City Council - Regular Meeting

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Just so folks here know, we are going to just wait a couple more minutes while folks file in. Um, we are going to open up the balcony uh if more people come in attendance. So, uh, feel free to use that. I I don't think it's unlocked yet, but just so you know, the balcony will be

Okay, thank you for folks patience. We will call this uh special meeting of the Burlington City Council to order. It is 6:05 p.m. Uh I thank my colleagues and the mayor as well for their collaboration and are putting this uh special meeting together. really a a continued discussion from the meeting um that we had at the end of our uh last council year regarding the actions of March 11th. We heard at our last meeting the uh local response to that. The focus of tonight's meeting is our community's response to that. We invited a number of community organizations that have been uh impacted um more importantly the individuals they served impacted by uh the actions of March 11th and more largely uh federal immigration enforcement actions uh over the course of this past year plus and I appreciate uh all of the organizations that have agreed to join us this evening. I also want to note that those organizations to which we extended invitations that were not able to make it also very much appreciate their work. I know that being here takes time away uh from the service that they're otherwise providing to our community and I want to uh take a moment to acknowledge and and respect that. Before uh turning to our agenda this evening, uh I do want to note both for those individuals here in attendance as well as online um that this evening and um also this past Monday at our organization day and the mayor's state of the city address, we piloted a uh new program in collaboration with our uh department of racial equity, inclusion, and belonging. And I want to acknowledge Christian Barry here from uh the REIB for for her work and her colleagues work in uh ensuring more language access for our community. And what we are pil piloting this evening uh is a new tool called uh Wordley AI. Um AI can be used for some good I suppose. uh and um in

this case it allows for folks to uh join our meeting and to see receive uh live uh translation and uh captions um in the language of their choice. And so if you are here in person, I believe there are maybe some printed QR codes. If there are not, uh whether you're here in person or you're online, uh if you get on to uh civic clerk and you see our agenda online, there is a link there to Wordley. uh and if you click on that link, you should be able to log into this meeting uh select your language of choice um and an AI tool would then translate it into that language. I do notice that here we have some other folks that perhaps are uh providing their own live translation which is great as well and and I I thank you for that. But um to the end of ensuring language access for all, I did want to note that we have uh this uh new tool that's available. Um, and again, if you're here in person, you could always access it from your phone and pop in your headphones and receive live translation here in person if that was uh your choice. So, I'm excited about this possibility and again, thank the REI for their collaboration in that regard. Um, and I think I saw Christian noting that the printed QR codes are on the table over here for sign up for public forum. Uh, so with that, um, we now turn to our special meetings, uh, agenda. Is there a motion to adopt our agenda?

I would move to adopt the agenda with the note that the 50minute limit or notific agenda for the work session is not operative. In other words, there is not a 50minute limit on that. Sure. That that that's right. Uh when we first uh posted this draft agenda that 50 minutes was a placeholder, not knowing how many organizations would uh respond. Um we traditionally blow over those time limits anyways and so it is uh it remains a guideline uh that we will no doubt blow over this evening as well. Um so thank you for noting that councelor Bergman. Is there I think that was a motion as well. Yes. Yes. Is there a second? Councelor Carpenter. Thank you.

Um all in favor of that motion please say I. I. Any opposed?

That is unanimous. Um, I do also want to note before turning to public forum that we're joined by councelor Litwin online and I want to welcome our new colleague, our W three city councelor, uh, councelor Laura Sanchez Parkinson. So, uh, thank you very much Laura for being here tonight and welcome. Some first meeting to be at. Yeah. Um, all right. We will now go ahead and open public forum. The rules for public forum this evening are the same uh tonight as they are uh at any regular council meeting. We'll begin first with Burlington residents who are here in person in city hall. We will then turn to Burlington residents online. We will repeat that process for non- Burlington residents here in person and then non- Burlington residents online. Uh we will hold to uh our our two-minute rule for public forum. Uh when I call your name, if you're here in person, if you could please come to the table. We have a bit of a longer table than usual because we will be asking uh folks who are here from the various organizations to try to come to the table together if at all possible. Um and we may need to spend some time figuring that out. Maybe you'll bear with us as we maybe pull the tables closer and rearrange the room. Uh but please come here to the table. Uh make sure the microphone is close to you. Hit the push buttons that the green light on the microphone itself is illuminated. If you're online, uh I will let you know once you've been promoted such that you can speak. When providing comments, please pro uh direct them to me as the chair and not to any other individual. We do not tolerate any individualized uh comments or attacks, particularly those that are based on any individual's protected characteristics. We also ask that comments please refrain from any vulgarities, obscenities, or otherwise being overly loud or disruptive. It's important that city hall remain a safe space for those who serve, those in attendance, and those, uh, tuning in online. Um, with that, uh, I think we can go ahead and, uh, turn to

our first Burlington resident here in person, who is Ashley Smith. And Ashley will be followed by Reubena Anum. Do I just start? Yeah, please go ahead. The timer's over here.

Tonight is about action. What is the city council going to do? What is the mayor going to do to stand up against ICE and discipline the Burlington Police Department? We are literally in a state of emergency. We have a madman in the White House who's blowing up entire countries and is threatening to annex other countries and is a clear and present danger to the world. His budget is a giant giveaway to billionaires and austerity for workers and $1.5 trillion to the war budget. That is an absolutely unpopular agenda and he knows it. And so he's turning to domestic repression to maintain control of our society. He's turning to ICE as his personal Gustapo to be deployed in cities across the country to target migrants. And Steve Bannon and others are talking about deploying ICE to the voting booths for the midterm election. Our rights are in jeopardy right now. The people will stand up. The community defended migrants on March 11th heroically. I wish more city councilors were there standing side by side with them. The real question is what is the state of Vermont, the city of Burlington, and this city council going to do about it. We are going to hear an avalanche of testimony tonight proving that the Burlington Police Department collaborated with ICE in nothing less than a riot to illegally arrest, detain, and imprison people, three human beings without do do uh without just cause. The real question is what is the city council going to do? Why was migrant justice not given equal time at the last city council to refute the gaslighting and lies of the chief of police? And the

question to you tonight, what will you do to enforce and discipline the police in this city and make sure the FIP is honored and never violated with such shenanigans as mutual aid? It's time to stand up. Join us on Mayday to march on ice in Willist, Vermont. Thank you. Thank you. Uh our next speaker and and I do appreciate folks holding their applause one way or another. We do ask that folks hold their um feelings silently with respect to speakers such that folks feel like they can express any viewpoint here. Uh our next speaker is Rebana Anjum who will be followed by Maggie Chadwell.

Hi, I'm Reena. That's how my name is pronounced. Um, so I was not present, but I watched extensive footage of the events and communicated with multiple people who were present. Throughout the day, I also reviewed reporting from various news outlets. The first thing that federal agents did that day was endanger public safety. They were looking for a man, Davy Daniel Corona Sanchez, and they were surveilling a house, and that's how this whole thing happened. Now, community members were alerted of their presence and showed up and surrounded the house, and they stood in the rain all day to protect their fellow community members. Things were mostly tame until that judicial search warrant was issued in the evening by magistrate Kevin Doyle. The warrant was to search the house that Dors on Dorset Street to look specifically for Corona Sanchez. State and local police used violence against community members to get them out of the way to allow federal agents to break down the door. They pushed, shoved, and wrestled people to the ground. A Burlington police officer was confirmed to have used pepper spray and is being investigated for excessive use of force. Federal agents used flashbangs and tear gas. Corona Sanchez, whose name was on the warrant, did not even live on the property and was not even present on the property. And instead, what happened was collateral arrests. Collateral arrests are when you arrest as someone whose name is not on the warrant and it has been found to be unlawful by multiple courts in Illinois and in Colorado. So your BPD and state uh and local law enforcement have essentially assisted in an unlawful action. If I was if I tried to sell a pound of cocaine and a BPD officer drove me around, uh is that not unlawful on the part of the officer? That's what happened on um March 11th. And yeah, it's not to me. I I'm a naturalized US citizen. I became a US citizen in November. It's not I don't

feel like it's the police that's protecting me. It's the people behind me. Thank you, Rebana. Uh our next speaker is Maggie Chadwell, who will be followed by Leif Toronto.

Speaking on behalf of Maggie Chadwell, who's not able to be present. myself along with a few hundred of your constituents watched the intimate collaboration unfold between ICE state and local police on March 11th which culminated in the illegal kidnapping of three of our neighbors and horrific brutalization of the community trying to protect them. BPD has yearslong history of violence towards our community and little to no action has taken um has been taken to hold the agency accountable despite mass community organizing and outcry. The mental gymnastics it takes for our elected officials and media sources to push the narrative that BPD kept us safe on March 11th is deeply alarming. As are the empty words of Mayor Mulvaney Stannic that BPD will be held accountable in the aftermath of their actions. Faith in the systems you all uphold and protect is crumbling before your eyes. And you're scrambling to repair that by using manipulation tactics like gaslighting and fabricating stories claiming that we are at fault for the escalation. You faced us with lethal weapons and we faced you with goggles, masks, and ponchos. Chief Burke had the audacity to say his team is well trained in deescalation. Explain to me why then the umbrella tossed out of the way resulted in BPD officers violently arresting two of my neighbors and horrifically assaulting the neighbors who tried to protect them. Myself and many other community members have combined hours have combed through hours of footage that clearly show collusion between ICE and BPD. namely officers Gonzalez, Caro, Webster, Ellerman, Hartnet, Young, Bellivo, Tremble, and Moyer. I hope the council and Mayor Mulvaney Stanic take the time to thoroughly review and internalize the trauma and pain you have caused the community both on the 11th and the time since by failing to outwardly condemn BPD. There's still time to change your mind. Many of us are waking up to the capacity to care for one another and keep each other safe outside of the fascist colonial project that is capitalism. That very practice is in direct resistance to the systems that BPD is designed to protect and protected on March 11th by carrying out

an ICE raid. There is a long beautiful history of marginalized communities leading resistance to these systems and we have so much to learn from them. We have to acknowledge that police were not are not and under no amount of restructuring or reform designed to protect us. Abolish the police. We keep each other safe. Thank you. Uh our next speaker is Leif Toronto who will be followed by Vavon Bose Pine. Can you hear me? Yes.

Cool. Uh, last summer, while we were working to stop ISIS human trafficking through Burlington airport, some friends and I attempted to inform the airport police that they did in fact have the power to stop the ident unidentified men who are forcing groups of women out of unmarked vans and through restricted side doors without due process. Chief Burke responded by telling my colleague that BPD would not intervene because his officers were not ready to take the personal risk of confronting federal agents. I bring this up now because we've been told that the police were there on March 11th to protect us. This is a lie. I'm a professional deescalation trainer and I've also been part of the project that's gone through thousands of hours of footage. And what we've all witnessed that day and repeatedly in the footage since then was a clear-cut situation of police and ICE collusion and excessive force. Here's just some of what happened. BPD collaborated with ICE in a civil immigration enforcement raid whose origin has been admitted by ICE as a clear-cut case of bias-based policing and mistaken identity. BPD officers provided a quarter for ICE agents to leave with three detainees who are not on the warrant and whose detention has been ruled illegal by federal courts. Officers Webster, Moira, Cooer, Cororo, and others collaborated with the ICE in the violent arrest of multiple civilians, several of whom experienced concussions, bruising, and severe respiratory distress. Officer Gonzalez assaulted multiple bystanders and slammed them to the ground. And BPD officers held at least one arresty face down into the dirt as an ICE agent employed pain compliance torture techniques, twisting their thumb backwards in attempt to break their wrist. The truth of what happened that day is that your unarmed constituents protected each other and all your officers did was check that they were feds and then help them with their brutality. I keep hearing that officers were put in an impossible position. It is not hard to not attack innocent community members. It is also not that hard to stand up for to ICE. I know this because I've done it and I've seen people do it without weapons, without protective vests, without the qualified

immunity that protects them from the consequences of their actions. All that is required to stop ISIS is to say no, to have just a stretch of courage and integrity, and to care just a little bit more about your community than you do about things being easy. This is not a hard choice. Thank you. Uh our next speaker is Vavon Bose Pine who will be followed by Elliot Hungerford. Can you hear me? We can.

Um so today there is a lot of protests around the state against the war in Iran. uh the escalations of the war in Iran. Um there's also more anti-war protests happening. There's one behind you right now. Um the folks here are coming to speak out against ISIS terroristic attacks against the community, unlawful kidnapping of Joanna Camila Christian. Um but we're that's not all we're here to speak about. Um and I appreciate the council um at the last meeting uh denouncing ISIS's actions as unlawful. Um I was really disappointed to hear very little denouncing of BPD's actions. You heard a lot of direct testimony of your constituents telling you, "This BPD officer smashed my head into the concrete. This BPD officer moved out of the way to have me hit by uh hit by traffic. This BPD officer tried to ram me with a car." And there was an sort of nonplusness. I understand maybe the politics surrounding the situation. Um, and I think that for that reason, a lot of the people behind me, a lot of the people in general who don't feel represented uh by this council and by the police have come to recognize that it's really the people that save the people. Um, and the people's house is on the streets. Um, that said, there is still the the question of sort of the enormous uh resilience the community showed and that incredible resilience demands an incredible solidarity on the behalf of those who seek to represent and support them. It's also the extraordinary violence that Burlington police specifically, and I'm not talking about ICE, who Burlington Police fully supported, but also themselves enacted, um, requires an enormous and extraordinary level of accountability, which definitely was not shown this far. I think you guys know it's now been over a month. Uh, it's about time to show some shred of accountability, if not total. Um, something I keep forgetting to say is that after the um after the events of March 11th, uh, I was talking to some high school students who were there and who were like pretty, you know, pretty tense about what was going on. They were just talking with each other. Um, and something they said to one of them said to the other one, "It's so crazy how these masked agents can come in completely unaccountable. We

have no idea who they are. They can do anything they want." And then another one of them said, um, it's actually scarier how I recognized that kid graduated recently who's in South Burlington Police Department. that's scarier to me that our community is terrorizing our community. That's what kids feel. Um and so I just hope that you guys can hear that today and and hold BBD to the same level of accountability you held ice.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Elliot Hungerford who will be followed by Julie Masuga. Did you know that police departments in the United States have their roots in surveilling, controlling, and capturing enslaved people? Did you know that under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, enslavers could merely swear that a particular black person was a slave, and cops and federal marshals would kidnap this person, force them through rapid legal proceedings, and then transport this kidnapped person south. Groups of activists called vigilance committees worked to disrupt these processes, often getting in the way of marshals and enslavers. In fact, the prevalence of these activist groups is one of the main forces behind the creation of one of the first police departments, the NYPD, who function to both break up these slave freeing riots and to capture fugitive slaves. Do these tactics sound familiar? In a time when our immigrant neighbors are also so often considered illegal under the rule of law, we see a clear historical connection to slavery. From American courts working quickly when that speed serves white supremacy to police departments and federal marshals like ICE functioning to traffic people deemed illegal and to suppress those fighting for what is right. It's crucial that we see the police's tactics as part of a historical process where the police, including ICE, function not to protect the people, but the interests of capital and those in power. In order to cover this up, the police require an extremely wellunded propaganda machine and a narrative of both heroism and victimhood. Many of us saw this in real time on March 11th in the days that followed. Let's be clear about what the police did. They stood between protesters and ICE and tactical gear, perfectly allowing three of our neighbors to be kidnapped, assaulted dozens of community members, opened the streets while the injured continued to receive care, gave over body camera footage to Trump's FBI, putting every activist at risk, and then in the days after, with the help of our mayor and governor, proceeded to pathetically frame themselves as victims of a difficult situation. And as someone

who witnessed some of the so-called assaults on officers, these incredibly minor events speak to how fragile and thin skinned the police really are. We must reject this narrative and see how it functions to cover up the police's blatant collaboration with ICE. Without the lies, gaslighting, billion-dollar propaganda machine, the backing of the courts, and countless countless dollars of weapons and surveillance technology, the police would blow over in the wind. They stand for nothing. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Julie Masuga to be followed by Brooke McKeen.

I watched my bruised, beaten, and concussed friends read a statement from the mayor's office that all but praised the actions of the police officers that did the bruising and beating. But still, the city could have been neutral. Laid out the facts, said, "Yes, we are investigating this." They didn't have to praise the police or even the protesters. Just assured us it wasn't being swept under the rug. instead a defense of BPD and nothing from the and nothing from the people who were brutalized. The only condemnation thrown around was for ICE. People are feeling betrayed. Staunch supporters of the administrations are wavering. What you do next is very important. Body cam footage of what BPD did to the people itself is itself protected, though freely given to the feds. Right now, it's our word against theirs. And certainly, we have our own footage. Hundreds if not thousands of videos we have combed through and people have had to relive their trauma over and over again just to find an angle that proves yes this man choked me. Yes, BPD protected ICE. The body cam footage is important to corroborate what happened and we need to make it public as soon as possible. Remember when BPD and a BPD sorry a BPD officer cracked a man's skull and hid the footage for eight months? Do not hide this. While I am glad investigations are happening, letting the BPD do them internally is like letting a bunch of second graders grade their own tests. Did they earn a gold star? Probably not. People need to be able to see for themselves what happened. There's a trope in media where someone decides to run for office and they tell a confidant, "If I become a certain type of politician, I want you to snap me out of it." We are getting perily close to that part of the movie. I've helped with a lot of progressive campaign events and was eager when I heard, "Hey, can you help deescalate so we don't have to involve the cops? We knew a lot of people in the margins felt safer that way." These elected positions were built on people power. Nomos Polygro was built on people power, not

with choke holds and weapons. Return to your roots. Talk with us. Hold the cops accountable.

