Under a settlement agreement announced Tuesday, the Vermont Department of Corrections will implement new policies to ensure federal immigration detainees held in state prisons have access to interpretation services and legal counsel.
The Humans Rights Commission filed a discrimination complaint against DOC earlier this year after legal advocates raised concerns about how the department treated non-English speakers in its custody. Immigration attorneys reported they had restricted access to detainees, and that the department didn’t provide intake materials in non-English languages or adequate access to translation services.
“The top line items for this settlement document are really about getting in place a language access policy for folks who are housed by DOC, and ensuring that that language access policy is complied with,” Big Hartman, executive director and general counsel of the Human Rights Commission, said in an interview on Tuesday.
“We are also really pleased with [DOC’s] commitment to engage in ongoing meetings to monitor this situation and to be able to troubleshoot issues that may arise,” Hartman added.
The settlement agreement requires DOC to provide non-English speakers with access to all programs and services offered through the department in each person’s best language.”
The settlement is an opportunity for the department to fix some outdated policies, said DOC general counsel Lauri Fisher.
“It's funny to say we appreciate being sued, but this was one that I think definitely was an opportunity for us to get better,” she said in an interview Tuesday.
One notable improvement, Fisher said, was that DOC staff will now have translation devices with them, rather than calling a translation phone service.
“A lot of folks that come in may not even know where they are or how they contact their attorney or their family members,” Fisher said. “And so these devices allow the staff to be able to provide that information in real time.”
The department will also provide a daily list of all immigration detainees to the Human Rights Commission and the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. The agreement gives VAAP regular access to all immigration detainees in state prisons and requires DOC to provide those attorneys with tablets that have translation services.
Jill Martin Diaz, VAAP’s executive director, said in a written statement the agreement “advances critical and meaningful protections.”
“Because of this collaborative approach to ensuring both language access and access to attorneys, VAAP legal staff and volunteers will be able to continue providing legal assistance to ICE detainees, just as we did this past year, meeting with dozens of individuals and securing release from unlawful ICE detention for several more,” Martin Diaz said.
Vermont has an agreement with federal immigration authorities to hold detainees in state prisons. That contract was just renewed last year. As of Aug. 26, there were eight federal immigration detainees held in Vermont prisons, according to DOC data. One recent change, noted Fisher, is that the department is no longer housing women detained by federal immigration authorities because the state’s women’s prison doesn’t have the capacity.
