Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Hi. Welcome to the House Judiciary Committee this Thursday morning, April second. And we're gonna spend a good part of the morning on s two zero nine. And then later in the morning, hopefully wrapping up some testimony on s one eighty three. But we're gonna start with a reminder, high level walk through from legislative council. Mhmm. I'm doing I will

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Good morning. Good morning.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Richard. Rick Sable with the office of the website of council. As the chair indicated, I was here about a month ago doing a walk through of S 29. I remember I recall having to leave quickly. So I don't know if I may have rushed through something. Happy to answer questions. But I will give you the 30,000 foot view of the bill. As a refresher, this bill would prohibit civil arrests, which are very rare, in Vermont at least, civil arrests in certain spaces. So, in 2022, the General Assembly created a law against civil arrest in courthouses. And that was kind of the common law that's been codified in various states. New York did it. Other states, Vermont did it in 2022. So this bill, if passed as currently written as it passed the senate, would add various locations. I'll go through that list. It's on page two of the bill, if you wanna see what the list. So you have court proceeding, that's current law. Polling place, which is defined, in a little bit, I'll go over that definition. Educational institution, also defined. Subdivision D is not defined. It's a list of places, a social services establishment, which includes a crisis center, domestic violence shelter, victim services center, child advocacy center, supervised visitation center, family justice center, facility that serves disabled persons, homeless shelter, substance use disorder counseling and treatment facility, and an establishment distributing food or other essentials of life to people in need. A place of worship, Subdivision F, a facility regulated by the DCF, A facility licensed as a children's camp. Those are either summer camps or day camps. And then Subdivision D, a healthcare facility as defined at AT and BSA 9,402. It's a list, long list of different kinds of health care facilities. So those are your new proposed sensitive spaces where law enforcement, state and federal police, and local police could not conduct civil arrests at those places unless they had a judicial warrant. Get into that here in a second. So exceptions, current law, and arrest shall not apply if it's pursuant to a judicial warrant or a court order. So in other words, if the feds or state police come to a place of worship with a warrant, this bill would not apply. They would still be able to arrest the person. An arrest for contempt of court. So, if you're in a courtroom, and you're in contempt, the judge orders you in contempt, you would still be placed in handcuffs taken away. Or C, an arrest to maintain order or safety in the court, again, because of the courthouse prohibition. Those two were added a few years ago.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: You mentioned the feds. Yep. Can we stop the feds or yet to be determined?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Can you stop the feds? Well, the bill has remedies if federal police ignore the state law, if this were to pass and get signed. And if a federal law enforcement officer violated this law, that would be an interesting case. I'm not quite sure is the answer what would happen.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Yeah. Karen?

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: So as we're going through this again, I'm just seeing some of my notes that I had the first time. I'm just looking for you to confirm, I guess, that place of worship is not defined. Right. That there could be a benefit of having more clarification for that.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: So there could be I looked at this, because I recalled I forget which name it you that brought it up. It's actually in our Vermont constitution that we have the freedom of religion, and that phrase is used. It's never defined. It's used several times. Various laws have passed over the years where that phrase is used. It's never defined. You certainly can define it. I think there's a good idea of what that is. It's a place where people congregate because of religion. It would probably not include a religious school, for example, but it would include churches, synagogues,

[Speaker 0]: those kinds things.

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: That's helpful. I guess we'll probably explore that a little bit. The other one that I have a question on is, in d I guess it's in anywhere in here when it says facility that serves. Mhmm. I don't know. Is there a definition of facility? It makes me think of, like, a larger building. It's service versus it could be a one room counseling. You know what I mean? So I don't know if that definition is clear or does it matter?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Words matter, obviously. So the umbrella term is social services establishment. That's what we want to look at. I do want to ensure that that is not problematic because someone reading this could say, facility that serves disabled persons, you know, we don't have facilities to find. So something that the committee can talk about. If you are concerned that boarding may not be appropriate or may not be clear, then

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Okay. And I'm I don't have

[Rep. Karen Dolan (Member)]: a opinion on it necessarily right now, but I think just something as we hear from witnesses to consider.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Thanks. I'll tell him the lead. We have several questions, but I guess the first one would be, what instance would a state or local law enforcement officer be making a civil arrest, but without a warrant?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Would not be common. Is it possible? It's possible. How? If so, a criminal arrest is one with probable cause, right? That a person has committed a crime. We all know about that. This committee certainly knows about that. A civil arrest would be a common one that is not maybe common in this state is if you are subpoenaed and you don't come to the courthouse, right? And so let's say you get subpoenaed to be a witness in a court case. You're not accused of a crime, but you are a witness in the case. You were served a subpoena on, you know, 04/02/2026, and you don't show up. Theoretically, police can come knock on your door How

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: long they know about it?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: They know about what? That That person didn't show up for something. You or the court? Me. Oh, it's law enforcement. So you would be called by the court saying that we need you to bring this person to court. He or she is violating a court order. So they're

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: verbally notifying me that there's a warrant or something. No.

[Speaker 0]: You can serve order

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: you to bring them in. So otherwise, I don't have to abide by whatever that arrest is. If they don't order me, I don't have to do.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Well, make sure. So you're served with the order, right, initially? Like you or, like, jury duty. Right? You must appear on this day at this time. Right? So you have that order. You don't show up. Maybe you forgot. Maybe you get a phone call first. Mhmm. Hey, sir. You're supposed to be here. If you don't come up and it's up to the court to determine how to how to handle this. They could have police come to your door and say, are you aware that you're due in court at 10AM That's

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: not an arrest.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: That's not an arrest.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: No. It would

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: be a if they take you, right, you're under arrest. Right? But it's not a criminal list. It would be

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: But I wouldn't recently met unless the court told me I had a warrant.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Who is I'm wouldn't have to be

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: used by the from the bench Right. Or via paper that this person is wanted,

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: and I would have to bring them in.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Otherwise, I don't have a reason to.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: So as a police officer because

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: You're the police officer.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Okay. I also was getting confused about. As a police officer, yeah, you'd be instructed you wouldn't have a warrant. Right? You would just be told, please, this person is due in court. Go get him. And then if the officer does take you, either against your will or not, you would be technically under some type of civil arrest. It's not common.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I know I've made a lot of civil arrests before plaintiffs and every time I've had a warrant, and otherwise it just doesn't seem to happen, so it's not really applicable to state the local law. And on top of that, I'm kind of wondering if we're talking about anyone in this room for instance who might have a civil arrest warrant, This is gonna stop us from interacting with them on their way to church?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm thinking about the phrase civil arrest warrant. What type of civil arrest warrants?

