Senate Leaders Call on Scott to Cancel ICE Agreement

Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday denounced the detention of a Palestinian activist and called for an immediate end to the state’s cooperation with federal immigration officials.

Mohsen Mahdawi arrived at a Colchester immigration office on Monday for what he believed to be a “naturalization interview,” according to his attorneys. Instead, the legal U.S. resident was arrested and whisked away by masked men. He is behind bars at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, awaiting deportation proceedings, an attorney for Mahdawi has said.

Vermont has a memorandum of understanding with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allows federal detainees to be housed in state prisons for a payment of $180 per day.

But on Tuesday, state Senate leaders urged Gov. Phil Scott and Nicholas Deml, commissioner of the Department of Corrections, to cancel the agreement.

All Americans should lose trust of federal immigration agencies when they are “sending masked and unidentified agents in unmarked cars out into the street,”  Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden-Central) said. “This amounts to saying, ‘Not in our names.'” The governor has the power, after consultation with the attorney general, to approve deals between local and federal law enforcement agencies. The current agreement runs out in August.
Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D-Chittenden-Southeast) said Scott needs to act immediately to cancel the agreement because the actions of immigration officials were spreading fear and distrust statewide.

“People do not feel safe leaving their homes. People do not feel safe going to law enforcement. And people do not even feel safe exercising their fundamental right to free speech and the freedom to assemble,” she said. “I don’t know how much more serious it can get before we tell Vermonters we are not cooperating with a hostile, dangerous and unconstitutional federal government that does not care about the basic rights and freedoms of Vermonters.”

Scott responded with a statement calling for more information but without answering the question about the state’s arrangement with ICE.

“Probable cause based on real evidence is the only justification to deny someone their liberty, so if the federal government cannot produce that evidence, Mr. Mahdawi should be released,” Scott said. “What cannot be justified, is how this action was undertaken. Law enforcement officers in this country should not operate in the shadows or hide behind masks.”

Video shot by Sen. Becca White (D-Windsor) showed Mahdawi being led out of the Colchester building on Monday. He was handcuffed by officers, some of whom wore hoods over their heads and cloth masks pulled over their faces. They placed Mahdawi in an unmarked SUV.

Though Mahdawi is still behind bars, a federal judge has barred the government from taking him out of the state.

Mahdawi, a native of the West Bank living in White River Junction, was a pro-Palestine student protest leader at Columbia University. His activism caught the attention of the Trump administration, which has moved to deport noncitizen protesters who have spoken out against Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza.

Scott said his administration was in contact with Vermont’s federal delegation to seek “further clarification of the facts in this case.”

Baruth said some committee chairs had been talking to administration officials about possible changes to the ICE agreement, but those efforts had “hit a wall.”

The senators decided to go public to pressure Scott scrap the agreement, which he can do for any reason. Absent that, lawmakers would look to either pass a resolution or a bill formally calling on a change to the agreement, Baruth said.

“Our history has always been to aid the federal government, to establish good will, if for no other reason,” Baruth said. “We believe that that goodwill has been terminated on the part of the administration, and we should act accordingly.”

Baruth said three things caused him to conclude that he needed to demand action from the governor: Mahdawi’s “abduction” was one. The impasse over the agreement was another. And the third was President Donald Trump’s comments to the president of El Salvador in the Oval Office about expanding deportations to that country of “homegrown” people, which Baruth said he took to mean U.S. citizens.
Ram Hinsdale said that, given threats and the climate of fear in the state, Scott’s “wait-and-see approach” was no longer acceptable.

“We cannot afford to roll over and play dead,” she said.

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