Thank you. Our next speaker will be Brook McKeen to be followed by D. Graham. My name is Brooke and I am deeply disturbed by the response to the 11th from many of our elected officials and local government. It is painful to listen to many of you continuously double down, gaslight, and manipulate the public and the people who actually live this experience. and it does not bode well for the already active erosion of the public's trust in our elected officials and government. Unfortunately, we've seen this game played time and time again. We show up to these meetings where you create these spaces for people to share their experiences in no more than two minutes. Of course, you plate us by sometimes appearing to listen. People put trust in you to take their experiences and vulnerability seriously and to respond by taking action towards accountability and change. And just about every time, like clockwork, we watch as you carefully choose your empty words to maintain some sort of neutrality and public image. As you dismiss people's traumas and the immense harm caused, and as you do damage control to try to restore trust and faith in our local law enforcement. If it is not already glaringly apparent to you all, the public's trust in law enforcement is long, long gone. It has been decaying for decades. Folks deemed disposable by the state under capitalism have known this, felt this, said this from the very beginning. Many of us who hold more social privilege and power have awoken to this reality too late, having had the fortune of living most of our lives not being the direct target of their state sanctioned violence. But every day, it becomes clear to all of us that none of us are kept safe by the cops. that their jobs are not to act guided by a sense of morality and care for community well-being, but rather to protect the interests, property, and capital of the state, which in turn means upholding white supremacy, capitalism, and colonial practices. The

11th is just one gleaming example of this, but a powerful one. You will not change the minds of the people on this reality by standing firmly and loyally behind the police. You will only continue to tear down our trust and faith in you. Their massive operative failure, egregious behavior, and violations of human safety and rights on March 11th are crystal clear. You all upholding their lies and misrepresentations of what happened and attempts to turn them into the victims of the situation only reflects incredibly poorly on you. Thank you. You keep saying local law enforcement were placed in an impossibly difficult situation.

Are you serious? Again, it is not difficult to not inflict violence on people. It is not difficult to stand up to Nazis. It is not difficult to act with morality. The police are not the victims here. They are the aggressors. They are the betrayers and traitors of our community. We will be here again and again until you show that you are capable of stepping out of your bubbles of comfort and complacity. Sorry, complacency. We keep us safe.

Thank you. I will um just remind speakers that I will hold everyone uniformly to uh the two minutes. We we we we're providing a bit of flexibility beyond that, but uh we'll not be able to continue it much further beyond two minutes. Um our next speaker is D. Graham, who will be followed by Cassidy Barrett.

Hi, my name is D. Graham. I'm a W3 Burlington resident and was on scene at Dorset Street for about 10 hours on 311. deep gratitude to the community members who have shared and continue to share their direct experiences, especially those most impacted by this type of violence, which remains an everpresent threat. I'd like to ask the Burlington City Council and the mayor, what are you doing tonight? I genuinely want to know, what are you doing? As we've noted for weeks, public officials and law enforcement have been very hard at work telling a story about March 11th. the story that paints law enforcement ultimately as protectors of the community that even if some harm was done, it was justified because ICE might have been worse. And as heard in various forums, including tonight, there is another version of reality that was experienced by our community, myself, and dozens of eyewitnesses. A version that clearly demonstrates violations of the FIP, BPD brutality, and complicity to illegal federal actions. A version that shows us, the community, protecting each other, and a version that is extremely well documented with hours of footage and material evidence, including, I'm sure, your own body cam footage. If you all are as outraged about the violent, illegal, and downright avoidable ICE activity on March 11th as you say you are, I suggest you open yourselves to the undeniable evidence being shared tonight and acknowledge the bottom line that none of this would have been possible without the aid and actions of BPD. That would be a step. I'm sorry to say that hand ringing will not save us. It will not explain away the false equivalencies of power and violence that your story has so desperately tried to claim. You say your bottom line is public safety, but your goalposts of what are acceptable means of achiev of achieving this keep moving and we see that. So again, I ask you, why are you here? I know you don't want to be here. I know none of us want to have to be here. Take the irrefutable documentation being presented tonight and take some actual meaningful steps to hold BPD to account and commit to what you continue to tout as your goal, protecting our neighbors and community. I know our community is strong and that is what keeps us safe

and we will never stop fighting for that. So, what will you do?

Our uh next speaker is Cassidy Barrett who will be followed by Fared. Hi, I'm Cass Barrett. I've lived in Burlington for about nine years. I'm going to keep this brief because I'm terrified of public speaking. Masked people with weapons that can kill that break into a house with children in it do not care about the safety of children. and anyone on their side such as the Vermont State Police, South Burlington Police Department, and Burlington Police Department also do not care about the safety of children. Are you on their side? The side that does not care about the safety of children. The creation of the police force was and is a racist white supremacist organization deeply entrenched in violence. And a tree can only be disentangled from its roots when it's cut down. Abolish ICE. Abolish the police. We keep us safe.

Thank you. Uh our next speaker is Fared. And then our last Burlington resident here in city hall will be uh Siana McGra. Um Fared, just before you begin, I'll just note here that when we go online, I'd like to be able to share my screen so that folks online can see the timer in the webinar tool on Zoom. Though I'm not I'm not seeing that I'm able to share my screen. But just Okay. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Uh Fared, thanks for your patience. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I've lived in Burlington for 30 years now. And uh for the longest time, um there was a time when Burlington Police Department didn't kill anybody. You'd have to go back all the way to before Bernie was mayor uh to find somebody who was killed by the police. But what then then what happened? Um I never voted for Bob Kiss. um don't necessarily even like him, but regardless of what you think of him, I saw him put himself between protesters and the cops to avoid a riot that was in uh during the occupy uh encampment. So what happened then we had a new mayor who was to the total opposite of that and instead of protecting um the the residents, he became like somebody who carry water for the department. Um and we and the statistics show it like under Miro Winberger uh the the number of Burlingtononians killed by the police is more than all the previous administration combined. I've seen BPD collaborate with the feds and beat up people. I saw them open fire uh and shot munitions at protesters during the New England Governor's Convention. Um, and then a month later, and then a year later, I also saw collaborate with the DEA when they uh executed a suspected drug dealer on Elmont Street, almost killing the neighbor uh who was who had no idea what was going on. Uh even though BPD is supposed to be protecting us, they never decide to evacuate this uh the neighbors from the this dangerous situation. Um, after the after the New England Governor's Convention, we wanted we called for independent investigation. Nothing ever happened. Um, none of you were on the council and we had a different mayor now. So, please this

time do something else. Please this time uh restore our trust in you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, as mentioned, our last Burlington resident signed up at the moment here in city hall is Siana McGra. Um, please correct if I'm mispronouncing that. We'll then turn online. Um, the first Burlington resident I see signed up online is Atlas Cooper. Uh, although on Zoom, I don't see anyone by that name. If you're on Zoom under a different name, if you could please use the You're here, Atlas. Okay. Thank you. So, you'll be next and and then we'll go online. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Shauna. Um, I was present on March 11th. As we saw on March 10th, the day before, the outcome of a situation that started very similar was entirely different without the presence of forces with this escalated equipment. BPD chief said that that was because on March 11th, we showed up with goggles and masks. But that's like seeing someone packed an umbrella and bringing a hose. When have you heard of the people being the ones teargassing cops? We don't even have money for healthcare, let alone escalated equipment or flashbangs. On March 11th, for hours, it was clear from the body language of the police, all of them, that they were our opponents. Whether they are following direct orders or implicitly and psychologically trained to stand with other cops instead of against them, I saw tens of your officers, our officers, stuck in a position that they put themselves in by agreeing to show up to support ICE in South Burlington. It is clear that this is a situation you need to make new systems for because the old ones will continue to leave you in a place where you are breaking the law and hurting the community members you claim to serve. Be creative. They're calling this mutual aid. If you need to change that, show us. I mean, ask us. We know what we're doing. We are the ones thinking about human needs, about supporting each other with real aid like food and water and hand warmers and raincoats, things people are asking for, not more guns. So many communities come here to city council and ask you for the things they need. And we are always showing up and coming up with creative ways to get that for each other, not the police. I choose to keep living in Burlington because of the ways I see many generations of these community members giving so much energy to energy to continuously caring for each other and continuing to change their methods to match what people need around them. That is mutual aid, not the illegal collusion of our police

department with ICE. Hold them accountable and make real change. Thank you, Shauna. Uh, so we'll turn to Atlas Cooper then here in city hall and then the first Burlington resident signed up online will be Pike Porter. Yeah. Hi, can you hear me? Yes.

My name is Atlas and I was on scene on March 11th. I was acting as a medic. And over the course of the day, I treated friends, I treated community members, I treated teenagers, and I treated just innocent bystanders who just happened to be passing by got caught in the crossfire. I could relive that experience now and describe that to all of you, but I feel that it would have little effect. I'm one of many people in the community who have come forward to speak to you that you will forget by the time that the doors to this chamber close. I want you to leave here tonight and actually think about what you can do to protect our community and what can be done outside of these seats, outside of what is the social norm and what you are told is all that you can do because the people behind me have done that every single day for years. The question that I am turning over in my head over and over again is how could how could anyone be okay with anything that happened on March 11th happen? How can anyone see people throw others onto the ground, hurt them, and all that and go, "Well, maybe I should hear out why they were tossing them onto the curb." And I I would just really like you all to when you leave here, instead of just writing off all of these, actually think about what you can do as city councilors and also as people in Burlington to help us because the community stepped up and y'all most certainly did not.

Thank you. We'll now turn to Burlington residents who are online. The first Bronington resident online is Pike Porter who will be followed by Forest Richard. Pike, you should be, if we could promote Pike to a panelist. All right. Um Pike, just so you know that uh I can't share my screen quite yet here. So we'll be keeping time here, two minutes here at city hall. And I will just flag for everyone that when public forum is done. We're going to take a couple minute recess just to rearrange the tables here and also try to figure out screen sharing for our presenters. So uh thank you for your understanding. Pike, you you should be able to go ahead.

Okay. Uh thank you. I'm not going to use my two minutes uh because I hope you read the 20page document I sent back in March. Um but I still haven't seen what I was hoping to see from the administration and from the city council. Um you know, I continue to hear that um ICE put the Burlington police and the other police forces in a difficult situation and I don't disagree with that. ICE puts us all in a difficult situation. Um, most all are our immigrant neighbors. Um, but just because it's a difficult situation doesn't mean the answer isn't simple. You step up and you protect people's constitutional rights. Um, we saw a a middle school administrator um do what the Burlington Police Department failed to do. Um, and I think if the Burlington police think it's a difficult situation, then they can't show up anymore. They just have to find something else to do to do. But ideally, um, well, in that document I sent, I provided at least seven or eight concrete things that Burlington police could have done and hopefully would do in the future. But one I don't think I described was working just like they did in advance of ICE actions, working with migrant justice. So that in the future when there is a threat of people being unlawfully detained, the Burlington police will step in and make sure that they are not um set up a plan in advance what happens um so that uh migrants and our neighbors can know in advance. Um there's no shapeway or form that the Burlington police were not complicit, tacitly complicit with what occurred. Um, and really I I think the the the

administration and the city council really need to acknowledge that publicly. Um, saying that, I do appreciate some of the the comments I received from some of you privately. I'll end my comments there. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, our next Burlington resident we had signed up online was Forest Richard. Forest, I see you. Uh, if you could promote them, please to be a panelist. and Forest. Uh again, we're keeping time here in city hall. Uh you have two minutes. You should be able to go ahead. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes.

Hi, my name is Forest. I'm a Burlington resident. I was present on Dorset Street on March 11th. I went straight over after work and didn't leave until about 900 p.m. after the last police officers left us in the street, still tending to one another. I was assaulted by a combination of ICE agents and local and state police while linking arms with other protectors. I sustained a concussion, a back injury, and significant respiratory issues, all of which I'm still recovering from. Uh there have been days where my back injury has flared up to the point that both walking and sitting were painful, and I've missed multiple days of work because of the pain and trauma I've been through. And I got off relatively lucky that day. I also had to watch my friends and fellow protectors, the kindest, most caring people I've ever met, get brutalized by the state. In the weeks since I've worked with and watched these same people comb through thousands of hours of footage, reliving the trauma of that day, doing the work that local government refuses to do. Why are we doing your jobs? I want to remind you that all this horror and trauma was to serve a warrant um to for a man who was never there and to kidnap three of our neighbors illegally. Local police should be embarrassed and by extension anyone on this council and in local government defending their actions that day and for their lack of response. The incompetence is truly staggering, and the unwillingness to take responsibility for any of it is childish and absurd. Not only does the city and state need to take responsibility for what happened and make serious amends, but they need to tell us how they're going to protect their community when this inevitably happens again. This doesn't just go away. It's only going to get worse. Are you going to continue to expect teachers, nurses, and everyday citizens to protect the community, or are you going to finally take our lead and actually protect and serve the people? The term outside agitators has been thrown around a lot by different groups. Everyone that was there on the 11th knows that the only outside agitators were ICE agents. And instead of protecting citizens from these violent agitators, police made the backwards decision to instead join them in brutally attacking innocent people.

People who were there to protect their neighbors. I'm tired of reliving my trauma, desperately trying to prove a point to you that should be self-evident. When will you join us in carrying this weight? You're late. Thank you. Thank you. The um next Burlington resident I see online is Jamie Contoys. Jamie, you can go ahead and unmute yourself if you'd like to participate in public forum. Yeah, we can hear you.

Hi, my name is Jamie Kuma and I'm a local mom. Uh I couldn't be with you in person tonight because I'm home with my little ones and I'm a constituent uh in your district, Ben, and then also in buddies. And um I wanted to say that I've been really proud of the way that grandparents and community members and parents and neighbors have shown up so quickly to protect our immigrant neighbors. Um, I've been horrified as someone who's worked for uh children uh in the state of Vermont that we are seeing the incarceration uh and the lack of due process and the violation of constitutional rights granted to all residents of the United States of America. And we're seeing a massively funded weapon of the United States government that is really um exemplifying the ideals of a white supremacist and Steven Miller in the White House. And it is shocking to me the labor that all of us have to do to try to protect people from going into a system that isn't well resourced for due process that is notoriously not caring for folks food needs. We had one of our community members here with a disease who was left without treating their disease when they were in uh incarcerated and taken from Vermont and brought to New Hampshire. We're seeing huge human rights and constitutional right violations uh across the board and we just have to

prevent in Burlington the disappearance of our families, our children into these white supremacy systems. I lived in Central America and it was amazing to me to see who actually tried to cross borders. And for a lot of folks, people use the word illegal. I've chosen to use the word undocumented. And I've seen so many parents who want didn't want their children to starve, who wanted to have the dignity of labor and work, who wanted a home that would stand in a hurricane, cross mountains and rivers so that they could provide for their families, and then to have them suffer at the hands of white supremacy organizations funded with the might of US tax dollars. is so grotesque. And I will continue to show up with my neighbors to protect all of the immigrants, all of the black and brown neighbors, anyone who is being targeted either through racial profiling or through other methods. So, I just want to keep encouraging each one of you, many of you are my friends on the city council, the mayor, that we align ourselves very quickly with protecting the constitutional and human rights of all of our residents and that we don't waste our time doing anything but that.

Thank you, Jamie, and thank you for correcting my pronunciation of your name there. I appreciate you being here. Uh we will now turn back to non-Barlington residents here in city hall. And the first there we have is uh Brian Clifford will be followed by Ryan Allen. Hi, my name is Brian. Um I'm from Essex and I was at Dors Street on March 11th. I'm going to just rapid fire a bunch of questions uh I'd like help getting answered at some point. In the last city council meeting, Chief Burke started his timeline of events at 12:39 p.m. when the mutual aid call supposedly came in. I was wondering why the timeline did not start at 8:40 when Chief Burke learned microJustice rapid response mobilization was occurring. Or could the timeline have started at 12:15 p.m. when deputy deputy chiefs Young and LeBarge arrived at the unified command post in South Burlington? Were Burlington police engaged in communications with ICERO, Homeland Security Investigations, FBI agents, or the Vermont State Police prior to the command post being set up? What were were the nature of the conversations between BPD officers and Trump's federal agents in the command post where they were live streaming footage of the protesters? Chief Burke mentioned that Burlington Police Department, South Burlington Police Department, and Vermont State Police Department had been planning to respond to escalated ICE erro activity for months. Where specifically were these conversations happening? Were any federal law enforcement agencies involved with this planning? And did this planning overlap the purview of the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI? Was there any discussion or hesitation around the decision to hand potential evidence of alleged assaults on ICE agents over to Trump's FBI? Or was that just like something that everyone agreed needed to happen? How do you expect us to believe BPD was there to keep the community safe when they arrived on scene trailing two SWAT teams, violently escorted transport

vehicles through the crowd, made ridiculous arrests with the help of ICE agents, assaulted well-known community organizers for no reason, and then quickly left the crowd and other police officers behind to deal with the federal agents you admit are so dangerous. BPD was there for about an hour. The illegal arrest and extraction of the neighbor, our neighbors, took about an hour. They were part of the extraction team. If you want to build trust, we need honesty. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh our next speaker is Ryan Allen who will be followed by Sarah Lincoln.

Good evening. Um, I like to sometimes try to like look at a thing simply and um, one of the things I trying to think about simply is the video of um, Officer Gonzalez throwing um, two white women um, or outwardly presenting white women to the ground within like a minute on Reddit and there's been no like that isn't real, that's AI. Um, so and like the the story of Burlington, it would seem to me and these women are um absolutely incredible. Um, and it just seems in the story of Burlington now, if no one's really condemning this, then it becomes Burlington's a cool place to push white ladies down onto the pavement. And um if it's a cool place to push white ladies onto the ground, it's definitely a very scary place for other people. And I mean like I think we forget so quickly how much like action our rights are. And like um like cannabis was just legalized here in the state within the past 10 years I feel. Um uh queer marriage was just legalized federally um 2015 I think. And we all really stand to lose a lot but like it it'll be a scary place. Um, Burlington, Vermont will be a scary place if no one really condemns the um, actions of Officer Gonzalez.

