Federal immigration authorities arrested and detained nine construction workers in the Hardwick area on Friday, according to the advocacy organization Migrant Justice. The group said the targeted enforcement action was unlike anything Vermont has seen since the Trump administration launched its mass deportation campaign in January.
The nine individuals are all residents of Hardwick and came from Colombia, Nicaragua and Ecuador, according to Will Lambek, with Migrant Justice. Migrant Justice isn’t disclosing the names of the individuals.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasn’t responded to a media inquiry, and Vermont Public wasn’t immediately able to get information about the case from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Lambek said Migrant Justice received videos Friday morning of ICE agents in unmarked vehicles arresting two people during a roadside traffic stop on Route 15 in Hardwick shortly after 7 a.m.
Immigration agents clearly had information about people’s vehicles and were tracking them, surveilling them.Will Lambek, Migrant Justice
He said subsequent traffic stops resulted in other arrests, and one person was picked up at a gas station.
The Hardwick Gazette first reported the news Tuesday.
Vermont has seen mass arrest operations over the last eight months. Eight immigrant workers were arrested at a farm in Berkshire in April. ICE agents arrested and detained 10 construction workers at a site in Newport in May.
Lambek, however, said Friday’s enforcement action spanned a number of separate locations and that ICE agents appeared to know what vehicles the individuals would be traveling in.
“This is something we haven’t seen in Vermont before — ICE tracking and arresting people over the course of the morning, following people and arresting throughout the community,” he said. “Immigration agents clearly had information about people’s vehicles and were tracking them, surveilling them.”
Hardwick Police Chief Michael Henry said Wednesday that immigration authorities called the department’s dispatch in advance of the enforcement action to let them know they’d be in the area. He said Hardwick police played no role in the operation.
“It’s really important that, as Vermonters, we are aware of the injustices happening in our midst — the fact that our neighbors are being pulled off the streets and out of their homes by undercover deportation agents — and that we speak very clearly in denouncing those detentions,” Lambek said.
One of the construction workers was released the same day, according to Lambek. The others were held at Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans and Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington until yesterday, when they were transferred out of state.
“We don’t yet know where they are being held,” Lambek said.
Migrant Justice has been working with family members of the individuals, both in Vermont and in their countries of origin, to help them track their location and get in contact. Lambek said the organization is also helping facilitate access to legal counsel.