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: About fines for money, for child support, stuff like that.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: They issue a paper warrant.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: And it's a custodial arrest.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: In this case, because the exception would apply, right? That if there's a judicial warrant, doesn't say criminal, then that arrest warrant could be conducted. Right? So we're talking about warrant It could be a

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: mental do I have to have it on my person? It doesn't say that. Or can I knowingly

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: You'd wanna present the warrant, right, so the person would know? But I think the point that you're making, which is clear, is that there's not a whole lot of times you're conducting a warrantless civil arrest. It is possible, but it's not common.

[Speaker 0]: It's way beyond, but are you oh, you're I'm sorry. I thought you were.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Now having the exception of traveling in there, wouldn't that that presents a problem for law enforcement as well, is that now I've given everybody an excuse.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: The phrase you have to face traveling to, entering, remaining at, returning from, if you're the suspect, let's say, and you told the police, I'm traveling to court, I'm traveling to school, I'm traveling to church, then technically, the law would protect you from civil arrest. Correct?

[Speaker 0]: Ian, Doctor. Green, hold your point because you're going to be going next after Rick Salt.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: And you can make sure you comment on what that issue is. Go ahead, Ian. So since your first walkthrough, I've had some conversations with people about potentially adding other places to this. And so I wanted just to walk through the ones that I heard about to get your read on them so that when we're talking to witnesses, if you have any concerns. So I just wanted to walk through them. So the first one that I heard from a number of people was adding the DMV. Do you see any off the cuff issues immediately with adding a DMV to the list?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Just specifically the DMV? Yeah. The building, which in a prior draft of this, state buildings were included. Yep. It was eventually removed in the Senate. So during my research of state facilities, nothing came up as problematic if that wants to be protected's location.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: And the fact that I actually don't know. Does anything federally happen at the DMV, is it all state?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Good question. I talked to my gaming about that.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: If there were some federal stuff happening in there, that could potentially be an issue.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Mean, federal things can happen. At a polling place, you're going to vote in a federal election. So I don't know if that

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Does the

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry to interrupt. That's fine.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Does the federal courthouse apply to the current law? Yes. Okay. So same probably the same answer for State House as far as a state building.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: So that's actually protected well. If you look on page one of the bill, you all are protected from not just civil arrests, but more types of arrests, except for felonies and some other more serious crimes. General public is not. So, adding the State House Building would be something kind of like the DMV, where the state facility, probably not an issue.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Okay. Maybe more complicated one. Would that lie to us?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: I see that as another kind of state building owned by the government. It could be the local government at that point. But again, I think it's You're already The locations here are going to be more suspect than that. So a library is probably safer than Subdivision B, the social services establishment, based on current case

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: law. Okay. So the fact that it's a municipally owned building, if it's in Brattleboro, our library is partially owned by a municipality and it's largely in a trust. Would that be an issue?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Again, I think if you're comparing that to what you currently have, that's going to be more on the safe side

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: for putting it in the bill. And then my last one was, and I guess this probably lands in the same place as libraries, is municipal, like the municipality building, like the place where like site board meetings happen or clerk.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Town clerk, yes. Yeah. Same.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Same thing.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yes. Okay. Yeah. Safer than? Safer safer by Than

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: a privately owned building.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Than a privately owned building, but we're kind of narrowly trying

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: to Right, yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Great. So did you want to wrap up on the walk through? Yeah.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: So talking about the remedies that are again currently in law, subdivision A under, so we're

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: on page

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: three remedies. So, again, under current law, this is You see the strike through a little bit of cleanup, because currently only court proceedings are protected from civil rights. So, you have in here that if you violate the subsection, you shall be subject to contempt proceedings. Well, it doesn't make sense if you arrest somebody in a church, and you're not gonna be in contempt of church. So clean up the language that if you

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: do

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: violate as a law enforcement officer, if you violate one of these provisions, you may be liable in civil action for false imprisonment, current law, and shall be subject to contempt proceedings if it takes place in a court proceeding. So nothing really changes there. We're just kind of structuring it to allow for these new places to be included. B, current law. Again, there's a civil action against the person that conducts the arrest. C, the AG can bring civil action on behalf of the state. D, no action under c shall be brought against the judiciary for actions taken to maintain order safety in the courts. On page four, we have some arrests or definitions. So, we have civil arrest defined under current law. It's an arrest for the purposes of obtaining a person's presence or attendance at a civil proceeding, including an immigration proceeding. So, again, that's current law. And obviously, what the effect of the bill is going to affect the INA where federal police can conduct warrantless civil arrests, the Immigration Nationality Act. Two civil arrests does not include temporary custody of a person pending a warrant pursuant to AT and DSA 7,505. I'll explain this in a second. But we're holding a person for admission to a hospital for emergency examination. These are mental health holdings. I can show you these statutes if you care. These are going to be excluded from the civil arrest. So, if someone is having a mental health incident at one of these locations, police would still be able to temporarily hold the person, if necessary, under current law. We have a definition of educational institution, which is very, very broad. It's a public school, independent school, a regional CTE center, On page five, an approved education program, a pre qualified private pre kindergarten provider, a post secondary school, and an educational program operated by a BOCES, a tutorial program, and adult education secondary credential program. Importantly, it also extends to grounds operated by, activities sponsored by, transportation provided by, and programs related to educational institutions. And then we have the definition of polling place, which I believe last time there was a question about that. And if it's polling places are indicated and secretary is here, but within thirty days of an election, That's when municipality designates a place to be a polling place. So it's usually gonna be within that thirty days of an election.

