A Vermont migrant farmworker, one of nine who were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in April, has been released on bond, while two others had their bond denied during hearings on Thursday.
Jose Edilberto Molina-Aguilar’s $10,000 bond will be paid by Vermont Freedom Fund, an independent nonprofit that Migrant Justice helped set up during the first Trump administration, according to Will Lambek, a spokesperson at Migrant Justice, an advocacy organization for migrant rights.
Meanwhile, Meredith Tyrakoski, a judge in San Antonio Immigration Court, denied bond motions for both Jesus Mendez Hernandez and Adrian Zunun-Joachin, according to Lambek.
All three are being held at the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas.
Diblaim Maximo Sargento-Morales — who was also detained last month while working for Vermont’s largest dairy — was released on bond from the same processing center a week ago. He arrived at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport over the weekend in an orange T-shirt and camouflage pants.
“Thank you for all the support you’ve shown me and my coworkers,” Sargento-Morales told a group of supporters in Spanish, according to a social media post by Migrant Justice. Sargento-Morales’ bond was set at $1,500, the lowest amount possible by law.
Four of the detained farmworkers — Juan Javier Rodriguez-Gomez, Luis Enrique Gomez Aguilar, Urillas Sargento and Dani Alvarez-Perez — have already been deported to Mexico by ICE without a hearing or an opportunity to request asylum. They were deported from a facility in Louisiana under “expedited removal” procedures, according to Brett Stokes, their attorney at the Center for Justice Reform at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.
In the past, that authority has only applied to people seeking entry through a checkpoint or found crossing the border, but under the second Trump administration, it’s been used for people who currently live in the U.S. and don’t fall within the typical scope of that deportation process.
Such removals are almost impossible to challenge, according to Stokes.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained eight farmworkers on April 21. They were working on Pleasant Valley Farms, a dairy in northern Vermont, just a few miles from the Canadian border. The detainment has been described by advocates as the largest single immigration arrest of farmworkers in recent Vermont history.
Arbey Lopez-Lopez, who was employed at Pleasant Valley Farms for at least five years according to his attorney, was arrested almost two weeks earlier at an intersection patrolled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents. He was held in immigration detention for 42 days, primarily at FCI Berlin, a federal prison in New Hampshire, before he was released on a $3,000 bond by an immigration judge on Monday.
He was transferred to New England’s Immigration and Customs and Enforcement headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, on Thursday, where advocates from Migrant Justice drove to pick him up.
“I presented to the judge that if this guy isn’t released, his 5-year-old child is going to become destitute because his housing is tied up with his employment,” Lopez-Lopez’s attorney Enrique Mesa said on Thursday.
Mesa said he plans to help Lopez-Lopez apply for a work permit, and he’ll ask U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services to cancel his removal proceedings, arguing that he is the sole financial support for his daughter.
Like the other eight migrant workers, Lopez-Lopez is originally from Mexico. He has lived in Vermont since 2006. The government opted to close previous removal proceedings for Lopez-Lopez in 2018, said Mesa, adding: “It really has me scratching my head on why the government decided to detain him again.”
Mesa said it was apparent at the bond hearing on Monday that Border Patrol officers “were stalking immigrants at a certain intersection.” As a member of Migrant Justice, Mesa said Lopez-Lopez knew his rights, but patrol agents told him he had an order of deportation and threatened to break down the window of his vehicle if he didn’t comply and go with them. Lopez-Lopez then left the vehicle and was detained, according to Mesa. He had gone to pick up groceries which he was delivering back to his co-workers at the farm.
“I find it very irritating that people can’t practice their normal routines and their normal lives without thinking ICE is going to be there harassing them,” Mesa said. “I understand them going after criminals but this guy (Lopez-Lopez) was going to get his groceries.”
