[V]ermont Technical College is the latest school to get blowback for its contracts with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement amid nationwide protests over President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies.
VTC received nearly $50,000 from the agency this year for assorted training courses for ICE employees. It’s worked with ICE before, and the relationship between the two has sparked a petition drive from a student elsewhere in the Vermont State Colleges System and a rebuke from advocates, including the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“Many Vermonters don’t want their local institutions involved with ICE and Border Patrol, for good reason,” ACLU-VT executive director James Lyall said in a statement. “These are agencies that operate as paramilitary organizations, ignore legal limits on their authority, and display profound contempt for human rights. To say that ICE’s mission and culture are incompatible with Vermont values would be a gross understatement, and people are right to question why Vermont State Colleges would have anything to do with such a lawless and abusive agency.”
Administrators, however, are defending the services provided to the agency as precisely in line with Vermont Tech’s goal to stimulate workforce development in the state.
For two financial accounting courses and two leadership trainings given to ICE employees, the school received a total of $46,940 from the agency during the last fiscal year, according to VTC spokesperson Amanda Chaulk.
The Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, contracted the school for leadership trainings for supervisors and non-supervisors, which were delivered over the course of five weeks, according to school officials. The financial accounting contract included a college-level credit course in each of the fall and spring semesters of the 2017-18 academic year for the financial operations of the DHS Burlington unit.
The school has worked with ICE on multiple occasions before, with contracts dating back to 2007, according to a federal procurement database. Chaulk said the financial accounting course had been offered to ICE employees in years prior, but the total amount paid out to VTC by ICE over the years wasn’t immediately available.
She added that the school does not endorse the policy of separating families at the border “in any way.”
“This is a clear contradiction to the values of the [Vermont State Colleges system],” she said.
The school hasn’t been asked to offer any additional trainings and isn’t currently bidding on any contracts with the agency, she said. But she also wouldn’t rule out the school accepting contracts with ICE in the future.
“We seek to provide education where we have expertise, as in these examples of leadership and financial best practices. We would not provide training for areas outside of our expertise or that furthered any policies that contradict our values,” she said.
Jeb Spaulding, the chancellor of the Vermont State Colleges, which includes Vermont Tech, also sought to distance the college from the president’s policies while also defending their work with the agency.
“The small contract Vermont Tech had with DHS-Immigration and Customs Enforcement in no way was linked to policies coming out of Washington. Neither the college nor the individuals receiving education and training are responsible for those policies. However, the assistance provided to the individuals, supported by the contract, improved their economic prospects and Vermont’s economy. That is Vermont Tech’s mission,” he said.
ICE isn’t in charge of enforcing the Trump administration’s controversial policy of separating families at the border – that task has gone to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is also housed within DHS. But ICE, which arrests, detains and deports unauthorized immigrants, has become a lighting rod for opposition to Trump’s immigration crackdown. Calls to abolish the agency have even made the jump from progressive groups to certain mainstream Democrats, including potential 2020 presidential contender Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
Mackenzie Murdoch is rising sophomore at Northern Vermont University, which is part of the Vermont State Colleges system. She started an online petition calling for the VSC to cut all ties with ICE, or to remove mentions of inclusion and diversity from its schools’ mission statements.
“ICE and similar organizations have shown themselves to be an immoral and racist programs at an institutional level, and if Vermont State Colleges want to establish connections with those morals, they must truthfully reflect that in mission statements to incoming students,” her petition on Action Network states.
She’s been corresponding with administrators in the VSC’s chancellor’s office and at VTC while home in New Hampshire for the summer, and she hopes to set up a meeting when she gets back. But she wants to be clear that taking any money from the agency is a tacit endorsement of their activities.
“I think if you provide training to any aspect of that group it is in hand supporting what else they’re doing. And I don’t think that’s right,” she said.
VTC isn’t the only Vermont institution to have done business with ICE. At least a dozen private businesses have over years, as well as the University of Vermont, according to a government database. UVM appears to have signed just one contract with the agency, back in 2006.
The $9,900 deal was “for instruction and training that would allow ICE personnel to more effectively respond to audit requests,” according to ICE spokesperson Matthew Bourke.