[Speaker 0]: Okay.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So can we just back up to page four, going back? And I've I've been trying to catch up on stuff, but I probably missed this. But starting on line eight, civil arrest means arrest for purposes of obtaining person's presence and attending a civil proceeding, including an immigration proceeding. Exactly what are we referring to with an immigration proceeding? A protest, like what we've been dealing with the last couple of weeks? We're you talking about that there? No. It would

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: be in a courtroom.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: A courtroom.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Just a courtroom. Right.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Any other questions for Rick? Yeah. Angela?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Just

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: a note, I think. I was trying to look up real quick. I'm looking on page five, line seven. I think miscellaneous education bill did something about changing board of BOCES to CEFA or something like that.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Question for Beth St. James.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Yeah. Who

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: couldn't be here today, but she came up with this list for Senate Judiciary. So I would defer that question to her. Okay. Yeah. I don't ask. I'll ask

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: her to follow-up on that. BOCES of CFS. What's the abbreviation?

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: CDSA. CDSA. Cooperative Education Service Area. But that hasn't been passed yet. It hasn't passed yet.

[Speaker 0]: Oh, Okay.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: It hasn't passed the past. So just something to note. Okay. And I might be misremembering. It might have been it, but it's something.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: In the Senate, did the sponsors of the bill bring up a reason why we need this?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sure when they gave the initial walkthrough, it's trying to remember who Senator Bahoskin, I can't remember if there's a co sponsor. She's on and she's on Synergy this year. So I'm getting mixed up as to if she spoke her intent first off or later on during discussions. I would defer to the sponsor of the bill. There are like six other co sponsors. Six others, yeah. I would have them in if you want to talk about the intent of the reasons.

[Speaker 0]: I think I'd like to hear. Okay.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Well, I guess you crafted it. So your opinion do you have an opinion on whether or not this is more of an immigration bill if it's if it's not really used in in enforcement actions in The United States.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: It's definitely immigration related. I mean, it's yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: And so why is polling place on there? I know we can have folks vote in local elections, but that's used generically on here. So it could be they could they could go to a local polling place during an election and not be bothered even if they don't vote. That's correct. Any other questions for risk? Could could you just say that again, please? Somebody that might be wanted to do a civil integration violations would go to travel to polling place during the presidential election and go back and not be apprehended.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Did you also say not even there to vote?

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: How's that? Rick, just a refresher, illegal entry into the country is a felony, not

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: civil. Correct.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: It depends on how they frost. The federal laws are pretty technical. They come across deak and amnesty, it's not necessarily a criminal event. So it gets very complicated of how the feds view a person here. But you'd agree that it's a pretty broad interpretation

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: of what illegal entry could be? Yeah. How the feds Decide to interpret it.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, you have thirteen seventy three and sixteen, so I'm getting the codes wrong, but those are the two laws that really kind of set forth how a person can be either criminally or civilly accused of a crime when it comes to immigration. And the Immigration Nationality Act provides the feds with the civil arrest authority. That's what this bill would affect. That's what you know, I think the committee should really consider is is this how this interacts with the Immigration and Nationality Act.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: And I guess the other question I have is when we look at hypotheticals, if you have people going to these, what we'll call safe spaces, if they're in transit too. As we'll see on the way over, whether it's a G And B Building or a library or if it's a state office building, this bill doesn't dictate how long they can stay in one of these places. So you could have someone hypothetically

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: go to

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: a library stay there for two weeks, clean sanctuary, and this bill protects them from federal law enforcement, hypothetically.

[Speaker 0]: Because they don't really have oversight with federal law enforcement. Thank you. Any other questions for Rick? Not seeing, we're gonna turn to Doctor. Green next. If you could unmute yourself and identify yourself for the record and proceed. Thank you for being here this morning.

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: Thank you so much for having me. My name is Doctor. Andrea Green. I am a pediatrician. I'm a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the Vermont Medical Society. And I'm also director of the Pediatric New American Program at the University of Vermont Golisano Children's Hospital and a professor of pediatrics at the Larner College of Medicine. And I thank you very much for hearing me today. I'm going to read my testimony. And then if possible, I'd like to ask if I may have permission to ask a couple of questions and bring up a couple of things that came up that I might ask for clarification or give us examples that might further elucidate some of the things that you guys were talking about. So dear Chairman Martin LaLonde and members of the House Committee on Judiciary, I'm writing to express my strong support for S209, an act relating to prohibiting civil arrest in sensitive locations, which would add government buildings, schools, shelters, and health care facilities to the list of protected spaces where individuals are not subject to civil arrest. This bill also appropriately extends protection to those traveling to, entering, remaining at, or returning from these locations unless there is a judicial warrant. In my role as director of the Pediatric New American Program and as a pediatrician in Burlington, I'm deeply committed to the health, safety, and dignity of the immigrant families we serve. This legislation upholds the principles of the Fourth Amendment by ensuring that individuals are protected from unreasonable seizures in spaces that are essential to daily life and well-being. Equally important, this bill ensures that people can seek medical care, both urgent and preventative, without fear. Patients should never have to weigh the risk of arrest against their health or the health of their children. Unfortunately, I've seen firsthand how fear related to immigration status leads to dangerous delays in care. In one instance, in 2025, a teenager in our community but originally from Latin America delayed seeking medical attention for months despite worsening symptoms. By the time he presented to our clinic for care, he was vomiting blood and unable to eat due to severe abdominal pain. He was diagnosed with end stage cancer. The delay in seeking care meant that treatment was no longer an option and only palliative care could be provided. This tragic outcome underscores the very real consequences of our fear driven avoidance of health care. Health care providers are often the first to witness the cascading effects when individuals avoid health care. Delayed or forgone preventative services can result in poorly managed chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, untreated injuries, and the spread of infectious diseases. These outcomes not only harm individuals and families, but also place additional strain on our health care system through increased emergency department visits and preventable hospitalizations. By protecting sensitive locations, this bill fosters safer, healthier communities and reinforces trust in essential institutions. It ensures that individuals can access education, shelter, government services, and health care without intimidation or fear. I strongly urge you to support this important legislation. May I be offered permission to ask a few questions and offer a few other examples?