Good luck. Thank you. Our next speaker is Sarah Lincoln, who will be followed by Nathaniel Madison.

I have to push this or just start. It's on.

Okay. Um, so I was not um on Dorset Street on March 11th, but I was part of the signal chat that was witnessing what was happening there. And I almost couldn't believe my eyes. Um, but I could because I saw I I was hearing or afterwards I was hearing like, oh, the local police and the state police were there to protect the the residents. And I heard at the South Burlington Council meeting that, you know, things would have gone worse if they weren't there. And I don't I don't know how you can think that the local and state police were there to protect the people. When you're there to protect people, you stand against the aggressors. and they were standing facing the protectors, the protectors of the families, the protectors that were trying to stop what was happening, the illegal arrests. And I just I I guess I it seems like this is a broken record here that we're hearing over and over again that the police were were put in these uncompromised situations and all I hear from the people that were there was that they were there to protect the protectors were there to protect everyone inside the house and around. And I don't know how you can think that having police throwing people down to the ground, having a Vermont state police choke someone to unconsciousness is is at all ever going to be okay. And that if your moral compass doesn't stand up, you're not going to have the trust anywhere anymore for the people that are here to protect the people. An injury to one is an injury to all. And we know that ICE trains with the Israeli Defense Forces and it's all connected. So the the war in Iran and Lebanon is all connected to what's happening here and it has been going on for a long time and you all should get some backbones and wonder that we're going to do something here

because we're all going to keep protecting people when we can. So please, our next speaker is Nathaniel Madison who will be followed by Gwendelyn Haney.

Sorry, it's off now.

Okay. Um, I'm an Apple feature photographer and videographer. Um, that's why I was there at March 11th. I was there to document the event. Um I've been documenting Burlington for eight years and I've been documenting every protest in Burlington for a little over a year. Um so uh my courage coverage of the 11th has reached millions and millions of people in spite of the complete um censorship it seems like of USMS. I've gotten my the footage that I shot featured in European mainstream media, featured by European politicians, featured by Latin American mainstream media. But the only person that has verters back in the entire country, it seems like, is Kathy Griffin, a comedian. Okay, this situation is just absurd. So it it does make sense that a comedian is the only person with a massive audience that has our back in terms of trying to show the rest of the country in the world what the fascist goons and their collaborators which people who collaborate with fascists in my opinion are absolutely the same thing. They're they're fascists, too. E especially at this point. You I mean, with what has gone on, what what has transpired over the past year, if you are collaborating with these people, you are fascists. You're not just collaborators. Um, okay. So during the protest, I was attempting to document an ICE agent kneeling at a community defender and I was walking parallel to a line of heavily armed fascist goons and they waited. I did not approach these people.

They waited until they I they were out of my vision and they shoved me into the ground. Um and also additionally I had a flashbang tossed directly at my foot. it went off and it could have blinded me and that would have been the end of my photography. So, I guess they they they nearly came close to censoring me there in silencing my um voice, but luckily they didn't. Thank you. Thank you. Uh our next speaker is Gwendelyn Haney and please correct me if I've mispronounced the last name. Uh that speaker will be followed by Sher Warm, Sir, it's Gwendalyn Hageny. Thank you.

Yep. Um, so I was also there March 11th. Um, I just want to chat about a couple of facts that I found really interesting. Um, teachers, they require six years of education and the starting salary for teachers in Burlington is $46,000. Entrylevel officers with no previous experience start at $61,000 while attending academy, $64,000 post academy. And the officer who assaulted me, Gonzalez, is making $117,000 a year. In addition to that money, he's making extra pay. So, every uh fascist in uniform that showed up to that event made bonus pay to assault their neighbors and to facilitate the illegal detaining of three of our community members. Camila, Johanna, and Cristian, we are so delighted that they are home with us where they belong. But it is because of these people making these absurd salaries that they were even detained in the first place. Now, I am one of the people who was assaulted. I was thrown on the ground and received a concussion earlier that day. Id also had a crown put on and the officer hit me so hard that it [ __ ] up my crown and I then had to go on antibiotics because I received an infection that there was risk of spreading uh throughout my face and in towards my brain. I was out of work for two weeks. I am self-employed. I don't get paid on a good week and uh when I'm not working I'm bleeding money. So that was a huge hit. I don't have healthcare. I've paid for all my health expenses. I'm also back in therapy because I have to be. I've been having panic attacks and just totally reduced functionality. Thank you to your officers. Um, and one of the most astounding experiences I've

had is how incredible our community is. I have had hundreds of people reach out to me and I'm just one of dozens of people who were harmed that day. And I really implore you to think of it like think of it like an apple. If I had an apple that was rotten, I wouldn't paint it redder and say, "Nah, it's good to eat." I would put it in the [ __ ] compost. The police are rotten to their core and they belong in the compost. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Sher Worms, who will be followed by Sarah Rob. Hi, I have some questions for you and I would appreciate you raising your hands if you um agree with the answers. I'm sorry, but this is not really an opportunity for counselors to engage in a back and forth. You can certainly ask the questions, but counselors by no means are under any expectation to engage that way.

Noted. I'd like my 15 seconds back, please. Um, how many people have um watched the Ryan Schwank testifying under oath videos where he testified under oath in front of Congress to say that he trained ICE to lie and disregard the Constitution? How many people know that ICE lies for a living? How many people have heard that Colton Riley lied to federal judge to illegally abduct three of our neighbors? How many of you know that ICE gets bonus points and dollars for taking as many people as they can? And how many of you know that both local and state police not only um used violence against us, they failed to protect the five people in that home. We know this. They failed to do it. We knew it was an illegal act the moment they walked out with three individuals. I will never forget the look on Cristian's face as he walked out that door. The both the local and federal and excuse me state police supported ICE in every single way to illegally abduct three human beings. They have now, how many of you now know that that is been considered um violations of their civil rights? How many of you know, and this is a trigger warning, I apologize. How many of you know that the patent patent sisters came this close to disappearing out of a system and be potentially be deported? How many of you know that they left Vermont and almost did not come back? And how many of you worked tirelessly to get them back? How many of you know that they would could have been sent to a place called Bastile, Louisiana? How many of you heard of a Bastile detention center in Louisiana?

And how many of you know of the numerous um complaints of sexual abuse, violence, um medical malpractice, lack of food and water? How many of you know I have two questions for you if you will allow this? If this was the mother of your children that was there, would you allow the police to do everything that they did that day or would you do everything that you can to get them out? Because if you say yes, then that family and every single family deserves that same respect and that same consideration. The next question I have for you is how many of you in this room will actually put together policy and vote for policy to save families from their illegal um abductions? How many of you will actually do that? Because we will be watching.

Thank you. Thank you. Please, please. Thank you. Um, our next speaker is Sarah Rob, who will be followed by our last Burlington resident here in City Hall, Drew Schetszer. Nice job with my last name. No one gets that. Oh, okay.

Uh, my name is Sarah. I live and work in communities neighboring Burlington. I'm here tonight because Burlington is Vermont's largest city and what happens here, how this council and this police department respond sets the standards for the state and people are watching. I was on Dorset Street on March 11th. I went because I couldn't go home after work while a family was being terrorized in our community. I went because I recognized that I have privilege and with that privilege comes the responsibility to show up. I went knowing the risks. What I witnessed was not police protecting the public. It was collaboration with ICE. Burlington PD, South Burlington Police, and Vermont State Police participated and gave federal ICE agents the legitimacy and the backup to brutalize Vermonters. We were protesters using our bodies to protect a family. Protesters were brutalized and Vermont law enforcement, including BPD, was part of that. I work with policy and procedure professionally. I understand how policy is written and how it's implemented and what happens when language leaves room for interpretation. The fair and impartial policing policy was built in collaboration with the community most effective affected. Sorry. The problem is not how it was written. The problem is how law enforcement interpreted it on March 11th. The perceived loophole must be closed. The policy must be rewritten. So there is no room, none, for law enforcement to decide that standing next to ICE while they brutalize Vermonters somehow doesn't count as collaboration. No exceptions, no loopholes. But policy alone is not enough if we don't also name what we're up against. There's a deeply embedded culture in policing of officers backing each other up above all else. That culture does not stop at jurisdictional lines. It extends to federal agents when local police stand beside them. That culture will

fill every gap, every ambiguity, and every silence in a policy. Can I finish? Yeah, please. Yeah. Police leadership has deflected blame onto protesters and pushed a false narrative that the police had no choices. They had choices and they made them. They've not taken one ounce of responsibility. The policy must be strengthened without loopholes so that no Vermont law enforcement agency can ever again support ICE in any form. Burlington leads lead correctly. Thank you. Uh our last B non Burlington resident here in city hall is Drew Schetszer who will be followed by one non- Burlington resident online. Corin.

Hello Drew Schhatzer. South Burlington. Um, we've heard a lot of good, um, evidence tonight of the brokenness of our law enforcement and criminal justice systems. You know, in many cases, I think it's accurate to say it should be abolished and and but to just speak to the system as it is now, um, and what maybe we should be doing with the broken system that we have. Um, you know, I can understand when our leaders in law enforcement say, you know, that they don't feel empowered to stop ISIS's unlawful actions in the streets and go toe-to-toe with them. Um, I think one of them said it needs to just play out in the courts afterwards, even if even if it is unlawful. And so now we've seen the courts have said what happened that day was unlawful. Um, so just like if I were to have my rights violated by a law enforcement officer, I've learned that the last thing I should do in that moment is actively resist. I need to just let them violate my rights and then take it up in the courts, sue the city for $50,000 and and get my justice that way. Um, so in this case, you know, the courts have ruled this was unlawful, this was unjust. We we need to see the same kind of accountability. you know what what would happen if if a police officer violated someone's rights and cost the city tons of money. Hopefully, they would have been f they would be fired. Um so I I just want to call on you all to do that same thing. This has already been determined to have been there was no um justifiable reason this happened and and all the law enforcement officers that participated in it should be held accountable um for violating rights. even if they weren't the ones entering that house, they absolutely made it happen and should be held accountable. So, thank you.

Thank you. Um, that was our last non- Burlington resident here in city hall. Uh, again, one additional speaker is online and that's in Karen Ceda. If we could please promote Karen. Karen, we're not able to share the timer online. I'll be keeping time here in city hall. You should be able to go ahead and unmute yourself. Can I be heard? Yes.

Okay, great. Cuz sometimes I go off, honey. I'm a star. Okay, I know one of y'all crazy behind and didn't bring up uh Kevin Doyle as in judge. Kevin Doyle as I tried to get the uh legal it girls to call him the scholar judge. This the it girls call him the scholar judge. Anyways, I know y didn't bring him up. Y'all don't even know what y'all are talking about. You know the reason why I am an Esther really. I'm too gorgeous to really be interacting with most of y'all the masses. But you know what? I got to set my people free from the spirit of loser. Arguing against ICE, loser. Okay, let me tell you this. The kingdom of God, the people who follow Christ, we don't do loser stuff. Okay, we are winners. We are winners. We like America to win. We like our state to win. We are winners. Are you going to fight for some random girl from Latinoville, wherever she came from, but the black girl from Vermont, you're going to have you're not going to stick up for her. And you're going to talk about white supremacy. Again, loser. Again, I'm I really should not be talking to any of y'all. I really should be in the palace somewhere. But here I am once again fighting for my people to set my people free from the spirit of loserike. That's why I'm fast and pray because I know y'all didn't bring up Kevin Doyle. Anyways, again, y'all don't even know what you're are talking about. I see why it happened in South Burlington. It didn't happen in Burlington because the devil knows I don't play with him. I don't play with him. If I say, "Hey, you're not going to bring that nonsense in Burlington." He's not going to bring that nonsense in Burlington. You ever thought of that? Why do you think it happened in SB? It was close. Burlington, you know, Dorson Street is pretty close, but he knows uh she's Karen who's in Burlington. She said, "Don't come here." And she has angels that will whoop my ass. So the devil knew I got to keep that nonsense in South Burlington. Because if I said, "Hey, I'm taking my hawk for walks. My angels are coming with me. I better not see any demonicness saying I don't play with you." And boom. You see how that happened? See, I know y'all are unspiritual and godless, and y'all think it's cute to be unspiritual and godless, but some of us know in the spiritual world that he does not play with me. So when I say there's going to be peace in Burlington, there's going to be peace in Burlington. That's why our president says peace in our country, there's peace

in our country. Your own mayor can't even say the word peace. He has to say calm, calm, calm because the wicked don't know peace. Okay. So once again, and then let's talk about police officers. The police officer handed me the no trespassing order because that mayor knows that if I time, Miss Cena, if you could wrap up.

Okay. All right. Uh that was our last speaker signed up. We will go ahead and close public forum now at 7:14 p.m. We'll ask that folks please stay close to their seats. Um absent objection, we are going to briefly recess just for a couple minutes just to rearrange the tables here as well as to figure out the share screen feature. Uh so Tommy TV will be considered in recess and we'll call the council back to order in just a couple minutes, but folks can talk amongst theselves and then we'll return in just a couple minutes again. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Okay. Are you

No, we have It looks like was like a big German but you were like you were coming across the hill. for the first time.

We stayed in the cabin.

It's so sweet. Is the expectation that all of the people from all the organizations will sit at once or are you thinking

we like to be close I'll sit right here? No, I'm not going

before me. Okay, I think we're going to try to call the council back to order. I think we're waiting for a couple of us to make it back here, but we have a quorum. Um, so we will call the council back to order. Thank you for your patience while we figured out the uh share screen function um as well as rearrange the room a bit there. Um so a couple different things before we ask our guests to introduce themselves. One is um while I certainly understand and respect a number of strong feelings around what occurred on March 11th, I do want to take an opportunity to uh thank police chief Burke for for being here this evening and for um making sure that that that you and other members of the administration are here to um continue to hear the community's response to this situation. Uh I also want to acknowledge that we're joined by the uh city attorney online and appreciate her cooperation and are putting this meeting

together. Um before we proceed, excuse me, I'm getting over a bit of a cold, but uh before we proceed, uh there are two items that I should mention um after some discussions with the city attorney's office. One is a disclaimer that because the events of March 11th are still under review internally by the city as a personnel matter and as potential litigation, the city attorney has advised all city councilors against making any conclusorary statements about uh what happened um on March 11th. So, I do want to make sure that folks here know that the city attorney's office has uh advised against those kinds of conclusory legal statements from anyone here at the council in our official roles. Um, the other thing I'd like to note is that, um, we are very much looking forward to hearing from, uh, the viewpoints of our guests that are here in attendance. Um, but I should note that the viewpoints made by those organizations here today are are those of each of your organizations. And while I appreciate all the organizations are at the table together, I want to acknowledge that the viewpoints held by each organization are not necessarily the viewpoints of each other's organization or those of the city. Um, we've invited a number of organizations to join us this evening and we have uh representatives we're very grateful for from uh migrant justice as well as from Vermont Legal Aid as well as from the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project and I will allow uh representatives from those organizations to introduce themselves. Uh we talked about an an order within which folks would present and our understanding is that representatives from migrant justice will uh present first. We'll then turn to a presentation from Vermont Legal Aid and then we'll look forward to hearing from the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. After those presentations, we will turn here to the council as well as uh the mayor is welcome to join in as well uh with any uh questions that they may have for uh

our representatives here. Um after those questions uh we'll then open the floor to if any counselors have uh any additional comments in addition to uh their questions. Uh we'll we'll have a moment reserved for those comments before adjourning this evening's meeting. With that said, uh I think I'll turn first to our representatives from Migrant Justice. Rachel, if you could uh introduce yourself and your colleagues here, that would be great. Okay, I think you can hear me now. Thank you so much. Um, I'm actually gonna pass it over to my colleague Abel to get us started.

Great. And sorry, before you begin, is there anyone from your group I should be promoting as a panelist for you to share any slides? Yes. Is it you, Rachel or? Yeah. Okay, we'll go ahead and do that to just get it out of the way. Great. All right. Thank you,

everyone. Good, good evening. Uh my name is Abel Luna and I'm going to be sharing just briefly on what migrant justice is and the work that we do. Uh so migrant justice is a human rights organization built by migrant workers and continues to be led by migrant workers to this very day. And together as a migrant community, um our goal and our mission is to build our collective voice, our collective capacity and our collective power uh to achieve and advance uh human rights and economic justice. And we do that by working alongside uh our allies uh many of you can see here in the room today. and um by visiting our community um and gathering together as a community in what we call assembly communitaras or community assemblies uh where we share stories, we share a meal, we get to know each other and the goal is to build robust and and honest relationship and trust uh to allow us to uh build a stronger community and to demand justice and dignity. And over the past 15 years, migrant justice u has focused on various campaigns to transform the reality that our community is facing uh such as the driver license campaign uh all the way up to the fair impartial policing policy. And we also throughout the years have built a really strong and robust rapid response network that uh it's over 3,500 people here in Vermont to support and show up uh to assist neighbors when they need it in case of an immigration detention. So migrant justice is a people's organization. Migrant justice is a

political home for many uh many of the of who whom are in the room here today. And um it's important for you guys to know um you know that all the work that we have done over the past 15 years uh could be at risk if you don't do the right thing today or if you don't make the right decision. It's important to take take into account all the stories that you're hearing uh from people from uh members of the community uh here tonight. So I'm going to pass it over to my colleague Rachel and Christian. Perfect. Thank you so much, Abel. Um, again, my name is Rachel Elliot. They them. I'm a an organizer with Migrant Justice. I'll be interpreting for Christian. Hello everyone. My name is Christian Heres. I am one of the people who was directly impacted on the 11th of March. Um I was detained by immigration enforcement.

