No Human Being Is Illegal: We Stand with Migrant Farmworkers

On July 1st, 2020 a member of Vermont’s agricultural community died after contracting Covid-19.  This death was not documented nor announced as part of Vermont’s Covid-19 reporting.  This death and this Covid-19 infection did not occur in VT - it occurred in Mexico - and it occurred due to the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  

In January 2020, ICE arrested and imprisoned a member of the Vermont community, a member of our agricultural community, Durvi Martinez.  Durvi was a trans woman who was seeking asylum in the US after facing severe discrimination and violence in their home country of Mexico.  After being detained for 3 months in deplorable conditions in an all-male prison while being denied medication and suffering severe weight loss, their weakened immune system likely increased their susceptibility to the virus that ultimately took their life.  

Durvi’s tragic death, and the unjust and unaccountable State-sanctioned and funded violence which led to it, are unacceptable. The reckless spread of Covid-19 infections across the US and internationally, and the violent detention - often despite asylum claims - of our immigrant brothers, sisters, and trans identifying people are sadly and terrifyingly widespread at the hands of ICE and Border Patrol. Although we don’t know this to be the case with Durvi, the arrests and deportations of those without documentation are often assisted with the collusion of local and State police forces and entities such as the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles, collaborations known as “Polimigra”, a harmful tool used for intimidation, detention, and deportation that is devastating to our communities.

Numerous companies that detain migrants for ICE have reported thousands of confirmed COVID-19 cases across their facilities.  At least 20 people have died in ICE custody this fiscal year as of Sept. 22. Whistle blowers have reported that staff at some facilities are prohibited from wearing PPE, sick guards are forced to work when ill, there are regular exposures between sick and healthy people, and distancing is not encouraged. There are also incidents of facilities knowingly deporting immigrants likely infected with COVID-19, and officers being encouraged to suppress inmates' severe symptoms.  ICE has been found to be systematically denying immigrant prisoners adequate medical, dental, and mental healthcare.  Immigrant prisoners are forced to perform unpaid labor, and they are punished with solitary confinement for speaking out.  Horrific recent reports from a whistleblower nurse at an ICE detention center in Georgia report large scale, forced hysterectomies and "jarring medical neglect" of migrant detainees. Forced sterilizations targeting particular populations are considered acts of genocide, and speak to a longer history of forced sterilizations of minority populations in the US.

In 2018, 5,400 children were systematically stolen — “tortured”, in the words of Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Physicians for Human Rights - for the sole reason of deterring families from coming to this country, many of whom are seeking asylum from persecution or danger. In 2019 alone, 69,550 migrant children were held in U.S. government custody.  As of December 2019, the total number of children separated from their parents in ICE detention facilities was 5,512. 2,246 of these children are under 10 years old and 300 under 5 years old. Just last week we learned that 545 children separated from their parents almost three years ago at the U.S. southern border in 2017 remain separated with little hope of being reunited, as many of their parents have since been deported. 

ICE is an unaccountable violent force which threatens the well being of everybody living in Vermont, as well as communities outside of Vermont where people are fleeing from violence and being deported despite being carriers of an infection which has killed over 1 million people globally. ICE is an institution which has no place in our communities. It is unacceptable that the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) - a “nerve center” for ICE nationally and globally, including a national hotline for reporting suspected undocumented migrants - is located in Williston, Vermont. We live in a Country and State founded in - and inadequately reconciling with - systemic racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia.  It is this foundation which so deeply condones the present violence and injustice, allowing it to go unaddressed, unaccounted for, unnamed; and allowing its place in Vermont to be justified by its representatives, such as Senator Leahy.

Following the election of President Trump, Vermont law enforcement chose to water down Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy (FIPPs), creating dangerous loopholes that allow for ongoing collaboration between local police and federal deportation agents.  The results have been disastrous: Vermont police continue to turn immigrants over to ICE, ending in their deportation, at times into unsafe or unstable conditions of their home country, and the continued forced separation of families. Despite having the lowest population of its New England counterparts, Vermont ranks higher than both New Hampshire and Rhode Island in number of immigrants detained by ICE. 

In 2018, Migrant Justice, represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, the ACLU of Vermont, the Center For Constitutional Rights, the National Immigration Law Center, and Dibson, Dunn and Crutcher, LLP, filed a suit against ICE and the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of their multi-year operation to “surveil, harass, arrest, and detain Migrant Justice members and leaders” for their work advocating on behalf of the migrant farm worker community. On October 28, 2020, we march in solidarity with Migrant Justice to the Burlington courthouse to announce the terms of the settlement of their lawsuit against ICE and to formally close the case.

The 2019 passage of the No Polimigra bill, championed by Migrant Justice, gives Vermont law enforcement agencies discretion to strengthen their FIPPs, putting a firewall between themselves and the federal government. This is still not enough. We have seen from experience that police and sheriff departments will not make these changes on their own. We rely on local communities organizing to demand change, like the town of Winooski, which has worked with its City Council to close loopholes in its FIPP policy, rather than looking to State leadership to provide basic human dignity to those among us who are most vulnerable. 

Rural Vermont stands with Migrant Justice and the Vermont farmworker community in denouncing the arrest, detention, and deportation of Durvi and others and in holding ICE responsible for their death.  We affirm the right to migration, the rights of all migrants, and that no human being is “illegal”.  We recognize that in a place which promises to be the “land of the free and the home of the brave”, that we truly live in what Langston Hughes called “the land that never has been yet - And yet must be - the land where every man is free”.

In the midst of a severe global health emergency which is disproportionately affecting communities of color and migrant communities; in the midst of the uprising for black lives; in the wake of the disappearance, detention, deportation, and killing of Durvi and so many others - we cannot go back to “business as usual,” to the cold comfort of privilege and the rhetorical, “it’s out of my hands”.  We must join our community members who directly face systemic racism and xenophobia every day in saying, “Si, Se Puede” - “Yes, We Can”; in saying “Ya Basta!” - “Enough!”;  and “A Harm To One Is A Harm To All”.  

The following are actionable steps, supported and called for by the migrant farmworker community, which our local leaders, our federal delegation (Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, and Congressman Welch), and our communities can work to immediately act on:

• Demand the expedited removal of all ICE infrastructure and personnel from VT - in particular and most immediately the LESC facility, which is so critical to the violence inflicted by ICE.

• Work to eliminate, and get in the way of, Customs and Border Patrol cross-border checkpoints.  

• Demand that our federal delegation use their positions to call for an immediate closure to the camps at which children are being held, separated from their families, end family separation and child incarceration, and provide funds for their settlement, reunification, and mental health support. 

• Demand that our federal delegation call for the immediate release of those detained in ICE detention facilities.  

• Call for a moratorium on collaboration and joint training between state and local police with federal deportation officials and agencies, and to close the loopholes in the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy, following the example of Winooski to implement the comprehensive version of this policy throughout the state. 

• Demand that law enforcement, ICE, and Border Patrol stop racial profiling and conduct public hearings on the implementation of the Racial Disparities in the Criminal and Juvenile Justice System Advisory Panel.

• Support Migrant Justice’s efforts to get Hannaford’s to sign onto the Milk with Dignity Campaign.  Milk with Dignity assures a more equitable supply chain by requiring better working conditions for farm workers and a better pay price for farmers.

Know Your Rights with ICE and Border Patrol with this factsheet compiled by the National Lawyers Guild.