Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: We are back in Senate Judiciary on January 14. We have Gordon from the ACLU here to pass the by on Senate Bills two zero eight, two zero nine, and 178. And, Gordon, the board's orders, we can also introduce ourselves.

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. For the record, my name is Gordon Soudder. I use he pronouns. I'm a policy advocate for the ACLU of Vermont. And I want to thank you all for inviting me here to testify today on S two zero eight, two zero nine, and 178. Particularly on two zero eight and two zero nine, we are grateful to this committee for taking up these issues early on into the legislative session. We know that there is a lot of community support and energy behind this. And so we're thankful for addressing these issues, the time that they require. Particularly requiring the proper law enforcement identification, as well as showing up tensions around CC locations are due priorities in our Firewall Freedom campaign around immigration rights. While we think that these measures are great first steps, we hope that this committee will continue with the conversation to keep the momentum going and consider our other primary areas such as improving pension conditions as well as ensuring this is to meet representation for civil detainees as well as creating a state cause of action around against federal officials who violate federal constitution laws, all of which we're happy to share more of in more detail in the near future. By enacting these policies, we believe that Vermont has an opportunity to protect our communities, our civil liberties, and our democracy. So moving on to s two zero eight, requiring law enforcement identification, we are supportive of s two zero eight. We all deserve to feel safe in our communities, but as states where human safety requires public trust in law enforcement, which that trust can be undermined when we have armed and masked federal agents wearing plain clothes, driving around in unmarked vehicles, going around arresting members of our community without warrant, warning, or identification. They seem to act with impunity, with very little oversight or accountability, and without any form of accountability for government officials who violate the law, our communities will never feel safe for their communities. So we support this bill's attempt to address any of the troubling trends that we're seeing around this issue and require that all law enforcement operating within the state would not be properly identified and not concealed or identified. And we believe passing this law is important because we wanted this for our law enforcement as well. And while, unfortunately, we're not seeing this as a huge issue amongst our law enforcement, we want that continue. We want that to continue. We want to continue following best practice and holds our law enforcement to a standard that builds trust amongst our communities and and promotes public strengthening. And it's important to note that Vermont is not alone in this type of legislation. Dozens of other states have introduced bills like this. Most notably, California passed its law enforcement ID requirement, bill, and other states such as Illinois, Massachusetts excuse me, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia have introduced similar legislation legislation as well. Now it's true that California's bill is being challenged, but from my understanding, the main point of contention there is that California's bill was was targeting federal officials specifically and not and didn't apply to all law enforcement across the board. So with regards to two zero eight, that does actually apply to all law enforcement operating in the state. It's much more defensible on that from that point of view. However, we understand that if this bill is trying to include federal officials within that within that bill, we understand that there's still a high likelihood of lawsuits, which isn't really indicative of anything other than the federal defendant should have been decided that you had hosing. So the question is as to whether or not it's likely to fix lawsuit. The question becomes, will it be court? And we say, yes. It does stand a good chance. It will be upheld. I understand that you will be speaking to, professor Paul and posing tomorrow, discussing constitutional matters around this. I won't go too deeply into it now, but broadly speaking, we, of course, anticipate the federal government is likely to raise objections under the supremacy clause. But when analyzing the supremacy clause question, we ask two questions. First, does the state have the power to regulate the fishes? We know that states can't single out general officials specifically, but states can pass generalized laws that federal officials must follow. Let's say, let's say, speed. And as I've mentioned that this bill does not single out federal officials and applies to all law enforcement operating within Vermont's. And Vermont has an interest in regulating some police status. So

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: with that

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: in mind, now we ask, is the thing that we're trying to prohibit the federal government from doing necessary and proper to accomplish their federal goals? So is masking, is driving around in unmarked vehicles and concealing our identity really an essential part to ICE's function and what is his task to do by the congress? And we say to that, no. That that there's a lot of arguments that agree with that, that object would be no. And so objectively, a people state regulation is found in the Nevada. So all that to say, we understand that there is a likelihood that

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: that we're gonna see

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: a lawsuit of this bill, but we believe that it is very defensible and and a good chance of surviving the Saint Claus challenge. And so our support is with that in mind, we do have a few pro proposed changes or or additions, I should say, to this bill. Specifically, under the identification requirements section, we would recommend that the name of the agency of the officer be included in the identification requirements. We see many agents are identified with a slurgo, which makes it harder for people to exercise their constitution rights when they're unable to identify an agent. Not to mention how easy it is to get one of those badges. I could pull it up on Amazon right now and purchase one, which goes to people's fear of when they're interacting with an ICE agent, are they actually interacting with a federal official or are they actively with a potential impostor, which we've seen that come up recently. So requiring law enforcement to show which agency they're with would go towards building credibility amongst law enforcement as well as criminal. We also had some questions around the penalty section of whether or not this section is criminal or civil in nature, and we just recommend that the committee clarify its intent. And before moving to zone nine, I'll pause if there's any questions.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think your point's well taken. We'll just do the penalty section. I expect we'll hear more about this more than I think. That is the area in which we could run into issue if we're attempting to impose a criminal penalty that opposed to a civil penalty. Another question is, what is that civil penalty? Is it a sent with traffic ticket? So that's one thing that I've noted to discuss as well.

