Thread: Illegal immigrants face the law in Vermont

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Illegal immigrants face the law in Vermont

PATRICK McARDLE, Staff Writer
Bennington Banner


Wednesday, July 5
Editor's note: This article is the second in a three-part series exploring the significance of immigration and its effect on the area.

The difference between enforcing laws against illegal immigration and investigating people just because they stand out in a mostly all-white state is ... well, it's a good question.

It is one that Vermont attorneys who practice immigration law can't answer. They don't say authorities are engaging in the illegal practice of racial profiling, although as zealous advocates for their clients, lawyers may be expected to play the race card.

Instead, they just suggest something is different about Vermont.

Rutland attorney John Newman said he's found that Vermont vigorously enforces the nation's immigration laws.

"It doesn't happen anywhere else in the United States. ... It's the only state I know where there's real enforcement," he said.

While Vermont has not been at the center of the ongoing debate over immigration, it does share a border with another country, something it has in common with about a dozen other states. But attorneys here who defend immigrants in Vermont say it isn't always business as usual.

Because Vermont is a small state, it's much easier to enforce immigration laws than it would be in a larger state, according to Leslie Holman, an attorney whose Burlington firm, Holman Immigration, covers nothing but immigration.

"For instance, if the INS decided to go into every ethnic restaurant in Boston, that may be something they don't have the time, manpower or inclination to do. But in Vermont, it's a lot more possible," she said.

In addition, the Border Patrol can set up checkpoints within 100 miles of the Canadian line; thus there's more enforcement in Vermont than there would be in Connecticut or Massachusetts.

Police say they are color blind when dealing with those suspected of being illegal immigrants. But in a state where, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, about 97 percent of the population is identified as white, Hispanics may stand out as potential immigrants ... and therefore potentially illegal immigrants.

Holman, who testified before the Vermont State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Montpelier in March, said she thought it was hard to determine whether immigrants are being racially profiled.

"I don't know how you answer that in a state like Vermont where anyone who is an immigrant tends to stick out," she said.

Vermont is the second least ethnically diverse state in the nation. That means immigrants won't "blend in," Holman said. But she doesn't attribute the differences in enforcement in Vermont to racial profiling. To Holman, the size of the state plays a much bigger part. For example, Holman described a man she represented who was in the country on a student visa.

"He was watched, and his status was fine; there were no problems ... but when he went out of status, within 24 hours, the INS had someone at his door. That wouldn't happen in another state," she said.

The man had married an American woman by then; yet he was still arrested and put into the immigration detention system, even though he was "just waiting for a piece of paper," Holman said.

Know their neighbors

To Newman, the "transparency" of Vermont makes it a different place for immigrants. In small towns people know their neighbors and where they live. If someone who appears to hail from southern India or Jamaica applies for a driver's license, the motor vehicle clerk is likely to know whether a correct address is given.

Holman said there are also advantages to living in a smaller state. Lawyers in Vermont have access to custom agents.

"In Boston, the immigration office may have 5,000 phone calls from 5,000 angry attorneys, and they're just not going to return all those calls," she said.

But there are also fewer lawyers in Vermont for immigrants in trouble. Newman said he is contacted by people all the time, because he's about the only lawyer in the southern part of the state who practices immigration law.

But because he doesn't practice the kind of law that helps people in the country illegally, he tells them they should probably try to find someone in Boston. That's because that is where they'll probably be by the time a lawyer can be found.

"The likelihood is that they will be whisked out of the state within 24 hours, because there are no permanent lockups available," he said.

Holman said another reason immigrants leave the state so quickly is because there are no immigration courts in Vermont. Defendants must go to Boston, Pennsylvania or Connecticut.

Another problem illegals face is that they're typically poor, Newman said. Although some lawyers take pro bono cases, many are reluctant to work for free. Those who do want to handle asylum cases, not the typical "in the country to pick up agricultural work" case, he said.

But even if the immigrant has a lawyer who's willing to foot the bill, Newman said it's rare that lawyers can help someone in the country illegally.

"They'll say, 'Yes, they'll have to wait for amnesty, or they'll have to go back to their home country and apply for status. ... There's not too much you can do, even with money," he said.

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Police: No racial profiling to see here
PATRICK McARDLE, Staff Writer


Monday, July 3
Editor's note: This article is the first part of a three-part series exploring the significance of immigration and its effect on the area.

Bennington Police Chief Richard Gauthier smiles tightly when asked how his officers handle people who are in the country illegally. It's not a happy smile.
It's the smile of an experienced law enforcement officer who knows the unpleasant question he's about to be asked. It's the look of a man who has seen the term "racial profiling" become commonplace.

Gauthier said his officers don't stop people for "looking like immigrants." In any of the recent cases they've had, there has been a traffic or other underlying "infraction."

Last July, police stopped a car on Water Street because the driver was speeding. Three of the occupants, construction workers who were building the Hampton Inn, were in the country illegally.

