S.148 (2025) Restricting Info Sharing
Talking Points on S.148 delivered on April 30, 2025 by Jill Martin Diaz, Executive Director of VAAP
Stream the testimony before the Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee here
Who I Am and What VAAP Does
For the record, my name is Jill Martin Diaz (they/them). I serve as Executive Director of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP) and am a removal defense attorney with over ten years of practice experience, as well as a legal educator with teaching experience at Vermont Law and Graduate School and the University of Vermont.
VAAP is a statewide technical assistance and legal services organization focused on asylum, removal defense, and system-wide legal access. While I testify today, VAAP staff are:
Litigating bond motions in Texas immigration courts to bring detained Vermont asylum seekers home.
Preparing unaccompanied minors for asylum interviews next week, despite the March defunding of that program, which we are challenging in federal court as organizational plaintiffs in CLSEPA v. HHS.
Hosting a legal clinic this evening to help three Vermont farmworkers file their asylum applications.
Tracking federal litigation led by ACLU of Vermont, including real-time support for the habeas hearing of our client Mohsen Mahdawi in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont.
What We’re Up Against
Federal immigration enforcement today increasingly relies on data-sharing beyond ICE itself, involving agencies like the IRS, HHS, SSA, and even USPS (as reported by The Washington Post just yesterday).
In Vermont, routine traffic stops are the #1 entry point into ICE custody. Even dismissed or resolved charges can appear in FBI databases monitored by ICE. Asylum seekers and longtime residents alike are being targeted.
Even though privacy laws like HIPAA and FERPA protect state agency system users’ personally identifying information from discovery by ICE, the mission creep across federal agencies has made Vermont immigrant communities chillingly fearful of engaging with public life.
Feedback we receive is that a lack of coordinated, consistent, top-down messaging from the three branches of state government exacerbates mistrust of any one leader’s or organization’s messaging.
Real-Life Consequences
Community fear is high—and that is by design. Examples from our clients include:
Parents too afraid to drive their children to school or medical appointments.
Workers skipping necessary healthcare visits.
Patients missing healthcare appointments as serious as oncology care out of fear that traveling would expose them to ICE surveillance.
This fear is working. It keeps people isolated, unwell, and unsupported. Bills like S.56 and now S.148 are essential countermeasures—building coordination, clarity, and protection.
Why S.148 Matters
S.148 is consistent with Vermont’s long-standing leadership in civil rights and directly advances our Common Benefits Clause—a constitutional provision now painfully unique among the 50 states. This bill:
Reinforces Vermont’s legacy of principled leadership.
Aligns with and fortifies the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy of the Vermont Criminal Justice Council by codifying top-down information protection rather than leaving it up to individual localities to manage through policies that are subject to more rapid change.
Clarifies that state and local agencies should not be used as arms of federal immigration enforcement.
Communicates to Vermonters the safety of engaging with public health and safety systems.
Prevents encroaching of federal overreach in balance with the other branches, as well as the encroachment of unchecked federal authoriatarianism into state matters.
VAAP’s Position
VAAP strongly supports S.148. We recommend one area of refinement: either expand Section 2372(a) to name additional federal and state agencies known and/or expected to participate in immigration enforcement data collectiong and/or sharing, or leave the terms broad to preserve future responsiveness.
Legal Clarification
We urge the Committee to also hear from Falko Schilling of the ACLU of Vermont on the Anti-Commandeering Clause issue. Importantly:
S.148 does not violate 8 U.S.C. § 1373. It does not restrict lawful responses to federal immigration inquiries. It instead forecloses state agencies from affirmatively sharing unsolicited information with federal agencies.
As Attorney Novogrovski relayed, the Second Circuit has upheld §1373 in the context of a narrow “sanctuary city” grant retaliation claim that NYC argued violated the Anti-Commandeering Clause.
VAAP agrees that the Second Circuit holding should be read narrowly since the amount of grant funds withheld from NYC was minimal compared with the billions in divestment promised by President Trump in retaliation for “sanctuary” type policymaking at the state and local levels.
Further, as Senator Vyhovsky notes, § 1373 prohibits state nonresponse, not proactive state-based limits on information sharing out to federal agencies. Here, S.148 limits information flowing from state to federal agencies, not the other way around.
S.148 also does not violate 8 U.S.C. § 1644, an untested and likely unconstitutional provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Even under a textual reading, VAAP argues it would not survive Tenth Amendment scrutiny.
Federal “encouragement” of compliance cannot cross the line into coercion of state resource allocation for participation.
Instead of posing a Federal Preemption Issue, S.148 protects against present Anti-Commandeering Issues. t’s not just immigration where Vermont is facing federal overreach.
Immigration is fertile ground for expanding executive power into authoritarianism, given the systematic insulation of immigration actions from judicial review through the Plenary Power Doctrine and now-abandoned Chevron Doctrine.
Given the current administration’s extra-constitutional overreach across all areas of checks-and-balances, beginning but not stopping with immigration authority, it is critical that Vermont act decisively to uphold its own constitutional authority and protect due process of law.
Note that immigration law was explicitly racialized until 1965—the immediate risk of unchecked immigration action to Vermonters of color is not an abstract concern.
Examples from Other States
S.148 aligns Vermont with other states that have taken legislative action to limit local cooperation with ICE and uphold public trust:
California (SB 54): Prohibits use of local resources for immigration enforcement. Upheld by the Ninth Circuit.
Connecticut (Trust Act): Limits detainer compliance to serious criminal cases with judicial warrants.
Illinois (Trust Act): Bars detention solely based on immigration status or detainers.
Oregon (ORS 181A.820): Prohibits immigration-only enforcement by local agencies since 1987.
Washington (Keep Washington Working Act): Bars information sharing with ICE, protects worker rights.
New York (State and City laws): Limits ICE access to facilities and restricts data-sharing.
These states recognize that state resources must serve state purposes, not be commandeered for federal deportation policy.
Call to Action
The Union’s rapid decline into authoritarinism is a systems problem that requires systems solutions—rather than individual solutions to be delivered piecemeal by indepedent localities or service providing organizations.
The federal strategy is to overwhelm and exhaust direct service providers—pulling us off our legal work and into crisis triage. That cannot be the plan. Vermont must:
Affirm, through law and policy, that accessing school, healthcare, emergency services, and housing is safe—regardless of immigration status.
Help providers like VAAP stay focused on asserting and preserving rights in court, not just managing fear in the community.
Recognize that immigrant rights are everyone's rights, and that protecting them strengthens democracy for all.
Closing
S.148 is legally sound, timely, and urgently needed. We thank the Legislature for once again standing firm in defense of the common good, and we urge swift passage of this vital bill.
