This story by Ryan Pacheco was first published in the Bennington Banner on Aug. 8, 2026.
LONDONDERRY — Concerned citizens and community members packed a meeting room at Neighborhood Connections in Londonderry on Saturday, Aug. 8 to discuss recent immigration enforcement operations that resulted in five Ecuadorian individuals being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement a day prior. The community conversation was hosted by Neighborhood Connections, and organized in the immediate aftermath of the detention by concerned state legislators and immigrant justice advocates.
Community members had the chance to hear from, and ask questions to Rep. Chris Morrow, D-Weston, and Migrant Justice member Will Lambek. The conversation was guided and moderated by Jon Bliss.
The dialogue opened with a synopsis of recent events, intended to deter false information and rumor mills from blooming in the aftermath of the ICE raid. Five Ecuadorian immigrants were arrested by ICE during a traffic stop near Taylor Farm. Despite proximity to the farm and rumors that had begun to circulate, Taylor Farm was confirmed to not be the employer of the detained individuals. Vermont News & Media was able to independently verify that Taylor Farm has no connection to the five individuals detained by ICE.
The detained individuals had been allowed to enter the country while awaiting the results of their pending asylum cases, and are being held at an ICE contracted detention facility in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. According to Lambek, detaining migrants regardless of permission to enter the U.S. has become commonplace.
“They came to the Southern Border, were allowed entry with a pending asylum application, and are all currently in court proceedings. This is a common practice right now where, despite people having been allowed to come into the country with asylum claims, (ICE and Customs and Border Patrol) are detaining them anyway, even without any change in their circumstances,” said Lambek.
Migrant Justice has established contact with some of the detained individuals’ families, and is working on contacting the rest. According to Lambek, all five have had money deposited into their commissary accounts to facilitate making phone calls to family members and support systems.
Migrant Justice encouraged attendees and the community-at-large to sign up for their ‘Rapid Response Network’, a volunteer initiative that provides community members with the tools and training to safely and legally respond to the presence of ICE in their community. Attendees were passed a sign-up sheet, as well as pamphlets describing their “ALERTA” approach to reporting ICE interactions.
ALERTA is an acronym, standing for activity, location, equipment, request aid, time and date, and appearance. The ALERTA approach encourages concerned citizens to report ICE by making reports to Migrant Justice’s emergency hotline that includes details such as what is happening (A), where it is happening (L), what tools the officers are using (E), what are the requested action steps (R), when it happened (T) and what the officers looked like (A).
Migrant Justice directed concerned citizens to view a selection of resources, including guides to constitutional rights and instructions for navigating ICE encounters, which are available on their website. Spanish language translations are available, according to Lambek.
During the question-and-answer portion of the meeting, a community member raised a question about involved agencies. While Vermont News & Media can confirm that the Vermont State Police had no involvement in the Aug. 7 incident, video footage obtained by a concerned citizen showed ICE agents, many of which were wearing masks, wearing tactical vests with identifiers such as “ERO” and “POLICE.” ERO is a common ICE acronym, standing for “Enforcement and Removal Operations.” Loose regulations on ICE duty attire have been criticized in recent years.
According to Morrow, Vermont has made attempts to limit ICE practices that have been described as non-transparent.
“Here are some things we tried to do last session, since this has been an on-going issue. We had a bill through the legal committee to outlaw masks, and mandate badge-wearing in Vermont for any public safety or law enforcement official. While that was happening, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in California had said it was unconstitutional for a similar law in a different state. There was a big debate about whether or not we should go forward and do it anyway in the Legislature, and see what happens in the Ninth Circuit around here. I was in favor of that, but the bill did not pass,” said Morrow.
“What we did manage to pass was a bill that just applies to state law enforcement. That is useful, but not really helpful here. We did manage to pass Act 150, which was signed into law in June, that prohibits civil arrests in designated sensitive locations, and ensures public access to essential services without fear of detention,” added Morrow.
Morrow said that Act 150 applies to immigration arrests, but not to criminal arrests.
The community conversation has drawn criticism from supporters of the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, who have taken to social media to publicly decry Neighborhood Connections’ willingness to host the conversation. According to Executive Director Thom Simmons, the backlash has been disappointing, but ultimately un-deterring to the organization’s primary function: helping people.
“We work with people. It does not matter what problems people bring to us, whether it is addiction, being un-housed, emotional-mental, or cognitive health status, or immigration status. We work with people who are in our local area. We are not aware who (the five detained individuals) are, we have not worked with them. We are aware that they may have family in the area who may be in need of food, counseling or transportation. We are more aware of community members who are living in fear, and have cancelled important things like doctors appointments out of fear. We want to be here for them to provide counseling, and whatever support they need,” said Simmons.
“On social media, people have made up this narrative that we are helping people be illegal. We are not. We are helping people indiscriminately, the way we have for 17 years,” added Simmons.
Community member Robert Montuoro attended the meeting and said that he cannot imagine his community without the positive impact of the local immigrant community members.
“I moved to Vermont 25 years ago. I own a lot of restaurants, and that was always my dream. Over the years, these people have become some of my closest friends. I would not be able to survive without them, and not be able to live my dream if it were not for the people that came to this country to live their dream,” said Montuoro.