And today I'm going to be sharing a little bit about what we experienced inside that house. So, I was inside the home with my nephew, um, two women and the three-year-old daughter of one of those women. Um, and what we experienced that day was terrifying. And the decision or the the decision we had to make was to call migrant justice to ask for help. Um, and within five minutes, members of the rapid response team started to arrive on scene um, to make sure that our human rights were protected and that officers would not try to illegally force the door open. And we were inside all day just praying that nothing bad would happen to us. And thankfully, community members, including from the school, were able to uh remove the the toddler from the home so that she wouldn't have to experience the horrors that we experience later.

And when the officers approached the house, they began to throw um protesters to the ground, including women um and in particular an an older woman um was thrown quite quite brutally. So when officers ended up breaking down the door and entering the home, they began to ask us questions and demand answers about somebody that we didn't even know. Um they demanded that we identify ourselves and kept, you know, insisting and asking um if we were hiding somebody inside the house. So they threw my nephew to the ground and strangled him. Um and then they went downstairs, broke down the door of the two women and pulled them out as well. They had us get on our knees and face the wall and then they continued to search all throughout the home. Um, we heard what we believed to be a firearm going off as well.

And as the officers removed us from the scene, we heard them laughing and making fun of what was going on. Um, the officers Okay. Um, and those same officers opened the car door and pepper-sprayed the protesters that were close by. And to the officials inside the car, all of this was really funny. Um they saw um protesters, men, women, young people um and they just laughed. Um, they took my nephew's cell phone and identity documents and refused to return them. Um, it didn't matter to them. Um, they refused to give it back and they just left them in the house after they took the rest of us away. Thank you. That's all I wanted to share. Um, I want to thank as well before I get started, um, all the vi the volunteers who worked tirelessly to sift through I don't even know 1,200,300 photos and videos over the last couple of weeks. Um, they spent well over a thousand hours collectively going

through it all. Um, I also want to say thank you to the council um, for calling the meeting tonight, for giving us the opportunity to speak. Um, and also, and most especially, thank you to all of the moroners who've continued to show up for their neighbors. The impacts of the 11th have been farreaching, um, especially within the state's immigrant community. For the past month, in worker assemblies and during home visits with members, we've heard time and time again about how terrified people were by what happened on the 11th, and most especially the role that the police played in it. I wanted to share a couple of testimonies from workers um who who wrote things out as we were reflecting as a community um during a recent um worker assembly in Chinden County. Um one member shared, "The thing that scared me the most was seeing how police collaborated with immigration officers, even though there are policies against it. The police took their side. It was wrong for them to use pepper spray and to push protesters and throw them to the ground." Another community shared, "I was hurt to see the police be so aggressive with protesters. It made me feel powerless and so afraid. I never thought that something like this would happen in Vermont." And that last bit about never thinking that something like this could happen in Vermont is something that we've heard time and time again. Um, up until March, you know, people in our community felt relatively safe uh in Vermont. Obviously, there have been a massive increase in immigration detentions, but they also saw the protections that are in place and trusted that those protections would hold firm. Unfortunately, a trust that has been broken since the 11th. Um, time and time again, we hear from members who speak of being afraid to leave their home, being afraid to go to work, being afraid to get groceries, to go to the doctor, people keeping their children home from school because they're afraid of what might happen if they're separated.

And there's this profound fear that years of struggle of the community to pass the fair and impartial policing policy were in vain. Um that things will go back to how it was before this really strong and important policy was put in place. ISIS detention of Christian and Camila on March 11th was violent and unlawful. Three separate federal judges have ordered their releases because ICE is clear, you know, because ICE clearly violated their constitutional rights. And these violations were made possible only through the direct support of state and local law enforcement, including the Burlington Police Department. The decisions made on the 11th by Burlington Police officers have not only undermined the immigrant community's already tenuous trust in law enforcement in Burlington, but throughout the entire state. Officers worked shoulder-to-shoulder with ICE to facilitate these unlawful detentions, responding to ICE's request for assistance in the morning, deploying militarized agents to remove responders and protesters and to clear a path for ICE to enter the home in the afternoon and by the evening's end helped ICE to brutalize dozens of Vermonters. These actions clearly and unquestionably violate Vermont's fair and impartial policing policies, which were intended precisely to prevent these actions. As Chief Burke has now done on several occasions, I'd like to briefly review the events of the day with a specific focus on Burlington Police. Um, and at this point, I'm also going to share my screen so that you can see some of this uh written out potentially. I may There we go. Cool. I can see on the screen that that's up on Zoom. Hopefully everyone in the room can see it as well. Um again, I want to say thank you to the community members

who spent again well over a thousand hours reviewing all the footage that um people have submitted to Migrant Justice. So here is the timeline um of the day starting at about 7:38 um that we've been able to construct not only through um you know the testimony of people who were present um photos videos time that have been timestamped um and also from the public statements made by um Burlington South Burlington police um various other members of uh state and local government. Um so the first thing that I wanted to highlight um was the beginning of it all at about 7:38 um when South Burlington police received a call about a car wreck. Um and it was at this time that ICE told uh the Burlington police that they had an administrative warrant and not a criminal warrant. And something important to notice here is that it was ICE that called for support. It was ICE that called in local police. Shortly after um the initial call came in, we at Migrant Justice received a call on our emergency line um reporting a potential ICE prot or uh enforcement action in progress on Dorset. Um within a couple minutes, a migrant justice volunteer arrived on the scene and was able to confirm the presence of ICE officials. It was at about 8:30 a.m. that migrant justice then activated our rapid response network that Abel explained briefly earlier. Um, there's more on the screen than I'm going to review. Um, so again, I'll just keep it to the the very uh most key moments. Um, at around 10:30, Johnston, who is the ICE officer in charge on scene, um, tried to get South Burlington police officer Plunkett to help uh to get protesters away from him, to which Plunkett responded, "Every directive I've been told by your commander, you guys are supposed to be standing down."

So at about 10:30 the the understanding was that officers were going to be standing down. Um at 11:19 South Burlington Chief Bro contacted leadership of the Vermont um state police tactical service unit to talk about mobilization and then called Chief Burke and says that he'll need Burlington police to support if things become dangerous. Just afternoon, unified command post was set up in the South Burlington City Hall um where um where Burlington police, ICE um South Burlington police, etc. um collaborated to come up with plans for the day. Um at that time, they also began streaming u the body cams. Um ICE agents from out of state arrived and pepper-sprayed protesters. Um at around two o'clock um another officer warned the people at the front door that fer federal agents will remove them without warning and that they will use force. And when asked about the fair and impartial policing policy, he argued that uh the Vermont State Police must interject if there's a judicial warrant. When asked uh if he had seen one and verified the name and date, he said no. at four o'clock. Uh Chief Bro said at this point um that this is the point where state and local police would quote follow ICE while breaching the home. In other words, when ICE officers um broke down the door um at 4:40, uh the Thank you. Um at about at about 4:40 um we started noticing the Vermont State Police and ICE um tactical teams gathering in the UAL parking lot um behind the Hannerford at 4:55 after all of this had happened. Um Colton Riley, the ICE agent who started it all, who has since uh said that he no longer believes that the person they

were looking for um was on site, um arrived on scene with a warrant. And then at about 5:30, ICE um broke down the door um with the support of state and local police entered the home and illegally detained Jeanna, Camila, and Christristian as Kristian described. As you can see throughout the day, there were various points where um you know before Burlington police officers, before state and local police officers physically began assaulting protesters, where they were um supporting ICE and supporting federal agents in planning, in strategy, um and in in talking to protesters who are on scene. Um, I now want to briefly go over some of the injuries that we've been able to document that have been caused by Burlington police officers. Um, at least one person had an asthma attack from being pepper-sprayed. Um, several people, including myself, after being assaulted by a Burlington police officer, have been experiencing neck and shoulder pain. Um, all of this for me is sprained, um, which is causing issues. um several concussions, including one person who said that when they went to the doctor, the doctor identified five different places uh where the person was hit that could have caused a concussion. We've seen severe bruising of arms, legs, and heads as you can see on the screen. Um complex thumb and wrist injuries um some of which comes from pain compliance used by officers. Um, and of course the psychological trauma of seeing um, state, local, and federal law enforcement officers attack our community. Um, and all of that is specifically from Burlington police officers. That doesn't say anything about the ICE officers, Vermont State Police officers, and South Burlington police officers who took violent action

against community members um, that Burlington police enabled. I want to go over a couple of specific examples. Um, two of them are the so-called white ladies that got thrown to the ground. Um, including myself, although I am not a lady. Um, so I'm going to share those videos briefly. Um, I'm hoping the sound will come through. Um, I will warn you there is an expletive using used here. Um, so here's one example from another angle where you can see a little bit more. Uh, and because it happened quickly, I'll highlight the fact that you can see that both of my hands are up when I was thrown to the ground. And if the audio were coming through, you would hear me say, "I love you. We're going to get you out. You're okay." to the person that they were walking away. Um, next I want to share um a video of another assault also by the same officer Gonzalez. Um, and Gwen shared her testimony of this experience earlier um today. Another from a different angle. I think many of us have seen this particular picture um where a protester is being violently arrested and held to the ground. Um, and I'll share this brief video where you can see an officer um, pinning her down uh, or pinning them down and violently forcing their hands together behind their back while being stood over by an ICE officer.

In this video on the right, you'll see um officers using pain compliance um against a protester um again forcing her hand behind her back and using maneuvers that uh we see used to break people's wrists. And I'll not show the video on the on the left because the important thing is the audio and that appears not to be coming through right now. Bear with me. We're getting there. Maybe on your end. I don't I don't have any options on my end that indicate.

Yeah, the the issue is that because I'm physically in the room, um if you if you mute yourself or mute the room's audio, um then it should be able to come through. I'll turn um tell Meeting TV, do you have any sense as to if if there's audio in the shared presentation? Do you have any sense as to how? Okay. Yeah. I mean, you can just hear it off my computer. I'll put the microphone there. I I think you could put the microphone up to the speaker. You'll just stop.

Police department. Was it worth it? Was it worth it? For real, you guys are policing for the ice. Like, what's up with that? What happened to all the

I'm not I'm not sure if it was too clear from the sound quality. Um, but the person who was being arrested was saying, "There's a federal officer um twisting my hand or doing pain compliance." I don't remember exactly what she said, but something along those lines. Um, those are the pieces that I wanted to share right now. Again, we have hundreds of videos, hundreds of hours of videos that we're happy to share with you all. Um, we can we can talk through how to get that to you best. Um, you know, I just wanted to highlight a couple of the more egregious examples. Thank you. Yeah,

I uh appreciate you all being here this evening. Um I'm I still got more to do. Can I Yes, please. All I was going to say is it's just uh if there's anything that you would like to share with the city council. Um my assumption is that the links in the presentation are probably linked to other files that are on your computer or are they linked to somewhere online or they're directly uploaded. Okay, great. Um if you want to send me or the full city council the presentation, we could also ensure that it's posted to uh our agenda. Um, so it'll be available online. Okay, great. Yeah, let's let's connect afterwards and we can talk through how to do that. Thank you.

Despite officers attempts to hide behind a quote Trojan horse of quote agitators, what we saw throughout the day was police presence precipitating and escalating violence. They brutalized protesters, shoving them, shoving us, throwing us to the ground, and using pepper spray. The fear and uncertainty uh that our community is now facing was made possible because police officers collaborated with ICE in clear violation of the of Vermont's fair and impartial policing policy. Um I now want to review specifically the places where um the Burlington Police Department violated uh the policy. Um, and this is from the Vermont state model policy, which sets the uh baseline protections that all jurisdictions or that all uh state and local police need to uh comply with. So, first, excuse me, in section 6D9, that is the number six, the letter D, number nine, um, agency members shall not accept requests by federal immigration authorities to support or assist in civil immigration enforcement. This is a violation in fact, right? At the end of the day, police officers uh supported ICE in three civil detentions. And while, you know, we we've heard time and time again from officers that the motive was crowd control and public safety, not assistance in immigration enforcement. The law enforcement officers time and time again focused on policing protesters, not ICE. If public safety were the motive, it would have required the officers to actually protect people from ICE, not the other way around. In section 6D6, um the policy says agent uh agency members shall not facilitate the detention of individuals by federal immigration authorities for suspected

civil immigration violations. Again, state and local law enforcement, including the Burlington Police Department, facilitated um the detention of Joanna, Camila, and Kristian on civil violations. The policy doesn't govern on intentions, right? We can hear time and time again, oh, we were just there to, you know, serve this this uh this criminal warrant. We were there to protect protesters. In fact, what they did was facilitate not one but three detentions of individuals by federal law uh immigration enforcement u for suspected civil immigration violations. Next in in section 5b uh it says though agency members have authority to enforce federal criminal law enforcement of federal criminal immigration law is generally not a priority. Accordingly, agency members should not make warrantless arrests, detain individuals, facilitate the detention of individuals, or otherwise expend resources investigating or enforcing unlawful entry or, and this is important, unlawful re-entry cases, unless such actions are necessary to ensure public safety or officer safety. um which is defined very specifically as of 2024 um as imminent risk of physical injury or two integral to the investigation of criminal offenses unrelated to immigration law. So again, policy anticipated um the the loophole of unlawful re-entry uh which was the excuse used that day to enter the home. Um and also speaks to criminal immigration enforcement stating that it is not a priority and should not expend resources. Um and frankly I I would love to know how many uh city and state resources were expended that day. I know I saw a lot of officers spend standing around for a lot of the day.

Um the the final portion that I want to highlight is section 6C1 that says however this section shall not be construed to require members to affirmatively interfere with federal officials lawful authority to interview yeah uh interview detain or arrest with or without a warrant uh uh excuse me an individual example by using force or physically blocking the official. Um and and this is the portion that we've seen cited um to say well the the fair and impartial policing policy says that we or they the the law the local and state officers um cannot intervene. But this portion only applies to situations in 6C where the individual is already in uh law enforcement custody. So over the last couple weeks, um, police have been attempting to avoid accountability by presenting this narrative that their presence was there was, you know, was to protect the public, right? It wasn't to aid ICE. But this narrative is contradicted by the facts. One, police's presence was at ICE's request, not the communities. Two, police did not stop ISIS's brutalization of the residents in the home or of any of the protesters. rather they themselves committed the violence. And finally, law enforcement officials have since made clear time and time again in public testimony that they will not seek to intervene in future occasions to stop ICE from assaulting Verters. But don't just take it from us. Don't take it from me. You can take it directly from the officers themselves. Again, time and time again throughout the last month, we've heard from local and state officers, from the heads of police departments, from uh state employees.

And I want to share a couple of quotes. At approximately 8:45 a.m., agents with ICE requested assistance from the South Burlington Police Department due to a crowd of individuals protesting in the area. That was from a press release from South Burlington Police on the day of March 11th. Again, saying that they responded specifically to ISIS's request for assistance. Next, and this again is a quote from uh the Vermont State Police's press release, the state police, including members of the critical action team, ensured federal agents were able to pass through the crowd of protesters to reach the residents and carry out the lawful order of the court. And I'll remind you that one, every single judge that any of the people detained on that day have been put in front of has since said that it was a deeply unconstitutional set of detentions. but also the agent who provided the original testimony that led to the warrant that led to the officers breaking down the door has since said that he quote no longer believes that David Daniel Corona Sanchez quote was an occupant of the Toyota Camry I observed on March 11th 2026 next and this is a quote from the commissioner of public safety Jennifer Morrison during a press conference with Governor Scott police used a highly trained team to create a very narrow corridor to allow the ICE agents to do their job. Next, a quote from South Burlington Police Chief Bill Bro. It was assumed that ICE had every legal justification to detain Joanna, Camila, and Christian. Next, I want to share a quote from our very own uh Chief Burke. The actions of Vermont law enforcement in South Burlington aided in the execution of a criminal warrant. Once the agents were

there, they still have their lawful authority to do what they need to do. And finally, a quote from the Commissioner of Public Safety, Jennifer Morrison, from a legislative hearing on the 19th of March. That was the plan all along, to provide for the separ uh to provide for separation so that everyone could do their job. Protesters could do their job, agents could do their job. In press releases, press conferences, public hearings, Burlington officials have sought to create this narrative that twists the events to avoid accountability. Despite claims of ongoing reviews, officials are preemptively exonerating themselves, patting themselves on the back for their department's professionalism and restraint. What I saw was neither professional nor restraint. Frankly, Vermonters are not fooled by officials misdirection, victim blaming, and outright fabrications. We can clearly see that local agencies worked handin glove with ICE to detain immigrant verters and to brutalize the community to defenders seeking to protect their neighbors. We expect that our elected officials will see the same. And before all of this, you know, we were we were asked as migrant justice to come in with some specific asks um for next steps u which I'd like to share now. Um first, we would like affirmation that state and local officers are responsible for compliance with state and local responsibilities um without giving unverified free passes to federal agents. And we want accountability for what happened, not only for the violation of the fair and impartial policing policy, but from the violation of Emma of uh of Mayor Mulvaney Stanick's own executive order. Um, I, you know, from from past testimony, I I will assume that y'all won't necessarily answer this, but I guess asking rhetorically for any, uh, in in part three of the

executive order, I guess bullet point three, I can pull it up here if you want the specific section. Um, for any injured person on the scene or excuse me, for any injured person on the scene of civil immigration enforcement, Burlington police personnel shall immediately summon emergency medical services and make all reasonable efforts to render aid according to BPD's directives and their training. Did they summon EMS? Did they call in for any medical help for the protesters that were injured either by themselves or by other uh immigration agents, by other police officers? Next from the executive order, if BPD personnel receive information from a member of the public regarding conduct by federal agents that constitutes an apparent violation of state law shall notify their supervisor who will ensure that a report is completed consistent with the requirements outlined in department policy. Have any such reports been completed? Burlington police uh BPD supervisors will ensure that all evidence is preserved and that investigations are conducted in a timely manner and referred to the Chittenden County State Attorneys as appropriate. Have any investigations been started? What's the status of those investigations? Next, BPD shall report to the mayor and police commission credible reports of unlawful conduct by federal agents engaged in civil immigration enforcement. Has the mayor been informed of any unlawful conduct? Finally, BPD shall to the extent permitted by law publicly report aggregated data without disclosing personally identifying information or information restricted by law regarding im incidents in which BPD personnel documented or receive reports of unlawful conduct by federal agents engaged in civil immigration