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Perhaps this would be a better answer for me. Actually, you what? Never mind. I'll wait till tomorrow to answer to ask that question. I won't answer Any

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: other questions on this bill? That's enough to know.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Does anybody need copies of the bills that they don't have?

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I have lots of bills, but not that one.

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: Regarding two zero nine, we are fully supportive of it. Going back to the issue of public safety, we also deserve to move freely throughout our communities and access public spaces without fear of harassment or abuse. But with Trump administration's mass deportation campaign and increased targeting of community spaces like schools, hospitals, even places of worship, people are regularly afraid to access these spaces, thereby preventing them from getting to mentalize them and their essential services, which can jeopardize not in their livelihoods, but in some circumstances, perhaps in their living lives. So once again, we appreciate this committee's effort to promote community safety benefits. Now while supportive, we do have some concerns with the way the federal is currently drafted, and we just want to bring its testimony's attention. Again, fully supportive of the intent behind the bill, but just wanna rush in

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: that a few 20% suggestions that we may get in your.

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: So first off, the law in this area is still developing. Historically speaking, there are two sources of law for protecting slips. Right? We have, first, we have courthouse and state houses, which is rooted in solid common law protections. And second, we have private spaces, which needs fourth amendment protections. We think this bill is right in focusing on extending protections of courthouses as case law says that's where we're on, the most safest constitutional grounds. But as written, this bill seems to be just a combination of courthouse privilege, which has not historically applied to other locations like suites and hospitals. So to tie courthouse protections to other places, you would want to make the reasons for prohibiting arrests at those locations as analogous to courthouse arrest prohibitions as possible to strengthen the case. Or, of course, you could tie them to other protections, such as the Fourth Amendment where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, or the Tenth Amendment focusing on the state's power to protect insolent interests. So bolster the state's case, we would recommend the purpose section to enunciate the state's interest in enacting this legislation and why it should extend common law protections around the courthouses to other locations to protect state and local interests. And we, of course, bring this up because our primary concern would be folks relying on this bill thinking that they're protected in these locations, yet still being arrested because of

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: the, you know, held in malicious cases.

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: So we would want this bill to be as explicit in its intentions to give it a greatest chance of surviving a legal challenge. Senator Bobos, Gazzaplexis.

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: Yeah. I'm wondering, if the ACLU has any proposed language for that purpose section, or if you might be willing to work with me and legislative council to draft something.

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: Yeah, don't think you have any language currently, but we'd

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: be certainly happy to just do that one thing.

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: And then lastly, on s two zero nine, we also sorry. Going back. We also recommend including severability clause in case of one party that was struck down and the rest was remained. And then lastly, on to a and we just wanna high we just wanna highlight the judicial warrant exception, not making any of those changes. We appreciate its inclusion. We know that the judiciary has historically been a powerful check against the kind of overreach. And so we think it's important that this bill includes it, which makes it both the, legally defensible, but also puts, agents and all law enforcement, through that administrative hurdles, intentional administrative hurdle of obtaining a warrant, which can stop potentially many bad arrests or arrests if

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: they don't have enough. That's what it could get a rubbish warrant.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I think in terms of the severability similar to s two zero eight, I believe this would be covered under title one b s a two fifteen, which covers all acts. It says that if a provision of an act invalid or an application and so on and so forth, separately clause applies all universities, so if you double check that, I know it applies to S-two 08 and confirm whether or not the S-two 09.

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: I wanted to verify that.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I saw Senator Norris here hand up. No, Senator.

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: Oh, it was fine. Just to clarify, the severability that you're seeking would be for individual items in

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: this list. So if schools were found to be constitutional or and state county, then it wouldn't help. That wouldn't stretch down

[Robert Norris (Vice Chair)]: the list of location as well. Copy. Thanks. Good to know about the general rule of cost for the section. That

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: was to make the one interest for the sale out of eight two. And

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: all I have on 02/2009. And then that's with regarding s s one seventy eight. An act to the trial procedures from a fairly short sweep as we didn't see any red flags around it, and we're fully supportive of this bill. We understand it to be a way to address the court backlog that we know keeps up a lot of court time and ensures a lot of issues we're seeing with the conditions to see, and we're particularly in favor of this bill's attempts to shift the burden to the prosecution just by accusing the police after a lengthy amount of time, which calls the expression of person's right to speak to trial. And that if it's a testimony you have, perhaps, could