[Speaker 0]: Well, it kind of depends on the questions that you have. If it's for clarification, we can have our legislative council clarify things, but go ahead.

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: Okay. I just wanted to add that I have heard from multiple other colleagues, which I didn't mention in my testimony, including I'm a member of the multilingual patient and family advocacy group at the hospital. And despite the fact that we very intentionally from my experience in the last Trump administration to this election, I knew that there would be intentional efforts to enforce immigration in a way that would cause fear. It did in the last administration, and I knew this administration would step up. So UVM Health Center actually put in policies just discussing the Hippocratic Oath and our responsibility to uphold confidentiality of physicians. This is true for everyone. When you come into a health care space or when we see you, we do not invite people into the office when you're seeing a doctor. That's a private space. And we do not share information about you with others. And so that's something that we have to do as a health care institution. And they reminded us of that, and they reminded us of where, if someone came in with a warrant, that would have to be a judicial warrant and not a sort of open warrant. It would have to be particular to a person's name and then we would have to call legislation. Despite putting in these things to try and protect patients, and despite being people who are working to advise within the hospital system, everyone described the fact that they had great fear and most of them are citizens, but they are immigrants. In moving about the community, many of these people that I know who are immigrants and who are citizens carry their passports on them or they carry other identification on them because there is a genuine fear. People who are not here with documentation, that fear is even higher. So they're not sending their kids to school and they're very afraid to seek health care. But even other immigrants who have the right to vote, who can go to polling places, they are very afraid. So a law like this offers people who are walking around with fear the knowledge that there are these protections in place for people. And that includes citizens who are often people of color and so who are very afraid just as a result of the rhetoric that's going on. So I didn't put that down, but I just wanted to mention that. Excuse me.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. A question for you. I just wanna ask

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: a clarifying question, Andrea. You're not insinuating that US citizens are being deported, are you?

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: I'm not insinuating that US citizens are being deported.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm Because that would be a very

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: dangerous sentiment, just by the way.

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: No, no, I'm not insinuating. I'm insinuating they're afraid. They're afraid. And so they are afraid, even though they're citizens, and so they carry their passports with them because they are afraid because of what they see on the news and what they hear and because of some of the things, for example, coming out of Minnesota, where there have been people who have been citizens and arrested. And all this gets around. And sometimes, as we all know, some of this can be misinformation. But a lot of people in Vermont are very afraid if they're immigrants, even those who have citizenship. And so I just want to make mention of that because I think it's an important consideration around this, is that it's not just people we're talking about who might have insecure immigration status. It is also people who are citizens but are people of color.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: I've never heard the term insecure immigration status before. Could you elaborate on that?

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: Well, so there are people within the state who've applied for asylum. And so we are a refugee resettlement state. So we have people who come in as refugees, and that means that they've been granted asylum and refugee status outside The United States. And then we have people within The United States and within Vermont who may have applied to be considered for asylum upon entry into The United States and have those proceedings underway right now. And so they are in the application process, and some people have been granted asylum and some people have applied for asylum. So people will have different statuses depending on where they are in that system. And so that is often what I refer to as insecure immigration status because they don't have a secure pathway to citizenship. Right now, the refugee status, which had been a status that was secure, is being reviewed. So all refugees who entered The United States in 2024 are undergoing, at the request of the federal government, re looking at their cases. And so I don't know what that means. I mean, refugees arrive at the invitation of The United States. So the US government invites them to come, and we invite them to come to Vermont. And they have a pathway to citizenship, and they are here legally. But there is some insecurity in that space right now because nobody knows quite what that means with this re looking at their applications and whether or not some people will be asked to leave.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Yeah. I just think that's a little bit of a gray area because I think for many people around this table and for many people in the state and in the country, because you have to figure half the country did vote for the policies that we're currently seeing being implemented by the federal government, than half. The point that I would make is that people are either here legally or they're either here illegally. And if someone is currently in the application process for asylum Mhmm. And they illegally entered the country, as just pointed out by legislative council, and I I know that you were listening, that is a felony, depending on the interpretation by the federal government. So just because someone entered the country illegally, they committed a felony and broke our laws and sovereignty by doing that, And now they're applying for asylum. That doesn't immediately give them the green light to stay in the country. So I just I really take issue excuse me. I'm not alone. I really take issue with the way that you're presenting some of these facts in bible and verse when you're operating in a gray area where a lot of people you talk about people that are very concerned about the policies that are as they're being implemented. There are a lot of people that are really concerned with the public safety crisis that the last administration put us in. And I really take issue with the way that you're presenting this as as fact, and it's not.

[Speaker 0]: So I I prefer not arguing with the witnesses. If you have questions for the witnesses, that is fine. But we can save argument for later in debate and consideration. You can. So, Tom.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Good morning.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Are you familiar with the Fair and Partial Policing Directive?

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: No, I'm not familiar with the term partial policing directive.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: It says that Vermont law enforcement cannot interact with anyone based upon their immigration status.

[Speaker 0]: I think she answered the question. Okay.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Well, I'm just kind of explaining that that that's sort of what it does. Maybe this is better for alleged counsel. I don't know. But it seems to me like everything in this bill, is already covered by FIP when it comes to local law or state law enforcement. Period. So it seems like it's only an immigration issue. If it's an immigration issue, I think maybe we need to just name it as such. And and so that I don't have to worry about potentially getting hemmed up being a Vermont law enforcement on a civil arrest. It's it's actually legitimate even though it does not happen very often. Right. We can

[Speaker 0]: we'll explore that a little bit further with some other witnesses as far as the effect on state law enforcement, I agree. Yeah, back to you, Craig.

