Vermont has renewed an agreement with federal immigration authorities to hold detainees in state prisons.
The new contract largely mirrors the previous agreement, though there are two differences: There’s no expiration date, and the feds will pay a slightly higher rate to hold people in Vermont.
Under the previous agreement, the feds paid Vermont $180 per night per detainee. The new nightly rate is $5 higher this year and will increase by 3% each subsequent year, according to the contract.
While there is no expiration date, either party can terminate the contract. Vermont must give 120 days notice before doing so.
The agreement came under scrutiny earlier this year amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and after the high-profile arrest of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Vermont resident and pro-Palestinian activist.
Some lawmakers and activists called on Gov. Phil Scott to terminate the contract, but the governor has said the arrangement is preferable to sending people elsewhere.
“We know the facilities here in Vermont,” Scott said during a press conference on Wednesday. “They’re safe and secure and we treat people well.”
But some advocates say they still have concerns about individuals' access to interpretation services and legal representation.
“It’s important that we don't delude ourselves into believing that the Vermont prison system is some wonderland for people who are being detained," said Hillary Rich, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Vermont. “We obviously still have a long way to go to meet the basic needs and to fulfill the fundamental rights of non-citizens in (Department of Corrections) facilities.
On Wednesday morning, there were 13 people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Vermont prisons, according to Haley Sommer, a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections.
In testimony earlier this year, former DOC Commissioner Nick Deml told lawmakers that there’s been a slight increase in the number of ICE detainees in Vermont.
“We’ve seen a slight uptick in the number of detainees, but it’s not astronomical,” Deml said in July.
The department was seeing more people brought to Vermont that weren’t arrested here, and ICE detainees were staying in prisons for longer periods, Deml told lawmakers at the time.
