Advocates tell Vermont committee DOC practices block detainees' access to counsel, interpreters

MONTPELIER — On Jan. 14 the House Corrections & Institutions Committee heard testimony from legal advocates who said Department of Corrections practices are preventing immigrant detainees in Vermont facilities from getting timely access to lawyers, interpreters and medical care.

Hillary Rich, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Vermont, told the committee that while the ACLU is not currently calling for an immediate end to the state's contracts that allow federal marshals and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to place detainees in Vermont facilities, the state is "falling far short of its obligation to meet the basic needs and fulfill the fundamental rights of noncitizens in its custody." Rich cited barriers she described as both a failure to provide required language access and operational roadblocks that limit volunteer and low-cost attorneys' ability to reach clients.

"The DOC has been actively erecting barriers to prevent volunteer and low cost attorneys from providing legal representation to immigrant detainees in their facilities by restricting access to information and limiting attorneys' abilities to retain and speak with their clients," Rich said.

The Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP), represented by Executive Director Jill Martin Diaz, offered detailed, facility-level examples. VAAP said it rapidly expanded this year from four staff in May to ten by December to meet demand, but advocates regularly arrive for scheduled legal clinics and are turned away for lack of meeting space, told they are double-booked or denied entry by front-line officers.

"We will arrive for our scheduled time and be turned away at the door because we've been double booked," Martin Diaz said, describing repeated incidents in which volunteer attorneys and trained student paralegals were refused entry. She said those operational denials have materially reduced VAAP's ability to screen and represent detainees.

Martin Diaz told the committee that an administrative change in September banning attorneys' personal devices led VAAP's successful screenings on legal-visit days to fall from near 100% to about 25%, because advocates could no longer bring their own interpretation technology and had to share a single landline and interpreter connection.

"Our devices were banned," she said, and that change coincided with a sharp drop in on-site legal screenings. Martin Diaz also gave examples of clients who were removed from Vermont facilities and transferred out of state before counsel could intervene.

Rich and VAAP invoked several legal authorities as the basis for remedies, including federal detention standards that attach to contracts with federal agencies, Title VI language-access obligations for recipients of federal funds, and Vermont's state anti-discrimination laws. Rich said those authorities are implicated where intake forms, medical requests and grievance processes are not provided in a language a detainee can understand.

Advocates asked the legislature to require better state-level coordination of policies and resources so that DOC practices and expectations are clear to outside legal-service providers. VAAP said its two-part proposal — statewide coordination and preserving local bed access so lawyers can meet clients in person — would improve outcomes for detainees and reduce transfers to states where legal representation is scarce.

Committee members pressed witnesses on specific points: Rich said the ACLU submitted a public records request on Dec. 18 seeking contracts, policies and interpreter invoices and that DOC had acknowledged but not produced substantive records. Martin Diaz said VAAP has documented cases in which detained people lacked information about where they were held, were denied medication or culturally appropriate diets, and in at least one instance her staff needed to use a personal laptop to connect a detainee to a remote hearing to avoid removal in absentia.

Witnesses also referenced legislation under consideration: provisions to designate additional "sensitive locations" where civil arrests are limited (bills referenced in testimony as S209 and the sponsor's prior H511) and an "access to counsel" bill that would strengthen legal representation in immigration proceedings.

The committee chair closed the session by saying there is "a lot to digest" and recommended that DOC review the testimony and return for follow-up; the hearing is recorded on YouTube and additional testimony from DOC legal counsel was scheduled later in the day.

What's next: Committee members said they intend to ask DOC to respond formally to the advocates' claims and to the ACLU's public records request. Advocates urged prompt action so detainees can access counsel, interpreters and necessary medical care while held in Vermont facilities.