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: Okay, I was just gonna say some of the ER docs could also talk about some patients coming in. So if necessary for other testimony, they could talk about non immigration related places where sometimes this occurs in the emergency department. And if I may, just I want to say I was just talking about people's fear. And that's obviously not objective, that's subjective, but that was just what I was really speaking to. A lot of people are very afraid. Thank you very much.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Anything else, doctor? I thought you had a little bit more, and you're welcome to continue if you have anything else.

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: Well, I just wanted to ask a clarification because, if I could, about the law. I know sometimes in the emergency department, have been patients who have come in, and they have had some sort of altercation. They've come in. The police know they're there, and they want to come in and have an arrest. And in general, the ER doctors talk a lot about, this is not the time or place. We're dealing with overdose, we're dealing with the lacerations. We're dealing with these different things. They don't necessarily have a specific name. It's not a judicial warrant they have. So I don't know enough about the law. I am not a lawyer. But I'm curious as to whether or not that would be considered a civil arrest and another example of this, that while you're in the ED getting care for whatever those injuries were, and I don't know the answer. I'm just was asking for clarification and sort of thinking about this in terms of not being solely an immigration bill.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. No. Tom.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: So I'm assuming as an ER doc, it not just or or a hospital doctor. Anyone coming in other than immigration, people that you're that you're concerned about, any one of us does something wrong, and we know that we are possibly going to be apprehended, but yet we're in the hospital. Would we be fearful too?

[Dr. Andrea Green (UVM Health Network)]: I think you would be fearful. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: So I'm not sure what

[Speaker 0]: the answer to that question is.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Mean Oh, I'm asking if it would be an intervenes.

[Speaker 0]: I will defer that question to later, and Jessa can perhaps look into that a little bit further, and don't have an immediate answer on that.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Alright. So we're gonna go to Jay Nichols next. Thank you, Jay. Good morning, everybody. Jay Nichols, senior executive director of the BPA, Vermont Friends Association. We have to change my title for some national stuff. It's crazy. Just means I'm old. Appreciate you having me here today. My talk is going to be all around S209 and its impact on schools. That's what I'm focused on. Don't have to see my political views on it, because I'm not going to respond. Okay? So in terms of the bill that passed the Senate, my testimony is around protecting children and students in schools and making sure our school employees know what they can do and can't do. Great. So I'd to share with you first some guidance we put out to our members. First of all, we put out a press statement that said we still got governor on his rejection rejecting the use of deceptive or coercive tactics by federal immigration authorities in our state with special emphasis in and around our schools. Our schools must remain safe and welcoming spaces for every student family. We need to help ensure that students, parents and educators can participate fully in school life, they're class school events, or school services will expose them to ethnicity, harmful practice. As school leaders, we see every day how trust in schools is foundational to student learning, family partnership, and community well-being. We are committed to working with the governor, the legislature, and all community partners to ensure that Vermont school remain places where all children feel valued, safe, and able. And we also urged our schools to provide trauma informed support for students who may experience related anxiety or fear. And we ask them to review their protocols and ensure families know how to access trusted community and legal resources. We also provide them with three basic guidelines related to law enforcement or rights officers on campus. And this is stuff that I've provided with them years, united as a superintendent council. So schools should only allow law enforcement and or ICE officers on campus if one, they are invited by the school for legitimate education reason or emergency, which happens all the time. We have great relationships with law enforcement. They present a judicial warrant or they insist on entry despite objections, in which case staff should not interfere. And we tell our staff that. And we say to them, you can say, you don't have the right to enter here, don't enter here. If they say, well, I'm gonna enter anyway, but we advise principals and superintendents and teachers to step out of the way and then let the court process take care of itself after the fact. Under FERPA, the Federal Privacy Act for Schools, only directory information can be shared without a warrant or subpoena. So we tell our people warrants must be honored immediately, while subpoenas require notifying the affected families who have the right to object in court. Schools considering policies to restrict access should be aware of that, and they should also be aware that delaying or obstructing an officer executing a warrant could pose legal risk to that. We'll make that clear to them. We also say that for public events, schools should limit law enforcement presence only if agencies are notified in advance. And finally, we say before issuing any specific protocols or communications on any of these matters, schools should consult with their district leadership and their own legal counsel to ensure consistency with applicable law and local policy. In terms of testimony on this bill, any support that the general assembly can provide parents and students that are more vulnerable school populations would be greatly appreciated and would help demonstrate to these populations that we value them. The EPA encourages you to use any legislative tool kits you have to protect Alphamont children and their parents from being the target of ICE enforcement around schools. A little national research, I can share these reports with you if you want them. First one is the Civic Engagement Research Group out of the University of California Riverside. They did a report called The Fear Is Everywhere. They interviewed a whole bunch of our principals at the high school level and found widespread effects of immigration enforcement in terms of fear of students. What that translates into is kids not attending extracurricular activities, and in a lot of cases not attending school. So the second study here is a Stanford study that found that student absences increased by 22% during enforcement periods. That's another national study. So when there's like a major enforcement situation going on, regardless of the issues around it, kids are less likely to go to school. So there is that fear of this out there. And then Education Week is the main education newspaper for education officials across the country, has been for fifty, sixty years. They found that principals across the nation found increased absenteeism, student fear and disengagement, and strain on school climate during periods of increased enforcement. And of course, you want to go ahead? We have a question over here first, Tom. I don't mind stopping at eight times. Okay, Tom can't then Zach that hair. Wow, there we go.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: With the fear, we can write a law for state law enforcement, we can't stop the feds from going in. It doesn't alleviate the fear that people think this bill is gonna alleviate. Yeah. I'm not gonna out of state. The people in the state already don't do this.