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Thank you. Going back to 209, there was one question I had. This might be a question for education, apparently, but regarding the definition of school, I know that this is something that we grapple with in the education committee. And do you have any thoughts on how we define that? Because school can be very broadly interpreted. I

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: don't have any specific language regarding the definition of school, but we are generally supportive of broader definitions to try to make it to try to ensure that these protections, which will happen to

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: the widest of the issue of education is possible. One last question. Know. Can't remember if you've covered this, but I think you

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: briefly discussed adding churches, places of worship into the prohibition section on page two. Did you have a position on that?

[Gordon Soudder (ACLU of Vermont)]: So it's very, like, legal degree area that because private because churches, like, just not assume, the private sector, that we wouldn't be able to force them to, like, comply with this law. But we would recommend just that a guidance section for private sectors would be included. And we've been working with the HRC on this, and they've expressed interest in working to us in drafting up guidance for the

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: private sector and how those are the financial science. So those? And

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: I just wanna clarify, your hope is that once that guidance is

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay. Great. Well, thank you. We have forty five more minutes left. This is gonna take a bit longer to Will was that hey, Will. I know you expressed an interest in testifying. I'm sorry for the short notice, but since we have a lot of time left, do you would you like to testify right now?

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: Thanks very much for the offer, Chair. I would be happy to say a couple words accompanied by Agustin as a migrant justice member who who would be prepared to testify at this time. I'd also be happy to to hold off for another day. I'm prepared to speak in too much detail about the specific amendment language, although we aligned with what said. If the committee's interested in hearing from justice sort of more broadly around the patterns and impact of immigration enforcement activities of the state, we'd be happy to have done

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: that. Yeah.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: I mean, yeah, we've got we've got plenty of time. If you wanna speak broadly, you're welcome to do that. If you have more specifics you wanna provide at a later date, you can also do that.

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: So yeah. Please. Fantastic. Thank you, Jordan. I'm happy to follow-up with any of that. How are doing, buddy?

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Okay.

