White River Junction
On Monday, the Winooski City Council adopted a resolution to make the community a sanctuary city, meaning it would neither use its resources to enforce federal immigration law nor allow law enforcement to ask people about their immigration status.
Last week in Burlington, the state’s largest city, the City Council agreed to draft a similar resolution, which Police Chief Brandon del Pozo, said is already his department’s policy.
Both cities made their moves despite threats from Trump to revoke federal funding for sanctuaries. The president-elect also made campaign promises to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants and ban Muslims from entering the country.
On Monday, Trump issued a video and statement that said, “On immigration, I will direct the Department of Labor to investigate all abuses of visa programs that undercut the American worker.”
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, who leaves office in January, said through a spokesman on Tuesday that he would “strongly support any efforts to make Vermont a safe haven for those who have been marginalized and threatened by the next president, which at this point is quite a lot of people.”
Shumlin, a Democrat, said he had been proud to sign a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver privilege cards, as well as to reaffirm after the Paris terrorist attacks a year ago that Vermont would remain open to refugees from war-torn nations.
“Standing up for those who are being attacked is a matter of human dignity,” Shumlin’s statement said. “Even when I am no longer governor, I will be a Vermonter demanding that my government stand firm against hatred and bigotry. Given Vermont’s long history of practicing tolerance and equality, I am confident I will not be the only one.”
Gov.-elect Phil Scott expressed support for those concerned by Trump’s rhetoric, but emphasized that his economic agenda was his top priority in a statement provided by a spokesman on Tuesday.
“The president-elect’s rhetoric on immigration has caused some uncertainty and if there is a change at the national level, the governor-elect will collaborate with the Legislature on an appropriate response and make sure people’s rights are protected,” the statement from Scott, a Republican who publicly denounced Trump during the campaign, said. “But more needs to be known about what, if any, national change might be made before drawing any conclusions.
“Right now, in the absence of any policy or proposal at the federal level, the governor-elect and the transition team are working to implement the pro-growth plans that he presented during the campaign because growing the state’s economy and addressing the crisis of affordability in Vermont are going to be the top priorities for governor-elect’s administration.”
What the Vermont Legislature may do in response to the Trump administration is not yet clear, and will depend, in part, on policies that the president-elect has yet to enact.
State Rep. Tim Briglin, D-Thetford, last week expressed concern in a post to his blog about Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon, former executive chairman of the right-wing website Breitbart, as chief White House strategist.
Bannon previously had served as CEO of Trump’s presidential campaign.
That hire, Briglin said in his post, “is an ominous sign that the normalization of bigotry which marked (Trump’s) campaign will continue into his presidency.”
“Each of us must stand with our neighbors by refusing to accept any action fueled by intolerance or discrimination, and call out any injustice so that we can join together as a community to denounce it,” Briglin wrote. “We must all be active citizens in the fight against oppression. Our cities, towns and communities, like our hearts, must remain open to all who are seeking shelter from hate.”
State Sen. Dick McCormack, D-Bethel, said that the Legislature potentially could extend the sanctuary protections being considered in a few communities to the entire state; however, he added, he wasn’t sure whether his colleagues would pursue such a policy.
McCormack said that the election of Trump was an unusual event, one that called for resistance rather than cooperation.
“It’s standard procedure for me that after an election we figure everybody has had their chance, everybody has stated their case, and we have to pull together here,” he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “But I don’t think that’s the case with Trump.”
McCormack cited the “blatant bigotry” and “disregard for the Constitution” that he had seen from Trump during the campaign, saying, “This is not just a difference of opinion that we agree to disagree on.”
Although McCormack said he “wasn’t happy” about unauthorized immigration, he said that Trump was “ignoring the complexities of the issue, including the fact that our economy would likely collapse without illegal immigrants.”
More than 1,500 immigrant farmworkers, many of them undocumented, live in Vermont, playing a key role on many dairy farms.
Nevertheless, McCormack, who sits on his chamber’s committees on appropriations and health and welfare, said he wasn’t yet sure whether he would support declaring Vermont a statewide sanctuary.
“I actually don’t know enough about the specifics of that particular approach,” McCormack said.
He noted that if a major part of creating an immigrant sanctuary was declining to enforce federal immigration laws, then Vermont, which does not seek out unauthorized immigrant farm workers for deportation, is already following a similar policy. “But I think we have to figure on resistance.”
Over the border in New Hampshire, undocumented immigrant students at Dartmouth College last week joined a nationwide wave of scholars calling for school administrators to declare their universities sanctuaries.
A few days after the students circulated a petition, Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon voiced support for their cause, pledging to protect students “within the bounds of the law.” He did not declare Dartmouth a “sanctuary school,” one of the demands of the students.
Hanlon also joined more than 90 other college presidents in signing a statement asking the federal government to uphold a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
DACA, as the policy is known, protects immigrants brought here during childhood, but was put in place by executive order from President Obama, and could easily be undone by Trump.
“To our country’s leaders we say that DACA should be upheld, continued, and expanded,” the statement from the university presidents says. “This is both a moral imperative and a national necessity. America needs talent — and these students, who have been raised and educated in the United States, are already part of our national community. They represent what is best about America, and as scholars and leaders they are essential to the future.”
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.