Read about our July 2025 legal visit to CRCF here.

⚠️ Detention Trends: Local Impact & New Tracking Tools

Enforcement activity in Vermont continues to rise and appears disproportionately high for a state of its size and population—likely due to the outsized presence of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offices and intensified border patrol operations across the region.

Detention has always been a tool available at ICE's discretion when enforcing alleged removability against noncitizens, and Vermont has lagged behind similarly situated states in developing and sustaining infrastructure to hold ICE accountable for well-documented patterns of abused discretion that predate the current federal administration. For too long, ICE abuses of discretion in how it detains and summarily deports Vermonters have been insulated from meaningful accountability or review. But not anymore.

Today, most detentions are stemming from a combination of ICE community patrols and collateral arrests of allegedly removable people; targeted enforcement of individuals with prior criminal arrest histories; supervision check-ins for those with prior immigration removal orders; and apprehensions at the northern border. Lack of probable cause and evidence of racial profiling are increasingly common.

Detained individuals are typically transferred out of stateto nearby ICE facilities within hours or days of apprehension, separating them from family, community, and legal support. Atypical is the trend of relocating people to far-flung places like Texas and Louisiana, where access to counsel or a full and fair hearing is extremely diminished.

Given the acute shortage of immigration counsel in Vermont, the vast majority of detainees are unrepresented at the time of arrest. Without a detainee's name, date of birth, and "A-number"—or physically locating someone in a detention facility—it becomes nearly impossible to provide people with outcome-changing legal assistance. These representation gaps are especially severe for individuals held in southern U.S. facilities, compared to those detained in New England (as was common before 2025).

Fearmongering to drive immigrants to waive their rights through self-deportation is the strategy. It's a cost-effective way of achieving mass-deportation policy goals. The administration continues to make examples out of outlier cases with ingregious injustices to sow chaos, confusion, and control. This was the case with Mohsen and Rumeysa, and continues to be the case today. 

One stark example involves a VT/NH Asylum Support Network supported asylum seeker from the African continent—who has no criminal history and a pending meritorious I-589 asylum application—who ICE detained during a routine "check-in" in St. Albans for no discernable reason. He remains in ICE detention in the south while VAAP advocates challenge his removal and seek release on bond (now complicated by the recent Matter of Q. Li decision, which restricts bond eligibility for “recent arrivals”). To our knowledge, this is the only recent case in Vermont where an individual in good standing with a pending asylum application has been detained at a check-in under these circumstances.

Another outlier involves a green card holder, also from the African continent, who also lacks any criminal history but who Border Patrol detained on reentry from Canada citing an alleged discrepancy relating to the Visa Bulletin data published during the person's earlier adjustment of status. Partners at AALV and pro bono co-counsel supported by VAAP have already secured a Temporary Restraining Order in federal district court to prevent ICE from unnecessarily transferring this person while counsel requests release on bond and prepares available defenses against removal. To our knowledge, this is only the second recent case in Vermont where a lawful permanent resident has been detained on non-criminal charges of removability (the other being Mohsen Mahdawi).

Note how both cases align with the overarching, historical, and institutional prevalence of anti-Blackness in immigration enforcement.

In response, VAAP and partners are ramping up new areas of federal and administrative litigation for populations most at risk, and advocating with Vermont Corrections to ensure ICE detainees' equitable access to counsel. We are also revitalizing the ICE Tracker, a fledgling project launched to document and respond to ICE activity across Vermont and to help us understand new enforcement norms so we can advise people to make informed decisions about their cases and lives. The Microsoft Form submission tool is now live and open to community members and VAAP promises to report vetted data at a regular cadence.

We are also hosting a community organizer-coordinated public-facing Airtable dashboard, featured below, that collates anonymized DHS and VT DOC data to inform the public, media, and legal networks about likely detention rates on any given day. We welcome community contributions and ideas to help ensure this tool is accurate, sustainable, and responsive to the realities on the ground.

Review the latest information from February 2025 here.