WILLISTON, Vt. — Four people were arrested Thursday at a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the latest in a series of similar actions around the state.
The protesters blocked entrances to part of a business park at 426 Industrial Avenue, where ICE operates a digital surveillance center. The surveillance center “analyzes data in numerous law enforcement and immigration databases to develop leads on removable noncitizens” for field offices across the country, according to an ICE document. A second ICE facility in Williston, Vt., is based nearby at 188 Harvest Lane.
The protest came as demonstrators in Vermont have sought to keep pressure on ICE’s actions in the state and across the country. In February, state police arrested 11 people and cited two others for trespassing on the property during a similar protest. Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George declined to prosecute any of those arrested or cited in February.
Four protesters inside the building, ranging in age from early twenties to late seventies, were arrested on charges of unlawful trespass and resisting arrest, according to the Vermont State Police. The property manager, Normand Stanislas, said he asked police to remove the protesters inside the building after they refused his request to leave the premises.
Peter Booth, one of the protesters who was arrested, said the action had succeeded in impeding ICE’s operations for the day. Booth was previously cited for criminal trespass at the February protest.
“The hunting of black and brown people in this country has got to stop, and the Vermont State Police are 100% complicit in this situation,” Booth said as he was carried by his arms and legs out of the building by three uniformed Vermont State Police officers and placed into a waiting police car. Williston police and a handful of U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers were also present at the scene.
After the arrests, a group of about 15 people continued to chant outside one of the building’s entrances.
The Rev. Becca Girrell, pastor at a United Methodist church in Morrisville, Vt., said her faith had led her to take part in the protest.
“The harm that happens out of this building, the surveillance and targeting of human beings, is immoral and unethical, and cannot be tolerated,” Girrell said. “This perpetuates the violence that ICE commits across the country, right out of my home state of Vermont.”
“We want the building management and ownership and other tenants to reconsider their relationship with this corrupt and awful organization that is leasing this property,” she added.
In an emailed statement, an unnamed ICE spokesperson said the agency “fully supports the right to peaceful protest, but condemns the dangerous and unlawful actions that are obstructing federal operations and endangering the safety of everyone involved.”
The U.S. General Services Administration, which leases space from White Cap Ventures, LLC, pays about $860,000 annually to rent a portion of the building, according to public data on federally leased properties from the GSA. That LLC is owned by J. Graham Goldsmith, according to the Vermont Secretary of State’s office. Goldsmith could not be reached for comment on Thursday.
Stanislas, the property manager, said that while protests regularly take place near the road outside the business park without issue, he considered Thursday’s protests to be in a different category.
“The protests that occurred today, with blocking four doors to Homeland Security so that tenants could not get into the building or out of the building, is not a good way to get any consideration from anybody,” Stanislas said, referring to protesters’ demand that the building’s management cancel the ICE facility’s lease.
Protesters said they blocked five doors at the facility, not four.
Stanislas added that the protesters also affected other businesses in the building, noting that a cafe there chose to close for the day.
He said that he was disappointed that the state’s attorney did not prosecute those who were arrested in February, and that he hoped she would prosecute those arrested in Thursday’s action.
The protesters are expected to appear in court in Burlington on June 30.
This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To learn more, visit vtdigger.org/community-news-sharing-project.