[Speaker 0]: Right. And I and I get that, and I'm not arguing I'm not gonna argue with that point. No. I'm not arguing. I know you're not, Tom. Yeah. I think the idea behind this is, I'm going give you an example without using a school, and I hope you won't try to figure out what it is, but because we're trying to be really careful of that in this testimony, and some of them are more vulnerable populations than in certain communities. In one community, they have basically a walking bus where the employee of the school is picking up a group of about 10 kids, walking with the 10 kids, because the parents of these kids trust the school employee. And so when I was talking, I'll use the gender because it's a pretty big stick. When I was talking with this lady who's a school employee who's doing this, she's not gonna extra pay for anything because the parents just don't trust her. So I asked her about this and she said, Anything that comes out that sounds like it's gonna help protect kids is gonna help alleviate the fears out there. So that's kind of the argument on that. I'm not saying it's gonna necessarily have an impact on changing what actually happens and certainly has no impact on what ICE does. But I do think there's a feeling out there that the state is clearly behind protecting our most vulnerable students. The hope is that that will help translate to trust in the schools.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: No, and I can appreciate that.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: I just

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: have questions around passing laws on feelings.

[Speaker 0]: I hear you. Yeah. I could argue that. Yeah.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: It does. Doesn't make sense to me.

[Speaker 0]: What's the next feeling? Fair enough. Ken, you look Ken, first

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: of all, I think we're I think we're always out there to protect the kids and and do the best job possible. And, unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily work with all different areas of of kids no matter where they're from, how they got there, or anything like that. But, anyway, you were using percentages that were nationwide and all this stuff about, you know, how bad things were, whatever their verbiage is on that. But what about Vermont? Where are

[Speaker 0]: the percentages in Vermont? We we we decided not to do a survey. The reason why is we felt that we'd get a lot from certain areas, certain communities that have been reaching out to us on a regular basis, not as much from other areas. And we didn't wanna personally identify any schools or any school areas. You can think about where the most vulnerable populations are, which in your head, can think of the Burlington, Womenski, Rutland City, those types of areas are the ones that we're hearing the most concerned about. But I don't wanna say anything more than that. But we do not do a survey. We chose not to do a full survey across the state. And the other thing too is our principals are surveyed out because there's so many surveys that are out. So I don't think that the issue in Vermont necessarily is as big as in other places. That's me saying this. I don't have any data that supports that. But I do think the feeling, to Tom's point, is out there. And anything we can do to make sure that kids feel safe at school and going to and from school and school events is gonna be a positive net for kids.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So I agree with you, but you just named you don't wanna put it in writing. We're here to go and do the best job we can about protection of everyone. We're certainly carving out certain guidelines for certain areas, certain students, and in my mind, put other students at risk, which I'm not at all happy with. But for the most part, again, I'm I'm going back. People want us to make laws with certain areas, but they're not gonna tell us what areas they are, quite frankly, we probably already know them. I mean, it's not top secret here. I mean, this is Vermont. This isn't California or whatever that we try to be most of them. But, anyway, my my my point of the matter is is something is I hope somebody's coming forward. You have an ass real stuff that we can we can deal with real facts and figures because we all know what this bill is about. We all know what it's dealing with. We've been dealing with it. It's a hot emotional issue and we can go back to whether it's this administration or that last administration or the administration before that or the we can go back all the way to the Clinton. This situation in my mind has not been handled properly because of of these damn politicians that don't wanna don't wanna deal with it, and then they wanna make it their political agenda to deal with it. That's my view. I don't know if you agree with that, or if you even wanna answer that, but that's, it's very frustrating, we're sitting here trying to protect as many people as possible, you're not gonna protect everybody. There's gonna be somebody that's going to die on a highway tonight. There's gonna be somebody out there that something bad's going to happen, and we can't save that person, and that sucks. And I would assume you would agree with me too.

[Speaker 0]: I grew up on Bill Doyle's lab, as some of you may know, local science major, Bill Doyle's somebody I was very close to, like a grandfather to me. And so I'll answer that this way to say that in this bill, I do not see anything in this bill as it is that would not protect schools. I talk about it later on in testimony, but nothing that stops us from calling the police, asking them to come in and help us any minute. We have very good partnerships with law enforcement across the state and public schools. I'm a champion for school resource officer, but I also was as a superintendent. One of the first systems to put school resource officers in Franklin County area other than the Uvala Assembly. And so there's nothing in here, in my opinion, in this bill that takes away from the ability to protect kids and families, teachers at school. If there was, we'd be complaining about it.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Yeah, and I agree with that. Unfortunately, we all know bad things happen. We all know, we all know like in Norfield, like I've got a line of buses, I've got a line of cars and people bring in their kids to school. We all know you could have that one bad actor. And, you know, this building life stuff, focus on guns. We all know there's a lot more

[Speaker 0]: weapons of of

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: explosives. Okay. I say it.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I don't wanna give people the idea, but we all know, and you can do a hell of a lot more damage with that in a lot quicker time. And it puts it it totally puts the the the fear of the community, including my fear, because it's my job to try to do the best job I possibly can with it. But we all know that the backpacks, know, you're carrying a briefcase and all that stuff, And it's like, you're concerned about I mean, I'm concerned about it. I mean, I wouldn't be human if I'm not concerned about it.

