Ivan Varela of Woodstock is an immigration justice advocate, unaffiliated with any formal immigration advocacy groups.
Americans are ready for comprehensive immigration reform, but Congress is not. After the Biden administration announced legislation last week that would grant automatic green cards to DACA recipients and improve the efficiency of the naturalization process, congressional Democrats have described the task before them as “herculean.”
These policies, if enacted, would be life-changing for immigrants like myself. But the road to a just immigration system is a long one, and this first step may end up being a nonstarter.
Instead of waiting for the gridlock to break in D.C., Vermont should blaze its own path toward immigration reform. While the federal government is primarily responsible for setting national immigration policies, there are plenty of actions that state policymakers and local communities can take to make Vermont a more welcoming place for immigrants.
Vermonters have the opportunity to lead the nation on this issue by amending their laws to be more inclusive of the 30,000 immigrants who have made the Green Mountain State their home.
Vermont is already heading in the right direction. Policymakers in both political parties have made concerted efforts to support Vermont’s immigrants in recent years. A law limiting police participation in federal immigration enforcement efforts passed with substantial bipartisan support, including every Republican senator. Last summer, Gov. Scott offered $2 million from the state’s coffers to make sure that undocumented residents who were excluded from the CARES Act still received financial assistance. His stance was clear: An undocumented immigrant who pays taxes and contributes to Vermont’s economy deserves the same amount of support as any other resident.
Actions taken by residents at the local level echo Gov. Scott’s general sentiment toward immigrant Vermonters. Just a few months ago, voters in Winooski amended their city charter to allow noncitizen residents to vote in local elections. Voters in Montpelier supported a similar measure by a two-to-one ratio in 2019. The Legislature, however, is required to approve these changes and so far has not made them priorities.
Allowing noncitizen residents to vote in town meetings and school board elections sends a clear message of inclusivity to noncitizen Vermonters who simply want a voice in their local economies and schools. Moreover, many of the reasons that people are skeptical of expanding suffrage — such as education level and language ability — are not major issues among Vermont’s immigrant population. Seventy-two percent of noncitizen Vermont residents have a college degree or some college, outpacing even native Vermonters, and 92 percent speak English proficiently. Citizens would still have overwhelming control of local politics, since less than 2 percent of Vermonters are noncitizens.
Previous generations of Americans were more willing to include noncitizens in elections than we are today. Every state in the Northeast, and nearly every state in the country, has previously allowed noncitizen residents to participate in their elections for local and state offices. Twelve states have allowed noncitizen voting within the last hundred years.
Nowadays, federal law bars noncitizen participation in presidential and congressional elections, but it does allow states to decide whether noncitizens can vote in state and local elections. No states currently allow noncitizen voting, but a handful of municipalities do welcome immigrant participation in local and school board elections, such as San Francisco, Chicago, and 10 towns in Maryland.
Vermont might not be ready to allow noncitizens to participate in statewide elections, but Winooski and Montpelier’s like-minded charter amendments are proof that some communities are open to local participation.
State legislators should stop ignoring the issue and allow localities to self-determine their policy on noncitizen voting. The best way for the Legislature to do that is to get itself out of the way of local decision-making by adopting a bill that exempts changes in town charters involving local voter eligibility from the General Assembly’s approval process.
Streamlining the process for towns to allow noncitizens to participate in local elections is an easy way for legislators to show their commitment to immigration reform without forcing changes in communities that are not yet ready for them. Such a principled compromise is not possible in Washington. So, our representatives in Montpelier need to show us that, in the absence of national leadership, we can count on Vermonters to deliver justice for immigrants.