enforcement. So, when are we going to get that data? When are we going to see the evidence, the reports that have been made? Next, we're calling for investigation and accountability for the officers found to have violated use of force policy. Um, we call on the police commission to act using their full authority and also that all cases should be referred to the CJC or the criminal justice council where officers may face descertification. Furthermore, we encourage the state to conduct investigations as well, including through legislature, you know, through the legislature and by the human rights commission. And finally, we call for the affirmation and training in the content and application of the policies that we've been speaking about, what they mean, and how they apply in real life situations such as the one we saw on the 11th. What this means in practice is that if BPD receives a request for mutual aid, it's incumbent on the department to verify if the provision of mutual aid would put them in violation of the fair and impartial policing policy. If the request for support came from ICE, as it did on the 11th, or if the action is in furtherance of immigration enforcement, the department must decline the request. The policy doesn't prohibit C uh BPD from being present in immigration enforcement actions, but it does place restrictions. For instance, presence cannot be precipitated by a request from federal immigration agencies, again, as it was on the 11th. that presence must strictly conform to a public safety role, not acting as BPD did. And as had, you know, as as has been admitted repeatedly by police officials, as I quoted some of, to allow ICE to do their job, a public safety objective must include, as mandated by the use of force policy that offers, quote, intervene whenever they witness another officer using excessive force, which again we've seen clear evidence of

today. In other words, if BPT officers are to be present during immigration enforcement actions under a public safety justification, then they must actually keep the public safe. This can never be context for for supporting ICE, right? This can never be a pretext for supporting ICE as it was on the 11th. Next, a declaration of criminal of a criminal investigation by federal immigration authorities, including the presence of a criminal warrant does not give BPD cart blanch to support the enforcement action, as has been repeatedly suggested by officials. The FIP or the fair and impartial policing policy continues to place severe restrictions on criminal immigration enforcement actions such as illegal entry or illegal re-entry. As we saw on the 11th, what began as a criminal enforcement action for unlawful re-entry ended up as a civil enforcement action. ICE can't be trusted to limit their actions to their stated target. Their so-called collateral arrests are always a possibility. Thus, any support provided for criminal in uh immigration enforcement could result in support for civil enforcement as happened on the 11th. Thus, as a matter of practice, BPD must also decline requests for support on ICE investigations for unlawful entry and re-entry. And I'll say these practices are already mandated by the fair and impartial policing policy. They're already mandated by the mayor's uh uh order, right? They must be affirmed by city leadership and officers must be trained to follow them. Thank you. That's all from me. Thank you. Thanks

again. Appreciate representatives from migrant justice joining us this evening. I think um before we turn to the council for any questions for any of our presenters. We'll continue on down the table. And uh next up we're joined by attorney Barbara Pride, an attorney of Vermont Legal Aid. And attorney Pride, when you're ready, the floor is yours. Thank you. Um I have I'm Barbara Prine. I'm a staff attorney at Vermont Legal Aid. I have a much smaller piece to talk about. Um I I was at in my capacity at Vermont Legal Aid. I was at Dorset Street for a couple hours in the morning and I wanted to describe to you what I saw and explain to you also a little bit about why I was there. Vermont Legal Aid has a program, an immigrant minor guardianship program, where we help undocumented parents make plans, legal plans in case the parents are deported so that someone assumes responsibility for helping the child be reunited, the children be reunited with their parents in this country or another. We have volunteer attorneys who meet with the undocumented parents. The undocumented parents have identified a trusted guardian. The volunteer attorneys help complete power of attorney forms and guardianship forms so that should the parents be detained or deported, the children do not end up in Department of Children and Families custody, they don't end up in state custody. Instead, they're cared for by a trusted adult who plans to reunite the children um with their parents. Uh we started this program, well we restarted this program in January. We have 15 trained volunteer attorneys. We've had 11 or so clinics. We've helped

more than 95 families set up plans for reunification so that 160 children know if their parents are taken away from them, there's a plan to get back together. So, that's a program we run. Um, on March 11th, I was contacted by one of our potential guardians who had completed paperwork with the family because the family was in the home at Dorset Street. Um, I went to the house in the late morning with the minor guardian and the person who was to become the minor guardian. I communicated with the ICE officer in charge. I told I introduced myself. I told him who I was. I told him that there was a minor ch child in the house. Uh ICE has a policy uh ICE directive 11064.4 that says that uh immigration officers are supposed to help uh arrange for care of children when there's an immigration enforcement action. and they're supposed to arrange for children to go with a potential guardian. And uh so I introduced myself to the officer. I told him that there was a child inside the house. I asked him to ensure that the child could be gotten out of the house safely before there was an aggressive enforcement action. He refused to do that. I asked him for his talked to his supervisor. I asked for his phone number. He could not remember his telephone number. He could not tell me what office he was from. He said I should Google the Boston uh ICE office if I wanted to get in contact with him. Um this was officer Johnston. He was

completely unaccountable. And when I reminded him that he was supposed to help the child leave safely, he just refused. He just absolutely refused. Um, I then went and talked to the South Burlington police officer in charge who did give me his card and told me his name and uh was sympathetic but said that there was nothing he could do. He could not help me get the child out. ICE was in charge and they were going to do what they wanted to do. They were there to arrest people and that's what they wanted to do and that was what was going to happen. A couple hours later, it was the protesters who got the child out of the house safely with the help of the South Burlington School District and the minor guardian. They made a path protecting the child to get the child out of the house. So, you know, I have to say I I've been a legal aid attorney for 30 years. I've dealt with a lot of government officials. I've dealt with a lot of law enforcement. I was shocked by the disregard for the safety of a three-year-old, by the ICE officer, and by the South Burlington police's telling me they couldn't do anything, and that it was the protesters who ensured the child was out of there before the events that he just described. So my recommendation is is that we do not want to be participating in ICE enforcement actions. And if you believe that all the policies were followed, which I there's been good testimony that that was not true, then you have to

immediately figure out what policies need to be changed. And you have to do this very quickly, faster than municipal government typically works. So, I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Attorney Pride. Um, we're also joined by Attorney Jill Martin Diaz, executive director for the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project. Attorney Martin Diaz, um, can you slide the microphone over to you?

Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much to city council for calling this meeting tonight. Thank you to the administration for being here and hearing us out. Um, I know it is past 8:00 PM on a night when all of us have worked tremendously hard, many of us in this room, addressing the other detentions that were transpiring in our community this week, trying to keep the next people snagged by ICE safe here in Vermont where they can access their family and communities and counsel. So, um, I hope you'll indulge me. I'm what I'm going to share with you tonight is from my perspective as an immigration attorney. Um I am a a W 2 resident. I have been practicing civil uh legal aid, particularly immigration defense for 10 years and um I'm the executive director of Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, a new legal services provider um that coincidentally stood up just in time to be able to provide this kind of legal defense. Um, my testimony as an attorney inherently uh turns on what happened next because I'm I'm an immigration defense lawyer. People come to me after they are already harmed and then they seek my counsel on what of their rights were violated and whether there are any remedies available to them. Um, I have a lot of of mission and vision and values in common with the community members who you heard testify tonight. Um, and I I help lead Vermont Asylum Assistance Project and the other immigration legal service providing orgs in our community like Vermont Afghan Alliance, Association of Africans Living in Vermont, the Center for Justice Reform Clinic, and most recently Vermont Legal Aid um to help close the

long-standing justice gap for community members like Christian. A byproduct of that is that I also in the in the course of my work reinforce, legitimize and make function easily, more easily a system of violence the legal system, the carceral system. By working within the system as an attorney, even a defense attorney, I am inherently reiterating the legitimacy of a system that was built on violence and that continues to perpetuate violence. And that's something that I have worked really hard on myself to just own. It means that sometimes I am working within systems of violence and that I am complicit. It is really challenging to sit with that tension and I think it is incumbent on any leaders who are I know are all squirming in their seats tonight over the violence that we've just witnessed over the pain and trauma that we just heard shared with us from our community members. It's incumbent on us to sit with that discomfort and then think about what do we do next? That's our job and that's why we all got into working within the system. Yes. So that's why we're here tonight. And what I want to share about what what came next is um a few points. Um, one, we are very fortunate that this horrific event took place in a jurisdiction where we have such an outsized rapid response community organized and legal response mechanism. The District of Vermont is leading the nation in exercising checks

on ICE's abuse of power and thereby on the president's abuse of executive power. And that's not despite um the community organizers who you heard tonight whose language, choice, or political perspectives you might not share personally. It's because of them. Because without rapid response that migrant justice is leading the nation on, they seek out technical assistance from the national uh immigration project. They're the the TA provider for rapid response and like migrant justice blows every other system in at least in New England way out of the water. It's because of how incredible their rapid response program is, how generous our community members are with their bodies, with their resources, with their mouths. Look at how they've like shared of themselves emotionally tonight. Um, it's because of all of that, their accompanyment, their witnessing that we lawyers are able to come in after the fact and help the community to move forward and seek remedies. It's not despite, it's because of. And I know that with the Vermont Immigrant Legal Defense Fund, you know, I'm an attorney. I'm credentialed. I walk in here with a suit and I testify from my laptop instead of my heart. And that gives me access to more time on the agenda than the other community members who were actually eyewitnesses of what transpired on March 11th. And I just want to make crystal clear that we would not be doing the work we do as attorneys if it wasn't for the people sitting right here with us. What our experience was like on March 11th at Vermont Asylum Assistance Project was familiar chaos. It was familiar chaos, not just um you know familiar behavior from immigration and customs enforcement. It was familiar entanglement with law enforcement. Um it

was familiar disorganization in the community about who to call and what resources we could mobilize outside of rapid response because of a continued silence from our state leadership. Um that has the power to share messaging like they did in the CO 19 pandemic but chooses not to. Um and just for the record, vapvt.org/help oorgg/help is the one and only place you need to go to request an immigration lawyer to intervene at an event like March 11th. Um, that was all very familiar to me and and my removal defense practice that I began in New York and New Jersey. It's ICE violence is is what I have come to expect in my legal practice. Um, and we're we're so lucky. We are so lucky that we live in a jurisdiction where we had these community and government institutions that were in place to make sure that Kurissan would be available to be here and share his story so generously with us tonight. But I want to make clear, and I'm not saying this in a capacity. I'm not I don't represent Christian. Um but he and and Johanna and and Camila are asylum seekers, right? They're humanitarian status seekers. And for them, their immigration journeys have now just begun. So when you talk about impact, I'd like us all to remember and center that the three people who were collaterally arrested in this violent enforcement action, all of the legal work, all of the community work that was done to see them walk free and be here with us tonight. does nothing to remedy the underlying question that they are now in removal proceedings and now have to share their trauma over and over and over again and be

cross-examined by ICE council in court about their trauma and that they're beginning their journey now from the disadvantaged place of having gone through the horrific events that came on March 11th and afterward during their detentions. One of my attorneys was interviewing one of the individuals who had been impacted and the person became so disregulated, citing flashbacks from March 11th that they had to stop the legal meeting. Even though there is an immigration court hearing coming up that makes the meeting very time-sensitive, which we explained to the person, she they were feeling too traumatized to continue. And that is just unnecessary. We just need to recognize when we talk about impact and accountability who it starts with and how it reverberates out in terms of reverberations by all accounts including findings of fact made by federal courts as well as testimony given tonight given at the state house over several hearings and lots of accounts shared on social media and other forums. Um there were numerous fair and impartial policing violations that transpired to March 11th. It it seems all but um it would be very difficult to conclude otherwise. And the fair and impartial policing policy was designed from my perspective as an immigration lawyer. I I was supportive and my organization was supportive of the FIP because we need to be able to honestly counsel our clients, our non-citizen clients that it is safe to call for emergency help when you feel that you need it, that no, it will not put you in risk of ICE enforcement. And the fair and impartial policing policy is the tool that allows us to say that to our clients genuinely. But the way that we see the fair and impartial policing policy enacted, if if if March

11th was a test of what I expect will be ongoing tests throughout the Trump administration, we failed. We failed our community members. And we can't tell our community members, our client communities, that we know it is safe to call for emergency help if you feel you need it. And now we are putting people who are experiencing violence or instability at home, people who need emergency medical care, we are pushing those people further into the shadows exactly like the Trump administration wanted. That's the point. Fear is the strategy. And this entire fear-mongering campaign that's reverberated through the community has, as Rachel described, undone years and years and years of of progress being made um trying to reduce harm for noncitizen community members here in Vermont. You um also note, and Rachel flagged that there wasn't just all of this testimony that you've heard tonight. Um there were also conclusive findings of fact by federal district court judges on how illegal unconstitutional uh what transpired on March 11th was. You know when just a you know a quick primer habius corpus is a Latin phrase that means produce the body and it's a a form of of a check on executive power that comes from common law before the US. It came from the UK and it's a very extraordinary remedy to ask a court to exercise a check of habius corpus against an executive. And this year there have been thousands thousands of orders made by federal district judges that ICE is snatching bodies away illegally. and immigration lawyers feel clear that the purpose

behind that habit, that practice is preying upon a particularly disempowered population. So that it using them and the system that they exist within, the immigration legal system, to normalize executive abuse of power. They're counting on us not being able to seek checks and balances. And we do. And we win. and the District of Vermont is leading the nation in in coming up with rapid response models for in court. I want to quote for you um a finding from the decision on um Joanna Patin Patin um one of the other three people one of the other one of the three people one of the other two who suffered harm at the hands of law enforcement on March 11th. The court concluded that a fifth amendment violation occurred. Miss Patin Patin has raised a serious claim and has brought a successful claim and in this case law and justice require immediate release. In deciding to release Miss Patin Patin, the court also had to confront the extraordinary context in which her arrest took place. The government has adopted a policy of mass detention for immigrants despite the constitutional limitations on civil detention. ICE frequently makes arrests without an administrative warrant or an individualized assessment of flight risk or a danger to the community as it is their position that almost every underdocumented person in the country is subject to mandatory detention which is not based in law. And yet many of the individuals caught in the government's drag net including Mispatin Patin are not specific targets for enforcement and rather their arrests are the product of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Okay.

Okay. I just said I'm Thank you for your testimony and just to note for you, I'm about to read from from from your order from the order um for habius release in Christian's case regarding the constitutional deprivation that Christian suffered. The Supreme Court has set out a wellsettled three-part test around when um civil immigration confinement is inappropriate. The three factors are the private interest blah blah blah. I I'm already bored so I don't want to bore you. The petition Yeah. Right. Uh here Christian's private interest in freedom from imprisonment was strong. The petitioner was quote detained without any pre-detention, any individualized determination as to whether he posed a flight risk or any risk of dangerousness. And there is no indication that there was any material change in circumstances. It appears instead that Christian was detained simply because he was residing at a house that ICE officers mistakenly believed another individual for whom they initially did not have a warrant got arrested. It's so strange to me as a lawyer who's been called on including by the city of Burlington and many institutions to give know your rights trainings. Know your rights was the first response from the community. And the first right that we teach everyone in know your rights is your right to privacy from unreasonable and excessive intrusion into your privacy by law enforcement. Right? Your right to to ask for a warrant, to not open your door, to to protect the privacy of your home. And all along I've been thinking to myself, it feels disingenuous of me as an immigration lawyer who's long litigated against ICE to be teaching people their rights when we all know

full well that they flagrantly violate those rights. Period. And here we've seen that happen in our community. And I caution that I do not think this will be the last time. Like I said, I spent all day today supporting my team to litigate other habius corpus cases for other community members. What what I'm hoping for is that we can honor the extreme harm that befell Christian and Joanna and Camila. the extreme harm that befell their families, their communities, the people who are just trying to help, who were standing by with PPE and and meeting the basic needs of people who were legal observing and and supporting through rapid response safety of children in the home. We need to honor the reverberating fear of calling for emergency support now that is going to put victims in this state at risk of ex of unnecessary harm. People who otherwise would have called for help when they when they needed it. We need to honor all of that by heeding the calls to action that we've all heard tonight. We urge the city of Burlington to join us in calling attention to the recent request by the Vermont Human Rights Commission at the state level, which is empowered to investigate law enforcement in Vermont and routinely does so for our state legislature to grant the authority to make an investigation of these events in public in order to satisfy important demands for transparency and accountability. We encourage the city lobbyists, we encourage councilors to encourage your

constituents to please join us in also uplifting the slate of legislation already pending before the state this se the state house this session that will help us to collectively add more rights and protections to non-citizens at the community level. seek remedies when ICE predictably violates those rights and to fund legal counsel so that there are lawyers available to help people walk these terrible systems and not make them walk them alone. Finally, I would like us to please take seriously migrant justice's calls to action to not only review the as the application of the fair and impartial policing policy in this instance and to use the available oversight mechanisms to conduct thorough reviews and create accountability um where it is available. but to also um think think proactively about what it looks like to be a partner with us in this work. It's ironic to me that a city that represents leadership in restorative justice nationally is in a situation where we're coming together after this atrocity to talk together about what we can do, what we have the power to change to make our communities more safe. We could be practicing what we preach in terms of restorative practices. We could be coming together and working together on this issue. um together the community and and government institutions. I wonder um it was so striking to me that when the the first hearing transpired in in the

Senate Judiciary Committee that it was it was visually very stark that the Senate Judiciary Committee only called as witnesses leadership from law enforcement who were reporting on secondary tertiary stories reporting, right? um when we have such a robust and generous group of eyewitness people available to give p firstir firstir firstir firstir firstir firstir firstir firstir firstir firstir firsthand accounts why weren't their perspectives lifted up from the very beginning and and and really I would be interested to to speak with law enforcement leaders and city councilors about ways that we can help be a conduit part of what we do as lawyers in civil society who want to both find meaningful solutions with institutions but also uplift the movement of the community. We can maybe help be a thought partner for you on how to foster dialogue. I wonder how all those decisions if if decisions were made differently, we wouldn't be sitting here today. And we offer ourselves as a resource. But know that we can't come to you today asking for an immigration legal remedy. um our our community members who are directly impacted are just at the beginning of a very long hard journey that I promise you will not be fair and impartial um nor will it enjoy process due. But where we do have control here in our sphere of power on the fair and impartial policing policy on how it's written and how it's applied, I urge us to work together and and honor honor the struggle of the people sitting behind me and beside me tonight. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Attorney Martin Diaz, and again, thanks to all of our guests for being here this evening. Um, at this time, uh, and appreciate your all's

patience and and sticking around, uh, while I open the floor to my colleagues here on the council first to see if anyone has any questions for our guests here. Um, I know sometimes it's difficult to ask a question without also making a comment, but I think the intention of of this round at the moment is to uh try to ask any questions that we have uh of our guests. Again, once we are done with a round of questions, we'll open the floor again to counselors um as well as to you, Mayor, if you're so inclined uh to uh make any comments this evening. Um, so with respect to any questions for our guests this evening, is there any counselor who first wants to get in the queue?