[Speaker 0]: Get that concern, have some similar concerns. And I would say to you, and now I'm going into leadership stuff, I teach leadership all the time. You can legislate to the very best of your ability with the information that you have, make the best decisions that you can make to try to make a difference in state of the mind. You will never be able to control all things that can happen. Unfortunately, that's something you got to a little bit. I'm glad you realized that. I do.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Yeah. Well, it's because you're right in it with us. I appreciate that. Thank you. You're welcome. Let's actually hear.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Thank you for being here. Of course. Appreciate the testimony, and I particularly appreciate the fact based and objective testimony that you laid out for us. That's it's refreshing. I'm wondering when the v the BPA takes a policy stance. You mentioned that a survey didn't go out to members maybe specific to this Right. Right. This stance. But I'm curious, typically, does a survey go out to your membership when you take a pretty substantial policy stance?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. So what we do is we have an executive board, which is made up of 15 members. One's a retired principal, one's a CP director, one's an assistant principal, and the other are active principal in the state, and we represent different geographical parts of the state. We also have drop in meetings three times a week, one for elementary, one for middle high school, middle, and one for high school, I like, we have four, and one for assistant ministers. And people get to share the information on that. And then we have a legislative drop in meeting Friday mornings at 07:30 online. So people are able to share the information that way. And occasionally, big on issues that are everybody, for example, the cell phone bill, Angela bullying us into doing a survey across the state. But we did a survey

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: on that.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: We did a

[Speaker 0]: survey across the state on that. So we definitely try to make sure that we represent our members, the general family members. Do we represent every single member and every single initial? Of course not, it's You a very

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: can't.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: That's very possible. Great question. Thank you.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not done yet. No, you're fine.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: You're good. And so one of the things I love data, and I love that you're citing studies, even

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: though they're from a national standpoint. And I

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: think one of the things There's a lot of different policy issues, and I think a lot of people like to bring anecdotal evidence to those policy debates. And I'm curious specific to Vermont, if you've seen any studies in terms of the impact of how this bill would help her and, you know, kind of maybe the sentiments that other witnesses have shared in terms of the emotive landscape that where it will be been.

[Speaker 0]: I don't have any studies to No, it's just a lot. The only thing I have specific to Vermont are anecdotes that are shared by members of the concern and feelings that people have. The basketball season hockey just ended, obviously we oversee all high school sports. And in that, we did have some concerns from some school athletic directors really worried about events and some families saying to them they didn't want to go to events because they were afraid they could be dangerous to develop.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Can you send us some of those examples? Non attributed to individuals, just the text. I think it would be really helpful just to have that logged in the testimony. I'm curious, do you have a sense of how many non citizen students there are in remote schools? I don't.

[Speaker 0]: Would love to know the AOE tracks that data or not?

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: I would love to know that number. And then my last question is, you're talking about that some of your students across Vermont's education system have concerns about federal law enforcement. And I'm wondering if they still have faith in Vermont state police and local law enforcement.

[Speaker 0]: I can't answer for everyone, but I think overall, I think they absolutely do. And our people are constantly, again, we have really strong relationships with the Vermont state police. As far as I know, in the county, we have strong relationship with local sheriff's departments. I But don't think there's any issue there whatsoever from our perspective. Man, I'm an honorary National Guard commander, and we're very big supporters of the Guard. Yeah. Thank you for your service.

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Oh, absolutely. I appreciate that because I think there's just there's a lot of moving on. Maybe the witness you on mute. Yeah. Nate, if you could But I really appreciate you sharing that sentiment because I think it sometimes get lost in the fray that we still do have deep faith in the institutions of Vermont law. Absolutely. So thank you. You're welcome.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Karen, and then Ian, and then okay. I have a question. Just had to go on record and say I didn't bully anyone. Sorry.

[Speaker 0]: No bullying. Was teasing. I'm sorry. I should say that for the

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: It's okay. In most circumstances, would be okay. But in this room, joking.

[Speaker 0]: Yes. So

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I have a couple questions, and thank you for listening. I also realized that it sounds like you haven't finished your testimony. Some of this is the end It of

[Speaker 0]: might be, but go ahead.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Okay. I'm going to share some things, and I'm curious if some of these are similar to the sentiments you said that you were hearing from families and teachers and professionals, because I know I've been hearing them from community members, my own community, but just in some of the hearings that we've had of that. For instance, folks can't really tell the difference between a local enforcement officer at ICE, that there can be easily confusion of, I don't know if Is that a local officer? Is that Another one is that folks are really looking for trust to be built. They realize that we're in a hard environment and just want to see things that are just trust building, even if it's not going to change things. And then the other one is that there is this trust and fear, and it's not coming just from immigrant families or families who aren't here legally, maybe, but that it's like all children of color, that they're feeling like they need to carry their passports with them because they could be taken. And the other kids are like, I don't want to see my friends taken. Are these some of the things that you're talking about when you share that folks are saying that they're worried or scared? I haven't heard a lot. You asked me three questions.

[Speaker 0]: I actually want to publicly apologize, Andrew. Was joking. Know you didn't know.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: I'm pretty sure that's all right.

[Speaker 0]: Terms of first part, I think that's not really been an issue for principals. Maybe more for teachers and probably for community members. They may not know how to tell the difference between an ICE agent versus local sheriff or whatever. So I think that's fair. We have not heard a lot of that from our members. The latter two, we've heard a lot. We've definitely heard a lot. We've heard from kids, and it's not about kids of color. I want to be really clear. We have kids, all kids, principals are talking about how kids are saying they're worried to go to school because they're worried about what might happen to Joey or Joey's parents or something along those lines. And so our testimony is really about, we'd like to keep it away from the school as much as possible. So if something like this has to happen and immigration enforcement agents are following the law and they have to arrest somebody that's going on those lines, we just don't want it to happen in a school or a school events, That's the bottom line for us. That's what has to happen. We're not trying to stay in the way of that.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: That's not our job. But the concerns are for all kids. It's not just for those kids who are the most vulnerable. If other kids have seen this happen, it has an impact on them as well. That's helpful. And I feel like getting to this other piece of why is this build needed if it's not necessarily happening in our state right now, I feel like it's an example of what we often call belts and suspenders, you know, of like, let's just make it very clear. I feel like we do that a lot in our legislation of making it very clear and saying it in a way that most Vermonters can understand. I feel like that's what we're trying to address in this. And I guess I'm wondering if you can share, like, what is the impact of this worry that's happening? Because it's not because some folks will just say we shouldn't be legislating for worry and for concern. I feel like I can then translate that to what that leads to, but I don't know if you can help us and articulate, what does that worry lead to in the school system?

