Thread: Vermont law counters Trump’s executive orders on immigration

By CORY DAWSON - Associated Press - Tuesday, March 28, 2017

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Vermont pushed back against President Donald Trump’s immigration orders with a new law Tuesday that limits police involvement with the federal government and gives the governor the power to sign off on agreements for officers to do federal immigration duties.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott called it a response to federal overreach by the Trump administration.

Under the law, state and local police officers are prohibited from collecting personal information on residents beyond what’s needed to carry out their law enforcement duties. It also bars police in some instances from providing information on residents to federal agents.

The bill was introduced in February with support from Vermont leaders of all political stripes, including Democratic Attorney General T.J. Donovan and Progressive-Democrat Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman.

The bill passed the Senate unanimously and cleared the House by a wide margin. Before signing the bill, Scott addressed concerns that Vermont’s law would conflict with federal immigration laws.

“I want to be very clear. This law has been carefully crafted through a consensus-building process to confirm Vermont remains compliant with federal law, that we would not be establishing a sanctuary state,” Scott said.

The law attempts to prevent the state from being labeled a so-called sanctuary jurisdiction by explicitly ensuring Vermont will comply with two federal immigration laws that Trump singled out in an executive order issued in January.

The first law ensures that federal and non-federal police can share information about a person’s immigration status. The other law gives governors the power to sign agreements that allow state and local police to become temporary federal immigration agents when needed.

If states don’t comply with these laws, Trump has ordered U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelley to revoke their federal funding.

“We don’t know what we don’t know, and we don’t know how the Trump administration or Attorney General Sessions is going to handle it,” said Republican state Rep. Gary Viens, a former border patrol agent who voted against the bill.

Sessions said Monday the Justice Department will seek to “claw back” federal funds distributed to states, cities and towns that don’t comply with a federal immigration laws.

The American Civil Liberties Union in Vermont fired back, saying in a statement Tuesday that Vermont has “no obligation or authority to enforce federal immigration law.”

“The Attorney General’s scare tactics are legally indefensible and antithetical to our federal system of government,” said James Lyall, ACLU of Vermont’s executive director.

Despite the safeguards baked into Vermont’s law, some House Republicans are wary the policy could still open the door to Vermont losing federal money.

“We could get in trouble really quick with the federal government and lose a ton of money which, quite frankly, the state of Vermont cannot afford to lose,” Viens said. About half of Vermont’s budget is from federal sources.

“There is nobody in this building who can state with authority that it will or won’t happen,” Viens said.

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Vermont is harboring illegal aliens! FOR SHAME!!