” Diaz said.
Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark’s office said in a written statement Tuesday that she’s been in communication with the governor’s office about Bondi’s letter and that it “remains unclear” why the state was listed as a “sanctuary jurisdiction.”
During Trump’s first term, his administration tried to cut off key federal grants to so-called sanctuary cities that didn’t provide desired cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
A federal judge struck down that policy.
Somin said he believes any attempts to coerce states to increase cooperation now, via the threat of financial sanctions, will meet with the same fate.