Live and let live

In February, after police stopped a van on Main Street, a man was arrested and charged with shoplifting more than $12,700 in merchandise from Manchester stores. Police said he entered the country legally but overstayed his visa. The van he was in was stopped, police said, because a license plate light was out.

Gauthier said Bennington officers only hold immigrants at the request of federal officials.

"That's the way we've done it in the 25 years I've been here," he said.

Major James Baker, who heads the field force division of the Vermont State Police, said his agency's bias policy prevents troopers from stopping people just because of their ethnicity.

"We don't expect our folks to treat anybody differently," he said.

No worse than before

Baker and Gauthier both said their officers don't investigate an immigrant's status but leave that to federal law enforcement.

Baker said his gut feeling is that state police aren't encountering any more cases now than they have in the past, but the public has the sense that it's happening more.

Illegal immigration has never been a big problem in the Bennington area, according to Gauthier, although he remembers having issues in the early 1980s with German and Chinese immigrants.

But even if Bennington is far from the Canadian border, it is still part of a border state and that means a different level of enforcement.

The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol's Swanton section, which stretches about 300 miles from Ogdenburg, N.Y., through Vermont and into New Hampshire, arrests human smugglers crossing from Canada on a regular basis, according to spokesman Ross DeLacy.

"Anywhere there's a border, there will be some type of smuggling going on," he said.

The Border Patrol can set up checkpoints within 100 miles of a border. That means there's more enforcement than there would be in, for example, Connecticut or Massachusetts.

DeLacy, who worked in Arizona for seven years, said things are slower here than there. But he said the law is enforced the same way in both places.

Mike Gilhooley, a spokesman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, strongly denied there were differences between states. "As far is ICE is concerned, we respond the same way to requests we get from Vermont as we do to any other state," he said.

The ICE Law Enforcement Support Center, which like the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is a division of the Department of Homeland Security, is primarily an information service for law enforcement. The agency, which is located in Burlington, is always available to respond to questions about an immigrant's status within the United States.

"If it's 3 a.m. in New Mexico and an officer has stopped someone, instead of locating the nearest ICE officer and getting him out of bed to the side of a highway, now they can send a message to the ICE office," Gilhooley said.

Gilhooley acknowledged that Vermont's size plays a part in its interaction with ICE. In 2005, for instance, there were about 200,000 requests for information from California and about 550 requests from Vermont.

The Border Patrol is far from idle, however. Since October, DeLacy's sector of the agency has arrested 746 people and seized $1.4 million in currency and 1,286 pounds of marijuana with an estimated street value of more than $5.1 million.

But while law enforcement officers are in place because of the U.S.-Canada border, Canadians made up only 220 of those arrested since October. There are also people, DeLacy said, who enter Canada from other countries and then cross the border from there.

Immigrants arrested elsewhere in Vermont may have entered the country legally but violated some rule - students who stopped going to school, people who overstayed their visa, etc. - or committed a crime which allowed them to be deported.

DeLacy said he didn't have easy access to statistics showing the home countries of those who have entered Vermont illegally but said it was safe to say they were from many countries all over the world.

There are more arrests made in Vermont than places to detain suspects. There are only 40 beds in Vermont jails that can be used by the federal government, according to state Corrections Commissioner Robert Hoffman. People who are awaiting trial get first crack at the beds.

Hoffman said he met recently with federal prosecutors and representatives of the Justice Department and Border Patrol. They said their needs are for "radically more than the 40 beds," according to Hoffman.

The federal government has to send suspects arrested in Vermont to prisons in New York, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

"Folks from the Border Patrol have passionately and convincingly argued that this need can artificially delay the resolution of these cases," Hoffman said.

Enforcement efforts in Vermont also receive a boost from what may be an unexpected quarter: the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Capt. Drew Bloom, head of investigations for the Vermont DMV, said the agency was very particular about issuing licenses. That makes it one of the lead state agencies for spotting illegal immigrants.

About six years ago, the DMV stopped issuing over-the-counter licenses to people who only possess foreign documents. Instead, it issues temporary identifications. Bloom estimates that in better than 90 percent of cases, the paperwork check is processed and a driver's license is issued before the temporary identification expires in 60 days.

Counter staff notify ICE about illegal immigrants trying to obtain false documents because the federal government is called on to verify the immigrant's documentation.

The DMV does not always take action right away over questionable documents. Bloom said sometimes it's documentation that's pending because the immigrant was late in filing or a hearing is pending.

DMV doesn't keep any records of how many illegal immigrants it has "discovered" through these processes, but Bloom said it plans to start to bolster performance standards.

Bloom said any of the counter staff can make a referral to his department if they find something suspicious or wrong with documents. A supervisor has to sign off on it. Bloom said he's never seen a case referred to his office just because a DMV staff member thought the person looked "foreign."