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: Thank you, chair and members of the committee. My name is Will Lamback. I'm here to speak on behalf of Migrant Justice, the Department of Human Rights Organization, the state of the bond. Migrant Justice has been around for about fifteen years, now have building power in communities, particularly those who are living and working on the dairy farms in the state, although over the years that community has broadened and is now throughout the state, living and working, and depending on sectors and industries. Yeah, with apologies to the senator Mahomesky. Heard this yesterday as we were speaking. But but, yeah, the the last year has been one of the most difficult for in the state of Herman. While there is no hard data that's coming from the the government itself based on the justice's work and observations. We've seen more than a tenfold increase in invasion enforcement activity in the state. We have worked with and documented the dimensions of over 100 Vermont residents by ICE and Border Patrol. This is much, much higher than anything that people have experienced before, in the first class administration. And it's really quite difficult to underscore the sense of crisis and psychic trauma at that level, that number of detention ranges. Each person detained is suffering lifelong trauma. Each detention represents a family that's being separated and the community that's being terrorized. These detentions happen around the state from both agencies. What's important to understand is that for go on, ready to provide, is not solely focused on what they would term border at round terms and the block to make media border. They're also having to engage in interior enforcement. And as this condition knows, they have a 100 mile buffer with the majority of the state to operate. So we've seen attaches through workplace raids. We've seen them through traffic stops. We've seen them through staked out of people's homes. We've seen them sort of arresting people one by one or detaining one person on their way to work. And we've seen large scale detentions of eight, nine deaths at a time. While we oppose all immigration detentions and employee and everything in between are all a violation of people's rights, We we think it's also important to to underscore that contrary to the rhetoric in the federal government, the vast majority the people are dealing with have no nexus with the criminal justice system. These aren't, you know, like the government's term, criminal agalienists. I consider the one that use that term in Sierra quotes. The vast majority of these people have no criminal convictions, no criminal charges, no interactions with local and state law enforcement agencies prior to their detention by immigration agencies. Know that having to take pass it on beyond the role with the Department of Corrections in this later on. Most people who have been put into the state are then sent to either Northwest State Correctional Facility or Children's Mutual Correctional Facility for men and women. And then they're out there and in Columbia, often times to other detention facilities around the country. So these people also provide Michigan or Arizona and Mexico or Texas. The time of people's management and detention for other campers is dramatic and is located for the individual and the families to realize no radio left one is and and other state was happening in process. So we think it's very important that Vermont use every mechanism available within the legislature, group courts, to do what we can to protect communities who are so important to the community and cultures of the state of Mothra. We think 02/2008 and 02/2009 are better than starts. We worked with the committee and then the senator Baruth to have the original language around civil and countries and warehouses. That has been very effective. This was a common practice. If you would be all would court in Middlebury, and you would see ICE agents sitting in that place in those courthouses once this bill once that bill became law, two, practice stopped. And that's really important to understand. At the time, there were legal arguments on both sides. We felt very confident that the law had a strong legal basis. But there were some questions. Is DHS's ICE going play by the rules? And the answer was, Admittedly, was yes. They have. We have not seen a single instance of an arrest at the Vermont Courthouse excuse me, at the immigrant's detention of an individual at the Vermont Courthouse or somebody who would issue a film at Vermont Courthouse, they've complied with the law as a legislative contestant. So I think that's a positive signal in terms of what the impact of the legislation could be and then when it lends up against the challenges with the supremacy clause. And we should all be very proud. We are very proud that the work that the legislature did to take what was once a common practice that not only resulted in people's dictation, but resulted in a threat to the integrity of the monsojudicial process, people not feeling comfortable going to court and have practices and stand up and stay combined. So we hope that we can take that as a prologue for what's to come and really go as far as we're the levers that the modern legislature has to do everything possible to protect the community. So we want to echo what what director said about hoping to to amend the current laws and and keep insert additional legislation that would provide more protections for the communities. And in particular, we're looking forward to this need to be taken out when we believe we'll soon be a bill coming out of legislative council starting in the house, if I'm not mistaken, to ensure universal representation that for all people in moving proceedings in the state of the pond. I mean, that's not from the committee yet, but we think that is is likely the most impactful thing that the legislature can do to ensure due process regulation that is where we are facing unprecedented levels of it. Thank you. Mindy, any questions? I do have one. Well, it seems like we're all putting things here on a state level. Is migrant justice or hate stealing vaccine doing anything with our federal delegation so they can address these problems rather than us constantly addressing the problems they are not addressing? Yeah. That's an excellent question, Senator, and absolutely. Vermont is, I don't know what the appropriate metaphor would be, but yeah, hold back the flood an issue that really at its core is a federal issue. We know the last time that there was significant immigration reform at the federal level was under President Reagan. We think that the Vermont Federal delegation is doing what they can to try and advance a holistic solution at the federal level. But we are under no illusion that that that is in we we don't we don't think that this congress and this administration is is interested in reform that would create plastic and disabled protections for denomination of people throughout The US and the thousands of people in Vermont who are living and working honorably and could meet the community, displaced from their countries due to actions from The United States. So we would love to see a solution at the federal level that would take this off Vermont's hands. But we also don't see it coming this year. In fact an understatement, and so that has a responsibility to act in the customer. You.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: Will, in regards to '2 zero eight, can speak to whether you or for the constituents of your organization see law enforcement wearing masks, whether federal agents or state or local police, is that something that is that folks are seeing in Vermont? Are there instances of it?

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: Yes. Yeah. We we we have seen masked agents. It is a very common practice for agents not to identify themselves when asked, and to be wearing stealing clothing and driving vehicles that are unmarked to be influenced when conducting enforcement activities. It's long been ICE's practice to drive on our vehicles and wear silly clothing. In the past, it would be more common for an ICE agent conducting a detention to have a lanyard with a badge. We we don't see that as often as we used to. And and a worrisome turn too, it used to be quite rare to see border patrol not in uniform. Well, I think they're accustomed to see the white truck with the green striped and the green customs border patrol We've seen a number of border patrol massing or detentions, pulling over a van of reefers on their way to work and arresting and detaining the people. Are not wearing uniforms in some of those actions. We're seeing a sort of move in the wrong direction in that sense. Thanks, Tom. Andy, any other questions? Alco, did you? Thank you. For the record, Fisheling, embassy director, just wanted to address senator Norris' question about our work with federal delegation. We're in regular contact with members of the federal delegation, and I've been talking with them about what they can do on the federal level to help, you know, make sure that they are curbing some of the practices in which we see which are the most concerning, that there's adequate training, and that those rules and regulations are being followed, and also concerns around the level of funding that's going to be vacancies with the lack of accountability. So to short, you know, to the question, we're in touch with the delegation, but I also second Will's view on the likelihood of seeing federal action to address these coming out in the coming year. But we're thankful for that very much. So

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: thank you, Will, for testifying on the short covers. Absolutely.

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: And thanks for the invitation. And hope we'll be able to come back to this meeting in the session as well.

[Nader Hashim (Chair)]: So committee, I think we had this morning, so I think we could save the discussion on this on another day. Yep. Great. Great. Thank you. That was good.

[Tanya Vyhovsky (Member)]: For the record, Bob's a yes. Morning.

[Will Lambek (Migrant Justice)]: I just wanna call the