[Speaker 0]: Well, so I'm just going to move to stress. So when kids are stressed out for any reason, regardless of what it is, kids are experiencing some type of trauma, whether it's firsthand trauma or secondhand trauma, that has an impact, there are all kinds of national studies on that, on student test scores. We've already talked about chronic absenteeism, so kids not attending school, Kids attending school and needing mental health services. Right.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And if I may clarify too, is that this is general for the whole body. It's not just students who might feel targeted, that all kids are feeling this.

[Speaker 0]: If you're gonna get a student targeted, obviously it's gonna be more of an opinion on you, but it's also an impact on other kids and fear and anxiety for them too. So the more we can allude that concern at the school level, we think that's beneficial for kids. It goes back to Maslow's higher acuity needs, which you've all probably heard about. Gotta feed them first, kids gotta be fed, gotta be safe. And then there's psychological safety that comes next. And so if I'm in fear that something may happen, that's pretty hard to concentrate school to be a good doodle in school. That's all. So to your point and to Tom's point earlier around the feelings part, would be the reason why we think that this bill has merit.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Can I ask Legis Council a question or two to clarify something for So this S209 would prevent an individual in Vermont being arrested in a civil context without a warrant in the locations that we're identifying, correct? Right. So if the educational institution was not in S209, what would prevent somebody from arresting somebody in an educational institution without a civil warrant? What's the No, without one.

[Speaker 0]: What would

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: they have to

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: get arrested for probable cause?

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Or the ones where you can arrest, where they're picking somebody up without a warrant, like the things that you guys were talking about, Tom. For example, like a subpoena for being a witness in a trial, things like that. If we don't have it written in statute, what prevents it?

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: From an officer conducting a civil arrest at school. The school would be up to the school, so at some point you walk into, by the way every cycle, that's a counsel in case you're doing better, an officer appearing at a school says, Hey, I'm here to pick up so and so because we have a civil arrest or from court. If you have to the school at that point, the school could say no, we require judicial warrants just like at your home. Without a warrant you close your door. Looks like probable cause and likely we have to have a point. However, when it comes to getting past that public entrance portion of the school, I think you'd get to the school without a statute.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So it'd be up to the individual school or an education institution setting a policy. And so I think I understand you're saying that your policy right now is that you don't let in people without a judicial warrant unless they push and then

[Speaker 0]: you let them in. We tell schools that. Every school through their school districts set policies. Set policies. And I think everyone has a policy that's similar to this. They certainly should if they're listening to us. They can't verify that. We have 119 schools.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Fair enough. If some school district wasn't following your policy but this passed since law, it's now in statute, do you think that could change how they would consider whether they need to have a policy around this issue? I honestly think they already all have this or something very close to this impulse. Yeah, but they could change it.

[Speaker 0]: Sure. Policy's easier to change in statute. Yeah, that's true.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So I guess if we were to pass this into law and say that education institutions are a place that are protected from non civil warrant arrests or pickups. That provides more clarity for education institutions as to what they have to have as far as policy when it comes to students and people in their schools, correct? Agreed. I think that's more than just feeling then.

[Speaker 0]: I mean, for us, it's gonna give us certainly give us a leg to stand on. I wanna be fair to the local law enforcement. In all the years, my thirty something years goodness, I can't remember a case where there is a civil arrest at a school without a warrant. Yeah. Know, probable cause is not the right answer, but a event where we call the police and ask them to come in because there's a violent event going on or something. Yeah. Any other questions for Jay or any other parting comments? The last parting comment is I know this is a really tough political issue. And from our perspective, we're staying out of the politics of it completely and just saying anything we can do to help kids feel safer at school, even if it's something that's not a major policy change, we hope will help build that trust in our communities so that kids feel better about being in school and less anxious. And that's our goal here.

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: Thank you very much. One more, and that might be for Rick. Does the impaired and partial do what we're doing here as far as already do what we're trying to

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: do with this? So a better question for Tim Devlin. Okay. But that policy applies to state local police and not to other federal police, for example. I don't think we can

[Rep. Thomas Oliver (Member)]: like I said, I don't

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: think we can legislate them anyway. I mean I will say the state anti commandeering, the state does have some authority to regulate what happens in a school or even in the state of government, So the tenth amendment does provide the state with some authority. However, if you have a bad actor that ignores state law, that's I guess what we're referring to is can you actually stop a federal police officer from doing his or her job? Yeah, that's a totally different question.

[Speaker 0]: Right.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: So some authorities are pretty narrow.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Well it depends on the question. Generally states have quite a bit of authority under the temperament. In this case we're talking about law enforcement, talking about can you prevent federal police from doing something that they have statutory authority to do under federal statute, it's yeah. Could you make the entire state a sense of space? No. But can you say courtrooms, schools, grocery stores, right? That becomes a more different question to answer.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I just have one more for you, Jay. Do

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: Vermont educators receive any training, participate in any training around spotting signs for human trafficking?

[Speaker 0]: I do not think so. Certainly not by statute that I'm aware of. They get training around abuse prevention related to Title, used to be Title I, I don't know what it is. They get some training, but not to my knowledge around traffics, but I've been out of the business for ten years, I've

[Rep. Zachary Harvey (Member)]: been state level. I'd be interested to, and maybe you can follow-up with either myself or the committee assistant on whether there is a policy there. Because I do think, especially given recent I'm sure there's not. Especially given recent headlines, I think it's something that artists should be armed to spy and identify. Thank you.

[Richard "Rick" Sabel (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. All right.

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. So we're gonna take a short break. We'll get to Lisa right after a ten minute break. Hope that we're at 09:00, 10:30. But that clock's usually in the space, I think. Thank you, Jay.

[Rep. Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: You're welcome.

[Speaker 0]: So we can go up live, Nate.