Vermont farm worker rights group Migrant Justice alleges in a new lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that federal immigration agents have surveilled the group, including using a secret “civilian informant,” in order to arrest as many as 20 members over a period of several years and to wage an intimidation campaign.
It sure seems like that’s what’s happening. In one instance last year, Customs and Border Protection agents arrested two immigrants as they were leaving a 13-mile Migrant Justice march demanding better working conditions for dairy workers. Months later, immigration agents arrested another Migrant Justice-affiliated worker as he was leaving a dental appointment. Agents were waiting in the parking lot and followed the car for eight miles before pulling him over.
The group also alleges that the state’s DMV has been sharing application information—Vermont is one of a number of states that allows undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses—with DHS. The state’s DMV has also been named in the lawsuit, with the Guardian noting that “cooperation between the Vermont DMV and [ICE] was revealed in 2016 by local news site VTDigger.”
The intimidation has “had a severe and drastic impact on our ability to carry out our mission, which is to bring immigrant farm workers together to defend and advance their human rights,” member Will Lambek said. Nor is this an isolated incident. Unleashed immigration agents have targeted immigration activists as far away from Vermont as Washington state and Mississippi.
“[ICE’s] efforts to undermine Migrant Justice are part of a pattern of [ICE] expending significant resources to target, surveil, arrest and detain immigrant activists and leaders across the country in response to their protected political speech and activity,” states the lawsuit, which was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and the National Immigration Law Center.