Lawmakers, advocates clash over whether Vermont agencies can bar sharing immigration status with federal authorities

At a joint hearing of the Vermont House and Senate Judiciary Committees, witnesses debated whether local police departments and county sheriffs may adopt fair-and-impartial policing (FIP) policies that restrict sharing information about immigration or citizenship status with federal authorities, and whether the Vermont Criminal Justice Council and the Attorney General’s Office can decline to certify those local policies.

The issue centers on a tension between state law that directs agencies to adopt a model FIP policy and a provision that says nothing in state policy is intended to conflict with federal requirements. "There are still examples of actions by Vermont law enforcement agencies that result in civil immigration enforcement," said Will Lambek, a representative of Migrant Justice, citing incidents in Franklin County (2017), Grand Isle (2019) and Orleans (2020–21) in which deputies contacted Border Patrol. Lambek also described a case in which Vermont State Police shared information that led to a detained farmer, Durie Martinez, being deported and dying after a deterioration of health following deportation.

The legal debate discussed at the hearing focused on how to read three parts of state and federal law together. Witnesses repeatedly referenced 8 U.S.C. §1373 and 8 U.S.C. §1644, federal statutes that have been interpreted to limit state and local restrictions on sharing immigration-status information. At the state level, advocates and officials cited Act 54 of 2017 (which added language to the FIP statute saying nothing in the section is intended to prohibit compliance with those federal statutes) and Act 41 of 2019 (which added language saying agencies "may include additional restrictions" on communication with federal immigration authorities). The FIP statute was discussed in the hearing using the citation given in testimony: 20 VSA 23 66.

"This bill is based on language that was written collectively by myself, by ACLU, and by David Sherr," Lambek told the committees, arguing the 2019 amendments were intended to allow municipalities to adopt stronger protections than the state model. Lambek said some municipalities — including Winooski, Burlington, Richmond, Shelburne, Brattleboro, South Burlington, Hartford, Norwich and the Addison County Sheriff’s Department — had adopted local policies that exceed the prior state model and that those policies were previously deemed compliant by the Attorney General’s Office and the Criminal Justice Council.

Falco Schilling, advocacy director for the ACLU of Vermont, emphasized the statute’s language governing certification. "The final sentence of b ... makes it clear that a finding of compliance with this law does not constitute a finding of compliance with any other applicable law," Schilling said, quoting prior legislative testimony and arguing that the 2019 amendments were meant to make the state model the floor, not the ceiling. Schilling said the ACLU supports clarifying legislative intent and pursuing better data collection on how often law enforcement communicates with federal immigration authorities.

Assistant Attorney General Julio Thompson, co-director of the Civil Rights Unit, urged a narrower reading that harmonizes the statutes rather than treating them as contradictory. "Subsection F has been there for 7 years," Thompson told the committees, noting the legislature left that provision in place when it amended the law in 2019. Thompson said the statutory scheme can be read so that municipalities may adopt stronger restrictions up to, but not beyond, what would conflict with the federal statutes' lawful requirements, and he described the 2024 updates to the model policy as clarifying which types of information are not covered by the federal statutes.

Witnesses and legislators debated whether the Criminal Justice Council and the Attorney General’s Office should certify local policies that remove or refuse to comply with references to the federal statutes. Lambek and the ACLU said the council has recently informed some jurisdictions that their enhanced policies will not be certified; Thompson described letters from the Attorney General’s Office explaining certifications issued in earlier years and said the legal and procedural context has changed since 2019, including statutory changes in 2022 that tied compliance to access to council-provided academy training.

No formal vote or rule change was taken at the hearing. Members of the committees directed that the House Judiciary Committee will hold a separate session focused specifically on data-collection issues related to the FIP policy. Advocates urged the Legislature to clarify the intent of the 2019 amendments so the Criminal Justice Council and Attorney General’s Office can apply the law consistent with legislative purpose.

The hearing highlighted competing legal uncertainties: advocates argued municipalities should be allowed to adopt stronger protections to reduce civil immigration enforcement consequences in their communities; the Attorney General’s Office cautioned that subsection F and other statutes remain on the books and that certification decisions and enforcement consequences must be reconciled with those provisions. Several witnesses said the question of whether federal funding could be withheld remains unsettled and would depend on litigation or federal administrative action.

Committee members asked whether litigation over the federal statutes was likely; witnesses said circuit courts are split and that the issue could be litigated further, but they did not identify a pending Supreme Court case on the topic. The committees left the matter open for further legislative clarification and for a separate data-focused session later in the session.

Officials who testified urged clearer statutory language and more transparent certification guidance so municipalities and county agencies know whether they can adopt additional restrictions on sharing immigration or citizenship information with federal authorities without losing certification or training benefits.

For now, the hearing produced no change in state policy; it produced competing legal interpretations and a legislative direction to continue the conversation, with committee staff and witnesses recommending better data collection and possible statutory clarification in the coming weeks.