Okay, I understand that some folks may have comments. I think in councelor Bergman,

I have lots of comments, but I'm going to try to make some questions here just to to get clear. Well, I think why don't we No, I don't you know I know I and we'll be flexible. These are these are questions. This is like framed for this period of time and these are actually miserable questions,

right? And I because I'm going to ask them knowing full well that I have heard for over many hours, you know, this call that says we shouldn't have been there. So I want to sort of recognize that, honor that. But the questions that the tough miserable question is at any point if we were there right so we're there right pick pick a time in your wonderful timeline I wish I had had that uh previously um what do you think in the range of activities our officers should have done and so you if you haven't thought about that you know that's fair, right? But that is a that's a question. You're there at the time, maybe rightfully, maybe in the gray area, maybe wrongfully, but okay, now we've got these choices. We've got these choices all along the way. And so I so that is a question that I have for migrant justice and for the uh the attorneys in terms of that for a similar question is for legal aid and that is okay South Burlington doesn't help ICE shouldn't even be there so they're not helping our officers are there again whether right you know they're just there just this is the hypothetical, what should they do to help those children get connected or get out of there or get connected with those resources, right? If we were to have that so that, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, whether it's the, you know, the only option isn't to pass that kid out of the out of a window or something like that, right? and um for

the attorney for for Jill. Um so what right do Burlington police have uh with regard to the issuance of judicial warrants? We're on the scene, right? We've heard one line that says you got no right. they get the warrant and you know fight it out some other time some other place after they have like gone through their miserable stuff right but I don't actually believe that I I I hope that actually Pike and his uh um his brief is speaking some good law because I I I'm hoping that that that there is more right than we are uncomfortably verbally, but actually empowered to act on it. So, those are the three questions that I've got for you based on the testimony. And if this is not a good time to answer them or you can only answer partially or something, that's totally fair. I think that I need and I think that we need to have that, you know, that insight um as well as those facts um going forward in in our review. So, thank you. Those are my questions.

Thank you, Councelor Bergman. Certainly, if any one of our panelists want to respond to that, please take the opportunity.

Sure. So, starting with your first question, um and I'll try to summarize it and you can confirm I'm understanding correctly. um is what should have off what should officers have done differently? Is that a fair Okay. Um I think they should have followed all of the policy that has been put in place through the fair and impartial policing policy. Um not colluded with immigration enforcement. Um not assaulted protesters. Um, I think they should have followed the mayor's executive order and not used city time, energy, and resources on what again was a clear violation of their own policy against uh collaboration with ICE,

but how that what that looks like like on the ground, but I appreciate that. Uh, councelor Bergman, I'm not quite sure what uh Burlington police could do because officer Brisco told me there was nothing that the South Burlington police could do. And I believe that you I can't tell you uh that when ICE is on the scene that the local law enforcement is allowed to go above them. Um, I think it's an important question to ask the police chief, but more, you know, I agree that start with following the policies. And I just want to say something to um what uh attorney Martin Diaz said that uh yeah, we've gotten 20 requests for immigrant minor guardianship help in the last month, which is like 20% of what we've gotten in the last 16 months. Like people are terrified that their families are going to be split apart and that they're not going to get back together. So like moving quickly here to uh restore confidence to publicly restore confidence is really important.

Thank you. I I think we have to answer this question with if things happen in Burlington. You know, it's one thing for the South Burlington chief in there, but so anyway, we got called by another family the same week in Burlington where there was an attempted ICE enforcement action. So it's going to happen.

Thank you. and and thank you for your question about um addressing the authority that state or local law enforcement would have um to maybe intervene on or uh yeah to to intervene on uh a legal action by a federal law enforcement agent. So this is an issue that um is kind of dressed up in a separation of powers constitutional law issues, right? And that has created unfortunate cover for the reality that um that no one is above the law, not even law enforcement. And that there is criminal liability when an an officer, no matter which agency they represent, is committing violence and violating the law. There there might be special provisions where they are subject to liability um because they're doing they're violating the law in their line of duty. There are many jurisdictions that have um decided to clarify that liability over the last couple of years, have made it explicit that state and local law enforcement are indeed empowered to um enforce the law against anyone who is violating it, which would include any law enforcement officers, not limited to but including ICE. um and and many jurisdictions that have taken this position with um I understand we're in an we're in a predicament here because of our resource constraints our heavy as a state our heavy reliance on federal funding. I my observation when I compare how we have re responded, we Vermont um and I look at other jurisdictions that are similarly aligned in terms of the political makeup. Um I see that we have been responsive of center. Our institutions have been responsive center

sometimes um in an explicit or implicit um hope of not drawing attention to the jurisdiction and risking federal funding, right? that there's like this issue um this tension and there's a lot of interesting scholarship happening studying whether or not that works. Spoiler alert, it doesn't. Um, and I I would suggest like what you're talking about, there are many examples. There are jurisdictions that there where their municipalities are the ones creating new protections, putting putting limits on law, all law enforcement, including federal um are creating city funding for access to council so that we there's even a lawyer available to help someone bring these challenges and not be disappeared. Um there are municipalities that are affirmatively litigating, right? They're not waiting for something horrible to happen and then sue after. They are filing suit affirmatively to protect their statuses as sanctuary cities. There's a lot there's a whole range um that can be done. And so um what I would my position would be that there already exists authority um for state and local law enforcement to enforce the law against federal agents when they are acting illegally. Um, and as lawmakers, you have the power to make that authority and that like imperative even more clear.

Thank you. Uh, I would really hope that we can partner to to actualize what you've just talked about. It's very important to me. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Councelor Bergman. And I understand again that some folks here may have both questions and comments. I guess the ask here for this first round is that if anyone has some very clear questions, I'd like to turn to those first because I think that some of the answers may help to further along some of the comments afterwards. If there are no uh you have some questions here, councelor Singh and then councelor Brick. Okay, so why don't we go to you councelor Singh and then we'll go to councelor Brick.

Thank you. And I'm going to kind of dovetail off of my colleague councelor Bergman. Um, you know, when we're talking about this and just brought to mind, who would bring a case against the ICE agent that, you know, used their authority illegally by by entering this property or and taking these people violating their fifth amendment right to privacy. Who would bring that case? Me. Okay.

Well, I mean, Christian, right? Christian and Joanna and Camila, they're the plaintiffs, right? They're the people, the petitioners who saw judicial review and even though they got their relief are still here giving of themselves so generously so that we all can have this debrief um without pay or any I'm like like there isn't an amount of gratitude I could rest. Have these cases been successful against ICE agents? And

yes, absolutely. So we name it's it's typically not that you're seeking um a remedy like you're not seeking to recover from a particular ICE agent or we're not seeking like we're not using our intervention to seek onetoone accountability from the one agent who may be harmed but the institutions the agencies and and I understand that and so I want to follow up on that is you know would it be a deterrent to an ICE agent if they were prosecuted to the full extent of any violations that they've that they've perpetrated in a community.

That's a fair question. There are a couple of examples from our own community that um illustrate the the general observation nationwide that um when I's job gets hard, they kind of pivot and move on to other jurisdictions. Um so we were just meeting with Department of Corrections talking about our legal work with them uh with detainees who are in custody by them and um they even mentioned that like we were all looking h at the number of detainees over the year has been trending down over time and part of of the theory of why that's happening is that the um our ability to seek such quick and decisive judicial checks on ICE illegal activities in our state has made Vermont a less attractive place to be operating in because we have such a deep bench here and so many amazing advocates ready to spring into action. Um similarly earlier um some of our community members talked about their advocacy in the airport trying to create some transparency and accountability around transportation of detainees through the airport. Um, and there was advocacy, there was awareness building, and now we notice that the that the the vans are not going to the Burlington airport. I mean, reasonable minds differ on whether or not that was harm reduction because now what we find is people are getting driven to other airports um further out of state. But what I will say is there's a general observation among um the bar that if they ICE has 50 states to choose from and so when when you make things when you hold them accountable, hold them to their burden, um they tend to pivot.

Yep. Um so would you say, uh we are doing a good job making it hard. It's from a legal aspect is where ICE seems to back down in most instances. I mean, I don't want to blow our trumpet too hard. No, but I mean, it is amazing. There's there's an incredible I will blow my trumpet very hard. No, it's not me at all. I just sit and work with spreadsheets. There's an amazing group of of staff attorneys across the five agencies who are bolstered by the rapid responders that you see sitting everywhere else and together um with the bravery of the petitioners who just like put it all out there. Um they're the the judiciary is holding the line on democracy right now

and I I appreciate your hard work. Um, I also wanted to ask about, you know, where we've seen these restrictions be put on ICE enforcement in other state and other municipal areas. Have have those been tested on the ground and and what are the results of those situations? I haven't heard of any major cases testing implementation yet, but what we have seen um any so far any judicial litigation that has been um initiated by the immigration justice bar nationally, whether it was the immediate and unceremonial revocation of our funding to provide universal rep to any under 18s in removal proceedings in Vermont. We immediately sued in the Ninth Circuit about that. Whether it's suing the administration over any of its revocations of immigration status, its due process violations, just over and over and over and over and over again, federal district courts nationwide in many circuits are absolutely hearing and find make findings of fact of how illegal ISIS's operations are. So, I would hope that the geniuses behind all of those models, I did not come up with them. I am a direct services provider. ACLU created the model for Vermont and now we just implement it. Um, I have every reason to believe that they're they're devising these strategies from an informed place.

And do are they giving advice to municipalities on on the type of um things that they should put into their um toolbox, so to speak.

I'm so glad you asked. the American Immigration Council um and a number of other organizations do run technical assistance. There's a lot of like training and technical assistance programs that is available. We are not walking in this through this alone. Um I I believe that migrant justice's incredible embracing of technical assistance at the national level is what allowed them to set up their incredible rapid response work so quickly. And there are similar frameworks popping up to offer technical assistance to cities nationwide. Um there's one program I want to highlight for you, the cities and counties for citizenship program. Um that is um a program that regions, municipalities um can apply for on their own or in coalition with with other neighbors to um be like formally uh trained as part of a class of municipalities that are um looking to use their authority fully to the fullest extent possible to keep their community safe. So, um that is a program that I highly recommend and would be happy to chat um with with um the right people about. There's a number of other sources of TA, but that's the one I'll highlight now.

Well, I I very much appreciate your hard work. I'll I'll be done with the questions. I I just wanted to say to Cristiana or Cristian, I I as as an American, as a Burlingtononian, as a Vermoner, um I'm sorry for what happened to your family and your loved ones. Thank you, Councelor Sang. Councelor Bark,

thank you. Um this question is for for probably for migrant justice. Um I was um if you can um I'm hoping if you could speak to um some examples of um attempted ICE enforcement actions in Vermont um um before or since March 11th where um in contrast to what happened on Dorset Street, there was um little to no local and state law enforcement presence and the presence that we saw on Dorset Street um and speak to um if the contrast if there was contrast in terms of violence against the community um as well as uh differences in ISIS's success in their operations.

Yeah, absolutely. I can speak to that. Um I recognizing it's getting a little late in the evening, we'll just give one example. Um we can talk more later if you want more. Um I think a very clear example happened two days before the events of the 11th. Um so that would have been Monday the 9th. Um sim you know in a similar situation. We got a call to our emergency line from a community member um who reported a a potential ICE enforcement activity and we mobilized to the scene confirmed that it was true. um because again we we follow very specific procedures internally about when we do or don't share um suspected information. The bottom line is unless we can confirm it 100% we won't share it publicly. Um so on the 9th we were able to 100% confirm there was an attempted ICE detention. Um we um activated the rapid response network um and arrived on scene and you know I I recognize a number of faces from the room. So if if you could correct my my guess but I believe about 80 or so people showed up. Yeah around 80 or so people showed up. Again, this was this was actually in Burlington um on Pine Street. Um when we arrived, um community members lined up in front of the building and just held the space. Um we saw um a couple of different um local police vehicles drive by, not stop or anything. Um, and we also saw a an undercover ICE vehicle circling again and again for just over an hour. Um, at a certain point, seeing, I believe, the the strong and unified presence of allied community members in solidarity with the people inside the home, the officer left. Um there was no

face-to-face uh interactions with immigration enforcement after the initial interaction that led to that phone call. Um we didn't have any face-to-face communication with um local or state law enforcement and the situation ended with ICE turning its tail and running. um community members holding the space, meeting each other, you know, continuing to organize in the moment and the person who was originally being targeted free. Um that is one very specific example that I can share.

Yeah, thank you. And I I highly recommend you share as many examples as you're willing to share with the with the full council. I think exemplifying that contrast is very important. Thank you. Thank you, Council Broadick. Councelor Carpenter,

thanks. Um, I'm just curious after you mobilize your members and they arrive at the scene, um, is there any uh, coordination, any strategy that's shared among the members? I mean, I observe that having 200 people on Dorset Street is a lot to manage. And so, I'm just curious that part of um the movement and it sort of tags on um maybe a little bit of uh Council Broadick's sort of who who do you talk to about keeping it calm, you know, or I'm just trying to figure that out.

Sure. So the the main leadership that we follow in actions like this um is that of the person who's most most impacted. Um that is a you know a core guiding principle of our organization. We are a base organization that is led by and driven by the most impacted members of our community. So throughout the day we were in contact with Christian, with Joanna, with Camila, with their family members um to coordinate um and we helped share their their wants, their feelings, their desires with the people who are outside. A lot of the coordination on scene u bubbled up very naturally. Um a lot of the people who were present are you know members of our rapid response network. Um, but a lot of them also aren't, you know, we we operate within a model of having, you know, a statewide rapid response network with coordinated infrastructure. We do trainings. We've done more more than 50 over the last year at this point. Um, as kind of the the core central infrastructure. However, you know, this kind of organizing can't only be happening on a state level, right? So individual towns, counties, neighborhoods have their own rapid response networks where they share information, confirm it, share it with us and then also share, you know, information from us, right? So it it's this network of overlapping um circles of organizing. Um and so again, you know, a lot of the organizing that day u was done um in, you know, under the leadership of migrant justice. A lot of it also wasn't um I would say it was a a community effort. Um I don't know if that quite answers your question, but it does. And again, it was sort of in in

another circumstance, you know, how do you encourage law enforcement um to have communication with the people that have come on site through the rapid response? Um I mean, They're notified and they're there. In in this circumstance, Burlington was notified that 200 people have gathered in South Burlington, Dorset Street.

I obviously don't know all the other communications and I was just sort of asking it kind of from your side. I mean, uh, Burlington can talk to South Burlington who really started it, ICE perhaps. And I'm just sort of curious, you know, h how communication channels run. I'm sorry, counselor, I'm not sure I understand your question exactly. Sorry, if I may clarify. Yeah. Are you asking about um whether there's any police liaison as part of the organizing strategy?

That would that would be a response. I mean, the police arrive, there's 200 people. How do you have a communication and and with with whom? Uh how does that happen?

Yeah, thank you and thank you for the translation. Um yeah, we we have police lison on scene. Um there were several uh members of the migrant justice team on scene throughout the day um who were leazing with officers. Um I personally uh was uh organizing from off-site for a lot of the day, so I can't really speak to what that looked like before about 2:30. Um I have colleagues who who could talk about it. Um but yes, we have police leaison. Um we communicated with um various agencies. Um talked with the state legislators who were there. Um helped facilitate communication between the people inside and the protesters. Kind of all of the above.

Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Carer. Uh councelor Sanch. Hi everyone. Um I do have a question but I I feel uncomfortable um with the question um first. So I'd like to share some comments. Um, this is my first meeting as a city counselor and so I am just so deeply grateful that to kick off this journey with you all. Thank you for being here. Thank you for everyone who's come out. Many of you have been here multiple times already sharing your stories. So, I just want to really thank you for that. Um, there was one individual that during public comment said, "I'm terrified of speaking in public." I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for speaking. Thank you for sharing your experience. Um I am again very grateful that I don't feel like I'm just here with these folks in the table, but that we're here in community um working towards addressing these issues. I also want to say thank you for those who uplifted the history um of not only the police departments but just in general the structures that are within our country. Um it made me think about how we don't take these things personal. Uh the police department is not just the folks here and thank you Chief Burke for being here. It's a longstanding tradition of discrimination, of harassment, of policing, of black and

brown bodies. And I think that that is so important as we address some of these issues that is not always just personal that we need to be able to put aside some of our egos, some of our just being sensitive, but really think about the structures that are being set in place that are harming our community. Um, so uplifting that history I think is really important so we can have a bigger context as we're thinking about moving forward. I also want to uplift the history of those who are out in the community who are raising your voices. If it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for folks like you all here, I would not be sitting in this chair. I would not be sitting in this chair. I um attorney prime the work that you do I had a c a custodial um plan with my family. So it was through the work that you all do that I'm able to sit at this table. So thank you. Um I also want to thank um the individual that talked about um capturing our stories and what is happening in our country. Not only professionally but I think many of us who are able to pick up a phone and capture what is happening. Um again structurally the eraser of our stories and our histories continues to happen and we need to be able to to capture those stories and those experiences. So your stories matter. It's not just the data that we're going to collect. And so I really again thank you for sharing those stories. Again, rooted in what our communities and grassroots efforts are all about, sharing our stories and uplifting them and valuing just as much as the data and the research that is out there. Um there was a question by an individual, I believe it was D. Graham, that said, "What are you doing?" and she they

looked at us and said, "What are you doing?" And I really took that question at heart because um again I'm deeply grateful for the people who are coming out here to retell their stories, their trauma um and I'm going to take that question um seriously because I don't take your stories for granted. And so I I jotted down a few things that I want to specifically begin to think about. I want to first and foremost um I want to closely follow the investigations and closely analyze the results. I want to make sure to take a lot of the recommendations that you've all have already outlined the hours and hours that I know has gone into the analysis and recommendations that you all have shared. So, thank you for that. Um I want to hold each other accountable not only in the police department but across our city. What are we doing with the resources that we have? The few resources that we have. We need to make sure that we're using them for the betterment of our community. I want to better understand how the city is serving our immigrant community and how we are thinking beyond um beyond those of you who are already out there in the ground like how are we utilizing our city resources to support our community. Um, I want to continue to follow the police commission and the public safety committee because those two bodies are also making decisions and thinking about how to move forward with this work. Uh, we are in a search um right now to for a new uh chief of police and I want to be able to follow that closely as well. Um, several times it was mentioned how there's we already have policy set in place. I want to think about how we are following through with that policy. As Burlingtonians, we're really good at coming up with some pretty cool policy and a lot of people come here to work here because we have great systems in

place. I want to think about um how are we holding that policy um and how we holding each other accountable and how it's showing up in our culture and how we treat each other and how it's being practiced. Um, so thank you again for coming out here and and it just really made me think about um let's not be fragile. Let's put egos aside um and really think about uh several of you mentioned we we really are role mod role models for the community but also for the nation and how we can continue to support our immigrants. my question um that I'll put out there if I am able to do that. Um I I'd love to hear from you all who are directly supporting uh immigrant families and communities. What are the resources um currently that that you're seeing the city is investing in to support immigrant communities? What is the most the most helpful thing and or what could the city be doing with our resources to support Thank you, Councelor Sanchez Parkinson. If any of our panelists have a response to that and um I would welcome your answering it now. I I'm I also am mindful of of your time and the hour. So, uh I know that that's a big question.

The hardest thing uh councelor Sanchez Pergens is we could all use money, but the city doesn't have any money. Um, I I would say taking this seriously and turning the tide is the best thing that you could do because people are terrified. Um, I don't know if people have other answers, but uh, taking this seriously and turning the tide is within your power and isn't going to cost more money.

Um, I would say that that is a really good question. Um, and it's one that takes a lot of time to answer. You know, obviously I'm the one on the mic today, but I'm not one of the most impacted people. And so, like, come by our office. Let's set up a time for you to to meet with your constituents, to meet with the people in our community, um, to speak directly with them about, you know, the the resources that people are receiving, but also the the needs that we're continuing to see not get met. And from my perspective as um an attorney and a systems advocate, I would encourage the city to show leadership in filling the very loud vacuum of silence left open by the state administration. Um the state administration has a workflow for getting out good information, recommended resources, cutting through noise. We saw it happen in CO 19. Um, and the state is choosing not to use that that power, that authority, that positionality to be mythbusting, to be combating fearong mongering, to make sure that people know who to call when they need help. Um, and I I I think there's some opportunities, some ideas, some resource sharing that could happen where the city could help be a leader. It for Vermont in cutting through the noise and and getting out some good information for people who are honestly like just trying to go to the grocery store and get to the health clinic right now and and you could be a part of making that safer. So, thank you for asking.

Thank you. Any other? Okay. I I think we I think we can turn to the comment round now if that makes sense. I understand there may still be some questions interpersed with that, but I think we would turn now to sort of the second round, so to speak, if that's okay with other counselors. All right. And mayor, I saw your hand up, so I think I would turn to you first and then happy to turn back to other counselors.

Thank you, uh, Councelor Travers. And I just want to appreciate having the opportunity to also engage with the community um as I'm not a member of this body and so I sit um I sit here and offer perspective uh trying to respect this is their deliberative space as the administration. Um but I really what I really want to reflect back is first I just want to acknowledge and express a lot of gratitude because we are asking community advocacy organizations for triple work here as even as the city of Burlington right now. Tonight, you are not only been asked to do double labor with the state legislature with their hearings and then our hearings in South Burlington, triple the layers of work, but you've already articulated that every single day that goes by, you are providing direct aid, legal support, mutual aid to folks who are living in fear. And I do appreciate, I want to underscore and and double down on that fear is the policy. And I said this in my speech on Monday night, which has nothing to do with this necessarily directly, but we can do things here differently in Burlington. And that is certainly should be our direct and clear priority right now as as a city, not only as the largest city in in Vermont, but to your point um attorney Martin Diaz around filling the void that the state has left. Now, doing that, I hear tonight from community members and I am reminded about how we need to very much center those most impacted, those who are ultimately living in fear. And Christian, I'm I so I wish so badly I could speak Spanish because I feel very inadequate. So I want to acknowledge and feel I'll pause of course um if if translation is available but I I just want to appreciate that uh it is difficult to come and reshare trauma in in front of cameras in front of the entire community. It is so fresh and it is I cannot even imagine the pain and I want to acknowledge that first and most directly. That was probably too much to translate in a and oh I can't see that profile. So I was just okay I I appreciate that. I should also slow down uh now knowing that. So again

I appreciate that because I think one of the things Burlington is a deeply engaged community but we cannot lose sight of those who are living in in fear every single day and are withdrawing within from our community as you all have articulated. Um I also want to uh to reflect back. I hear the call for the specificity of review of things, policies that predate my time, policies that I have instituted, including my executive order. I hear the office of partnership, which I deeply appreciate. We have worked as partners since Trump got elected again. I've appreciated that work since day whatever that was, November 2024, really. And the these are very unsettling and unprecedented times. So, we will keep trying to do better and do better. I also take very seriously the trust that has been deeply broken and I do not take that lightly. I spent the first two years as mayor consciously trying to rebuild a broken community safety system with trust at the core for everyone and it breaks my heart that we have uh when ICE has engaged and we have responded as we've responded um we've lost ground and I want to make sure we acknowledge that publicly. Um I also hear the the calls for proactive thinking, accountability, and again back to partnership. That is the work we are um uh committed to doing. And finally, you know, while we don't have a lot of resources, um and I appreciate that acknowledgement, we do have the resource of time where we spend our time and focus and where we prioritize uh the work as the administration. So this is the priority. Um and I'm not going to speak to the details here, but in the investigation of the use of force is underway. information is coming very soon on this internally as well as the policy reviews, but I want to open up partnership to to explore this more. Um, and again, I don't take more time here, but I just want to appreciate uh folks coming here tonight, including all of the community members. I spoke to the mutual aid parts that are so strong about Burlington also on Monday night. Um, and I hear folks, I hear the pain, and I know um I was watching right

alongside you. We have a lot of work ahead of us. We're in the middle of it and um and more to come very soon. Thank you. Thank you, mayor. If I may, very briefly. Sure. Um, can I ask specifically for a timeline about the review process when we might expect information um, you know, on behalf of migrant justice, but also asking personally as someone who was assaulted by an officer?

Of course. Um, I was going to mention this, but I was trying to be measured in my response to reflective of trying to do deep listening tonight. Uh, so the Burlington Police Department is near its completion of the use of force, which is per our policy, which we went into on whatever night that was in March. Um, I will do my own independent review per an executive order that stands for mayors of the city under the prior administration, Mayor Weinberger. I don't forget, but 2021, I believe, is when that executive order uh was created. I am invoking that to do my own independent review once I receive BPD's use of force. I anticipate that within the next several days. And I uh I need to sit with that information myself uh as mayor and so that will take I can't do that in a day. So I plan to take about two weeks or so to do that to expedite this as quickly as possible. At the same time um we are trying to als we will be uh looking at all those policies I mentioned before the FIP the um my own executive order other things we should be looking at and I've already directed BPD to do an afteraction review with those similar themes separate from the use of force. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Uh, now councilors, anyone else want to get in the queue? Yep. Go counselor Shear and then councelor Broadark will come back to you and then councelor Mcnite. Actually, why don't we let's let's go with counselors that have not been So, we'll go councelor Shakar and then Mcnite and then anyone who has not been heard a first time and then councelor Grant. Okay, councelor Shakar.

Um, thank you, President Traverse. Um, thank you to everyone who's shown up tonight. I'm grateful we've had this opportunity. Thank you so much to our community partners for uh I echo what the mayor just shared. Um that the day in and dayout work you all are doing is of critical importance and to take the time out of your evenings, your precious evenings where you're probably usually still working. um to be here tonight means a lot and is a really important part of us really, as so many have said tonight, taking seriously what happened on March 11th and how we as a city can move forward from it stronger and better prepared to be responsive the next time this inevitably comes back. Um I want to just be so clear how seriously I take this. Um, and I think I speak for um, all of my colleagues as well, as well as the administration, that um, this is a real priority and getting to the bottom of it. Um, doing what we can to prevent it from happening again or going differently the next time. Um, and really working so hard to protect our whole community and minimize harm in every way we can. Um, Christian, I want to say thank you for your testimony. It's so brave. Um and it's so meaningful to have you here tonight. So, thank you. Um the stories that you shared and your experience in the home is not surprising but so evident of such rampant dehumanization that has no place in our city, in our country, uh in our world. And uh I'm so sorry that you experienced that. It's horrifying to hear um and yet so important for us to bear witness to and be with you in it. So, thank you for that opportunity and for being here tonight. Um and I also want to extend a warm welcome to Councelor Sanchez

Parkinson who is a dear friend. So, I get a little emotional um because it feels a little divine that we have your voice and your presence with everything we're city is our city is navigating right now. Um, and I'm so grateful that you're part of this body. Um, and that we get to lean on you as a colleague. So, welcome. Um, and thanks for diving right in. Um, I had just a couple quick questions. Um, one is just a clarification that Christian when you shared your experience in the house and your talks of the officers, I think I know that this is true, but I want to make sure that there was not Burlington police present in the house. It was ICE officers and others. It was Burlington police were not in the home. Yeah, it was just the immigration officers.

Thank you. Um, and I also wanted to share um, I think all of you brought so many great um, requests as a city for what we should be taking into account as we process this and figure out the path forward. And I was wondering if you could indulge us with sharing those in writing. I'd really love to be able to refer back to them and you know in in our efforts to take this seriously to have them to just so whether that's sending them via email to Coun to President Traverse that he can share with all of us or I'd love to sort of use those as as one of the many north stars um that we're working towards as we as we think about where we go from here. Great. That would be great. Um, that is all I had for now, but just know I I assure you. Oh, the last thing I wanted to say is we do have limited resources. I appreciate uh councelor Sanchez Parkinson's question about what can we do, how we're allocating our resources, but in addition to having a voice and to being advocates, we do also have policy uh that we can enact and uh adjust in response that I think is a lever that I I hear all of us being committed to exploring both where there's failures in our existing policy, where we're perhaps not not living into our policies, and what policies we should be thinking about enacting. ing what other municipalities are doing. Um, so I'd love to follow up on those resources as well. And I think that's where we really do have power here to make some change. So, thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Shaker, Councelor Brown Mcnite, and then Grant.

Thank you all so much for being here. Um, I'm echoing the gratitude for this deep expertise that you bring to the table and I want to share my commitment to being really eager to work together and take fast action on your recommendations because I agree that's what we need. Um, I want to especially thank Christian for being here. Um, and also just again say I am so deeply sorry that this happened to you in our community and I want to commend the courage that it took you to show up here. you know, that courage is of a magnitude that I will probably never understand. And um I'm also so glad that you are here safe with us tonight because that outcome was not guaranteed. And I'm extremely grateful for that. Um you do not deserve to be treated like this. No one does. Immigrants are the best of us in this state and in this country. and you are what makes this community special. So, thank you. Um, smuggling a child, a small child out of a home surrounded by violent men sounds like something that would happen in a lawless, war torn situation, but here we are. It's happening in suburban Vermont. And this incident is far from the only time it has happened. Uh, every American and every Vermonter should be ashamed of what happened to you there and what happened to everyone. I am absolutely ashamed of what happened and it was all funded by our tax dollars, which just blows my mind. Um, tonight I think it's important that we send a clear message about the action that we are all taking as a body, but I also think it's important that we directly send a message to the ICE agents that are

working in our state. And I want to say something that I think maybe it's important you um hear from me because maybe you'll listen to me. I am a nice white lady who was brought up going to Sunday school. So, ICE agents, maybe you think women like me should be on your side. You might think it's my job to uphold your violent authority, but it is not. My job is to protect my community from you. So, ICE agents, I want you to hear me loud and clear. You are a stain on our nation's history. Your total disregard for our Constitution is disgusting, and you deserve to be brought to justice for your unlawful actions against our neighbors, against a toddler. Does abusing children make you feel big and strong? You are a bunch of gross, pathetic losers, and you are not welcome here in Vermont or in Burlington. and also to our Burlington Police Department. Thank you for being here, Chief Burke. I really want to partner with you on a better path forward, but in order to do that, we absolutely need to develop a shared understanding that you cannot be on the same team as these embarrassing goons who are abusing their power and breaking the law. It just that does not work. It that that cannot be the path forward. Our police department can have no supporting role in these violent unjust situations. Full stop. This was a clear failure. Mistakes were made and we all need to address them with accountability. Thank you.

Thank you, councelor. We'll go to councelor Grant. Okay, thank you everyone for being here. Um, there is so much on my mind. I'm not wasting my time addressing ICE because we know the problem with ICE. It's very clear. We have to focus on um what happened with the involvement of our local law enforcement. Um our local law enforcement, Jen Morrison, Governor Scott, everyone was very unified in their opinion of the behavior of ICE, reckless, incompetent, unnecessary, and so on. But that's a distraction, right? It's the truth, but it's also a distraction around. We can say over and over again, we could not control the behavior of ICE, but as I mentioned at our March 23rd meeting, we need to control the behavior of our agencies. We have policies. and what happened that day, it's very clear. So, I want to be because I've had to deal with that in the realm of public and community safety for six years now. I started getting involved in public safety after some particularly violent incidents involving our police officers here in Burlington, in particular the Millie Brothers case.

we came out with a new and better use of force policy. It didn't change the fact that what was in place at the time of the incident was violated six ways to Sunday. So, we need to be honest when we have those conversations. Um I am waiting for um the reporting on the use of force to be completed. But I do feel that the very fact that individuals were taken who were not listed on a criminal warrant that to me is just that fact alone is a violation of FIP because it would not have happened if these individuals were white or white presenting. It wouldn't have. And those who know no we have seen here what is a statewide not just Burlington statewide countrywide failure to do the best job we could do with regards to oversight and accountability. People stop showing up. So my plea to the public as a whole is you have to continue to show up. We need complaints filed with the Burlington PD. We need complaints filed with the South Burlington PD. We need the complaints filed with VSSP, Vermont State Police. We need letters to Jen Morrison and Governor Scott. We need also to be engaging with the Vermont Criminal Justice Council. We need some sort of review over the fact that in all the timelines that have been presented, there isn't anyone who said that someone looked at the criminal warrant and didn't make an effort to say, "Who's in the house? Are they on the warrant? And

whoever is not on the warrant, can they come out safely?" I haven't heard that in all the timelines. and we need to understand why that didn't happen. That would have been the responsibility in my mind uh with local law enforcement. So, we need that conversation. We need a lot of conversations to say as we look at this debrief to really be sincere. Now, I went to um Chen County Regional Planning Commission has these quarterly meetings of electeds and I got into it with a South Burlington counselor who said who denied FIP violation was an issue and said that local law enforcement was there uh to protect the protesters against themselves. Said that out loud. Double tripled down on it. So, not everyone sees this the way we do and that is why we cannot get tired. People stop showing up at commission meetings. People stop talking about oversight and accountability at city council meetings. People got burned out. We can't get burned out. We see what's happening nationally. I was very concerned that what I saw and I continue to watch videos that people are sending me was that there didn't seem to be it it was like police weren't watching and seeing what we were seeing. It just seemed like there was a lack of preparedness and that's gravely concerning because we can't have that again and we know it will happen again and we know it's to points that were brought up earlier. We cannot allow people to be taken if there especially if they end up being taken out of state. We know what's happening.

I will leave it there and I just hope that people who say the right things, but when it comes to to voting to encourage people to vote a certain way, they're not always there. and then criticize those that don't do something that's not deemed politically expedient. And that's also what we're up against. Thank you.

