Yesenia Hernandez and Esau Peche were arrested as they returned to the Franklin County dairy farm where they work after marching on the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, according to the group Migrant Justice, which organized the event. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents picked up the pair near the town line in Franklin, the group said.
The march was part of the Milk With Dignity campaign, which aims to leverage the ice cream maker’s clout with Vermont dairies to improve conditions for immigrant farmworkers.
At a bail hearing Friday at the immigration court in Boston, Hernandez and Peche were each released on $6,000 bail.
Their attorney Matt Cameron said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had initially requested bail of $14,000. But the judge reduced it because neither Hernandez nor Peche has a criminal record and Cameron was able to show they were likely to return to court for hearings, the lawyer said.
Three other immigrants active with Migrant Justice have been arrested since the start of the year. Cameron suggested ICE in Vermont is targeting those who speak out for their rights. Federal officials have said they aren’t targeting activists.
All face deportation proceedings in federal immigration court, with the exception of Cesar “Alex” Carrillo-Sanchez, who accepted voluntary deportation earlier this year.
Last year another Migrant Justice activist, Victor Diaz, was arrested, and he too faces deportation.
Cameron, a private immigration attorney, said the Obama administration probably wouldn’t have pursued deportation in the Migrant Justice cases but that things are likely to change under new guidance from President Donald Trump.
Cameron said the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement no longer makes its priority those who commit crimes, leading to far more cases than the immigration courts can handle. That poor deployment of resources will lead to higher costs for taxpayers without improving public safety, he said.
“In East Boston, where I live and work, we have dangerous criminal gangs running the streets, yet you have ICE deploying resources up there (in Vermont) going after dairy farmers,” he added.
According to TRAC Immigration, a project of the nonpartisan data-gathering Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, the number of immigration cases awaiting decision reached “an all-time high” of 585,930 in April. The average case takes 670 days to resolve, and the Boston court alone has more than 14,000 pending cases, according to the group’s website.
“I think many Americans believe only bad people are getting caught up in the system, but nothing could be further from the truth,” Cameron said.