Thank you, Councelor Grant. Um, Council Bergman, if you don't mind, just before going to a second round, I I just have a brief question that's come to mind here that I'd like to ask our our panelists here. Again, I want to be mindful and respectful of the time. It's sort of a follow question to uh what uh I believe councelor Carpenter was asking earlier this evening and um the the question is really this and I may not be that articulative about it because it's somewhat off the cuff but um obviously there is immense value that all of you have spoken to to the rapid response model that uh migrant justice has and has developed and the assistance that that's brought to so many here in the community. Um, obviously the one difference between a rapid response model and say a planned protest, right, is if there's a planned protest, there's a permit filed, there's an opportunity to meet with officials, there's sometimes discussions between the protest organization and the police department and the fire department. there's an understanding as to exactly sort of who is going to be uh where and why and what will happen if certain lines are crossed or are not crossed and and so on and so forth. And not only does the uh lack of of time associated with a rapid response not allow for this here but also the total lack of knowledge about where this is going to occur on a day-to-day basis doesn't allow for that kind of um engagement. it happened to be in South Burlington on March 11th where South Burlington was in command there. If it happened in Burlington, the Burlington Police Department uh could be a command if local police showed up, right? And I understand the concern about police showing up at the ask of of ICE officers. But I think we also have to be mindful of the fact that if ICE doesn't call, a community member very well may call, someone else may call. There are

reasons where local police may show up at a at a at a scene. um along these circumstances and depending on where it is that department is the one who's uh going to be responding and I guess my my question is well before getting to the question right I I don't know the extent to which the Wooki police department the Burlington Police Department the South Burlington Police Department the Vermont State Police right the Bristol Police Department Shelurn Police Department you go down the line of where these actions could actually take place I don't know the extent to which they are aware of the full scope of how the migrant justice rapid response model operates. I don't I I don't know of the extent to which they're aware of and I was very glad to hear that there are police liaison who are trained who are part of the rapid response model but I'm wondering what's the extent to which uh police department local police departments and the state police are aware of the fact that those police liaison are are there that they know that if they were to get to the scene that those individuals are there to connect with and speak with attorney prime like I I'm wondering of the extent to which our police departments here in Chintney County are are aware of your services and the fact that if there is a minor that's in there that they know that someone like you or other guardians are going to show up at the scene, right? Because I do think that one of the things that may have been missing here was and that one of the things that could be helpful when this inevitably does happen again is more knowhow more knowhow and and knowledge on behalf of local and state law enforcement about about who the players are at the scene and and the roles that they have. Um And I'm just I'm curious if you have any thoughts or uh answers in in that regard. And I suppose that's a question for everyone here. I know that I landed it with you most recently here, Attorney Brian, but

I tried talking to law enforcement and it was not effective. Both the South Burlington officer in charge and the ICE officer in charge. So I you know I I identified myself, I reminded them of policies. It didn't it was not effective. Um, so I I was thinking you were going down a different road, which is maybe if we got ICE to tell us ahead of time before they did an enforcement action and they asked for a permit like everyone has to before a protest since we know there's going to be one, it would be a more effective way to deal with all this.

Yeah. I I guess I I guess my my question is more and I appreciate and I'm deeply disturbed by your testimony with respect to the lack of response and you're connecting with that evening. I guess my question is more, you know, do you know like South Burlington Police for example, are are they even aware that Vermont Legal Aid is providing these services? Are they are they aware that there's potentially a guardian? Are they aware that Bar Prime is is likely uh on site such that if they find out that a minor is in there? like should I mean to the extent we wanted to ask our law enforcement to be more proactive about finding the guardian right and the folks that are going to help children get out there to the extent we wanted local law enforcement to be more proactive about finding the migrant justice police liaison um to sort of develop that connection and open channels of communication. Do do our police departments know that play that folks are likely there as a part of this rapid response model for them to be able to connect with? I know they found out day of. I'm I'm I'm wondering do they know beforehand and and what can we do to get law enforcement more aware of of who uh all the folks all of who all of you are and all the roles that you're playing in these instances. President Travis, if I may, um, because I know how my colleagues here showed up today and I can't in good conscience let them carry the emotional burden of of um, saying what I would like to just say to start. I think that that's a question for Chief Burke. A of all, B of all I appreciate where the question is coming from, but it does um it feels very inongruent with many other individuals recognition of the volume of unpaid labor that civil society and community groups are

performing for the city at this stage without any contribution of funding from the city. I mean, we we got a small grant from the REI um and we were very grateful for that. it was $500 toward our operating budget last year. The state has never appropriated for immigration legal aid. Um and and everyone is here because we believe that this is important and that good work can be done. And so I would urge our partners in position of power. One of the most frequently asked questions we get is how can we help? Well, as hopefully many of you know because you I subscribed you to my newsletter with or without your permission. I blog fidiously about all of the questions that you just asked. Um and and so we have made a very very detailed record um to all of you about how things work and who the contacts are and how you can be helpful. The reason we're doing it is so that you will read that and then take action. And so my hope is that um just to take some of the heat off of my colleagues here who can respond um like please I think we should shift the burden away from the underpaid civil society people working 100 hours a week and think about how our institutions can take responsibility for making sure that information is circulating.

Yeah. And thank you for that. Just before turning other folks, to be to be to be clear, my question was by no means intended to place heed on anyone for for not doing more in in this regard. And so if it came off that way, uh my apologies. I'm certainly not asking for any one of the organizations here to do any more than you already are. Uh which is well above and beyond um anything that uh our community should expect of you. So if it came off that way, that was not the intention. I think if the obligation was on anyone to learn more about you all, right, it would be on uh law enforcement and and and other partners to uh make that proactive outreach. I'm just curious, and I think you're probably right, Attorney Martin Diaz, that the questions are for uh those law enforcement officials about their um awareness of the work that you all are doing. I I was I was simply curious about whether or not from your all's perspective um you what are your thoughts with respect to those questions without you know it's not it's not a heated question.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the funny thing is that was exactly my first thought as well is I think the question is more for law enforcement officers of what they're aware of and how much they've been paying attention to everything we've been saying publicly for a month, six months, six years, 15 years since migrant justice has been founded, right? Um I would love to hear from law enforcement. uh their understanding. Um at the end of the day, right, we're communities are organizing to keep ourselves safe and understood.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't I don't have a a quippy answer, but it was very much along the lines of of of what Jill just No, that's that's helpful. Thank you. Um, I had counselor Bergman next and then Broadick and then Sanchez Parkinson.

Thank you. Um, I have no doubt that I engaging in state terrorism against the people of this nation. But the question we have to answer is what our own participation and assistance is in that horror. And I have reviewed the news and publicly available video. And it appears to me that our response failed our commitment to the values we have to protect the exercise of the first amendment and the first amendment rights. And it was a failure of planning and execution, especially with regards to the bringing of the three illegally arrested persons into ICE vehicles, the cars driving away, and then the opening of Dorsa Street in the face of dayong heartfelt determination of hundreds of community members committed to protecting those people. The videos and news and people's testimony tell me that as it actually happened, the use of our officers did not ensure the protection of the First Amendment rights of protesters or pro um protectors, including the right to engage in peaceful civil disobedience without being subjected to being thrown on the ground, pepper-sprayed, and flashbanged at close range. I believe that our response failed our commitment to the values underlying the FIP. That we will not aid in the arrest of our undocumented neighbors or those seeking asylum or refuge. That we will not be commandeered against our will against our values to participate in a racist xenophobic imperialist crusade engineered by fascists like Trump, Miller, Hedgekeff and Rubio. It is clear to me that the employment of local law enforcement, including our own officers, facilitated the removal of three persons and helped terrorize their children. Three valued members of our community who were not even named in the warrant or subject to it. Now, I stated on March

23rd that I didn't want our police to act like Bull Connor's police force, and I said I was sure our police department didn't want that either, but that we needed to make sure because what I saw in the videos had shaken that belief. But I heard that people didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned Bill Conor. So the old man in me says, "Well, under Bull Connor, the head of the Birmingham, Alabama Police Department on April 12th, about 50 years ago, um or 60 years ago, 1963, whose police the police made a mass arrest and brutally attacked civil rights demonstrators. Dr. King was one of those arrested, and he wrote his famous letter from the Birmingham jail during his incarceration. The police were brutal. Their dogs bit people. Police were slammed. People were slammed into do walls from the force of water fired at them from water hoses. Officers grabbed people. They beat them and then they arrested them. And Bull Connor even operated under the color of law because the demonstrators were violating an injunction against the march. Now, I was almost 10 years old then and I watched it on the news. I read about it in the papers. It is not dead history to me because but it's real life and I don't ever want to touch anything to and I have anything I touch be a part of a legacy like that ever. So I need our review of March 11th to result in policies and practices that result in real protections for people. Real protections against state sponsored violence. real accountability. And this means many reviews, not only regarding the investigations into claims of excessive force and violations of policies, so we all know that they are thorough, fair, and consider the harm

caused, but also what actions could have been taken by BPD officers to not assist ICE when they detain the three people who were not on the warrant, including looking into the cases and actions that Pike Porter mentioned in his brief and then actually adopting them. What different operational tactics should have been employed to properly deal with community members on the scene engaging in civil non-violent resistance? Because like I said on the 23rd, when people commit civil disobedience, they should expect to be arrested but not beaten, even if they're blocking vehicles. I need to know that our deployments, including but not limited to mutual aid agreements, don't lead to the same results in the future. And this includes deciding on not participating in mutual aid involving ICE operations. This includes looking at the command and control of BPD officers who are deployed and the operational guidelines concerning crowd control and protecting constitutional rights of assembly and speech even when ICE is not involved. And then developing the training to ensure compliance. migrant justice. Your timeline and your demands are very instructive in this. All these things I'm asking have been are have been asked, you know, from the audience. Um, but finally, we also need to drill down into the details of the failure to adhere to the city's fair and impartial policing policy and make the changes that are ne necessary along with the adherence to the mayor's executive order and order and our own resolution on ICE enforcement. This is a lot of work, but the fate of the soul of our city is at stake and we need to rise to this challenge. And to meet it, I actually suggest that the council president, the mayor, and our parties

co-chairs meet immediately to create the many public reviews that we need. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Bergman. Uh, councelor Brick.

Uh, thank you. Um, And obvious first of all um thank you to the community for coming out once again and for all the work that you all do in protecting our neighbors where especially where the where other where the state and local governments and it's obviously the federal government fail to protect the people. Um, we should be striving for a for a to be a city that de that defends the humanity of all and that must include protecting our neighbors however we can from fascism wherever it seeps into our city and our state. Uh, in that regard, um, the city of Burlington, the state of Vermont has failed. Um, given the firsthand evidence that we've been presented with for weeks, I did not see the city or the state keeping people safe from the actual outside agitators, that being ICE. Instead, we see an assisting of the violation of constitutional rights, an assisting of the unlawful abduction of three people, all on our dime and under and done under the assumption that the federal agency known to constantly violate the law and our rights was operating legally without significant verification. The feds will neglect reality and the law to get their warrants, and they will neglect reality and the law to execute them. And I hope that lesson is clear to the city. Now, when I hear the firsthand testimony of events and the contrast of other instances of the community nonviolently compelling ICE to abandon efforts to abduct our neighbors when local and state police were not present, it shows to me that the city and the state enabled the escalation. I do denounce these actions. We failed. And what is important now is how we as a city side with the people and not with the oppressors now and going forward. The bottom line for me is if the police are not there solely to defend the

people from ISIS's illegal actions, including the victims of this terror in whatever way that they can, as we talked about in our discussion, um, and enforce the law on the ones who are actually violating it. um then they should not be there. The community is asking us for accountability. The community is asking us for justice. We have policies such as the FIP for a reason to uphold people's humanity and provide mechanisms for accountability and for justice. As was said, made to prevent what ended up taking place on March 11th. Again, we failed. We must exercise such mechanisms through their investigations and amend policies such as mutual aid so this can never happen again and more importantly reaffirm that we will actually follow these policies. It's not merely legally just for us to do these things. It is our moral imperative as um as public servants as human beings or else I I must ask why are we even here? Thank you. Thank you, councelor Brier. Um, I'm gonna turn to you next, councelor Sanchez Parkinson, but can I get a sense as to are there any other counselors that want to you'd like? Okay. Any other counselors? Okay. So, I think we will try to because I do want to be mindful of time here. Um, and you know, we've gone for almost four hours, so I want to be respectful to our guests this evening if we haven't already gone over uh our welcome here. Um, I think we'll turn to you councelor Sanchez Parkinson. We'll turn to you councelor Singh and then councelor Grant will try to end with you if that's okay by my colleagues here.

All right, councelor Sanchez Parkinson please go ahead. I just wanted to make a a brief comment and a big takeaway that I'm I'm taking with me and this is um in sort of response to your question, President Travers, as well as some comments that attorney Martin Diaz mentioned earlier and and that is the tension between bureaucratic systems and movement and community work. and to be able to be sitting in a space with all of those individuals together is actually really beautiful. Um I also want to deeply respect the approaches that we all have. Um and that is that there are approaches um that movement leaders, community leaders have that don't align with bureaucratic systems and that is okay. That is how our society continues to function. And I just want to say like I respect that I don't need to know every detail of how things are done in the community but I also am willing and and excited to build that trust so that there if there is opportunity to collaborate across these systems that we have that opportunity to do so. Um, but that is something that I've been reflecting quite a bit um, based on your comments at the very beginning, Attorney Martin Diaz, of how as we enter bureaucratic systems, we end up with this tension and sometimes leaving behind or aside some of the trust and relationships that we once had in order to respect um, the work that you all do. So um, I just wanted to reflect on on on that conversation. Thank you, Council Sang.

I I'll just be brief. Um, you know, I I hear what people are, you know, the comments that are coming, you know, from this table and, you know, what I heard tonight and and there's still a lot of, um, I'm still not clear on a lot of things. um with regards to this you know the legal framework of which uh you've laid out attorney Martin Diaz you know I really appreciate you know there are still within you know the system of rule of law um that we are pursuing ICE um and that then that's being done what I still don't I failed to see is where the intersection of a federal agency that's clearly rogue and doesn't follow the rule of law and where that intersects with our local law enforcement and and I get what people want to have happen, but from a practical sense, what that looks like on the ground. Um, that's why I asked if those municipalities that have done that, have they been tested on the ground? And what I mean is being tested on the ground is local law enforcement with ICE. And that to me is is the overarching question. Um because to me and I'll say it again, you know, that's federal versus local, you know, what what are we asking, you know, of our local law enforcement? U what is that what is that start? What what does that mean? What is that the beginning of? Um I I think we need to ask ourselves that and I still don't have a full understanding of what that intersection really looks like. Um and have we really weighed you know what that is as a community? And I think that's really important to ask ourselves not just as a community but as human

beings of what that potentially becomes something that we subject uh not only our migrant neighbors to but all neighbors. Thank you, Councelor Sang. Uh, Councelor Grant, and then I'll be happy to open the floor once more to our guests here to see if they have any parting words.

Thank you. Uh, a couple of things. Um, during my work on oversight and accountability and as a police commissioner, it became very very clear that um, our local law enforcement was very uh, disconnected from the community that it served. Um, I was shocked at the single digit percentage of the number of officers who actually lived in our city, who patrolled our cities. Um, and they were living in areas that were nowhere near as diverse, um, as Burlington is, um, as our neighbor in Wooki is. And because of that, that caused profiling which is documented. Anybody have any questions about that, let me know. It caused uh use of force cases. When we talk about not having money, we've paid out substantial sums. And even though the city met its deductible, the insurance company was like, "Nah, you want to get rid of this, you're going to have to pay more in your end." That's real. Anybody want to know the numbers? Let me know. I think you know what are we asking? What does it look like? It looks like someone holding the line. It looks like someone holding the line to make sure that the laws followed and that people's constitutional rights are protected. We knew this was not happening. We have copious amounts of examples of how this was not happening. So that is part of my concern. As I mentioned earlier, we didn't seem prepared. We have someone has to hold the line when we look at what's happening in our

country. Am I saying that's easy? No, it's not. But we have to hold the line. And that means we have to do the lawful thing. And that's what we need to expect our local law enforcement agencies to do to hold the line time and time again tonight and in uh the state house hearings and in other hearings and in conversations. The word collaboration comes up over and over again. We have to hold the line. That's what it looks like. Thank you, Council Grant. Um, well, again, I want to thank all of our participants for being here this evening. I think this was a very valuable hearing. Um, you know, here at city hall, 10 p.m. is an early meeting, but I know that that uh may not feel like it's the case for everyone here. So, I'm deeply appreciative if you're being here this late and and um uh receiving and answering our questions. I certainly understand if you don't want to extend the meeting any further, but I also want to provide you the opportunity to if you have any last words or thoughts um to take that opportunity now. Otherwise, we know that this is an ongoing discussion with all of our community partners, yourselves included, and um we'll look forward to our continuing to engage.

Thank you, President Travers. If you will all indulge me for one more moment. Of course. Um, a lot of the work that we do requires on the very excellent witnessing and data reporting by community organizers and um, a very close partner of mine, Leif Tenta. Leaf, can you come up please? Um, because Leaf has expertise. Um, just want to make a record um, to respond to a question that's come up a few times now around police leaison.

Hi. Um sorry I do police leison on trainings uh not with any of these orgs just um but I do it professionally and I wanted to say that a police leaison role only works when police are following their own policies. So the issue in this case isn't that migrant justice isn't being clear about having police leaison. It's that according to their own policies the police should not have been there in the first place. Once police are violating their own policies or in this case FIP there's nothing a police leaison can do at that point. So the issue isn't anything that these amazing organizations are not are doing. It's that the police shouldn't have been there. that and let's do this again.

Sure. How about April about Monday? No. Rachel,

uh yeah, just to close it out, um thank you again for the time and space to share our testimony. Um you know, as an organization, as a community, um it's invaluable to you, the the the desire and the search for justice to be able to speak about what happened and to have that taken seriously. Um so I I deeply appreciate that. Um and the most important step towards justice is yet to come. Right. The continuing investigations and once the investigations have concluded making them as public as possible so that everyone has access to all of this information. Um, I think it is our right as a community to know what happened and understand why the officers made the decisions that they made to violate the policies that we've been fighting for and have won. Um, and then see the accountability that comes out of that. Right? We've spoken a lot tonight about broken trust. Um, and that trust needs to be earned back. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, again, uh, gratitude and thanks for for you all being here and for, um, sharing some very personal testimonials. Um, if there's nothing further from my colleagues here and seeing no other business before the council this evening, then absent objection, I'll adjourn our meeting right at 10 p.m. Thank you again. Heat. Heat. down.