U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested at least nine people across Vermont last weekend in three separate operations — including arrests of workers heading to or from job sites — a pattern that advocates say points to more federal agents than usual operating in the state.
“The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised. Anyone who has been deported received full due process,” the agency’s field office spokesperson wrote in a statement to VTDigger.
The weekend’s arrests stand out not only for their total number but for their form: workplace and commuting arrests of groups, which immigration attorneys describe as rare in Vermont and a possible marker of racial profiling. They come amid months of heightened enforcement in the state — most visibly the March 11 Dorset Street raid in South Burlington — and against a backdrop that advocates say obscures the full scope of activity, because Vermont has no centralized system to track ICE arrests and detentions.
On Aug. 7, five construction workers were arrested in Londonderry and one person in White River Junction. A raid in Cornwall on Aug. 8 led to additional arrests of two roof repairmen, according to Will Lambek of the immigrant advocacy group Migrant Justice.
An ICE spokesperson did not confirm the specific operations or how many people were arrested, stating that ICE Boston “routinely” conducts raids across New England, including in Vermont.
Lambek also provided details on at least one additional arrest in the Upper Valley in Vermont, but did not have full information on the location or identity. Three people allegedly were detained by ICE in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, according to Upper Valley Immigration Solidarity, a local volunteer group.
ICE operations have drawn heightened scrutiny in recent months.
Recently, the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont filed federal claims, a required precursor to lawsuits, against ICE stemming from the March 11 operation, alleging constitutional violations against the people detained when their home was raided.
“Though less visible than the high-profile raids ICE conducted earlier in the year, the fact is that ICE and Border Patrol have continued to target our neighbors and tear apart our communities with almost no meaningful oversight or accountability,” Vermont ACLU Executive Director James Duff Lyall wrote in a statement to VTDigger.
Some observers, however, don’t agree that operations have increased. Based on intakes of people who have contacted the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project for legal help with ICE detentions, Executive Director Jill Martin Diaz said the arrests over the weekend were not an especially strong indication of an increased ICE presence in the state.
“What we don’t see so often are workplace arrests where there are groups of people arrested at once,” she said. “That’s a little bit of an anomaly.”
Diaz called the ICE arrests, particularly the ones that occurred in the workplace, “opportunistic,” saying detentions tend to ensue when racial profiling is involved.
“Structurally there’s lots of requests for help for detentions that come our way that don’t get publicized,” she added.
Recent ICE arrests
The White River Junction arrest was allegedly of a Haitian man who had previously entered into a national parole program in Manchester, before he was relocated to the town in 2025, the executive director of the organization Grace Initiative Global, Yvonne Lodico, told VTDigger in an email.
Lt. William Furnari of the Hartford Police Department said he was unaware of any ICE arrests in White River Junction.
ICE agents came to the Haitian man’s door at 7 a.m., according to Lodico, who said the man has employment authorization and an asylum application under review. He was moved several times while in detention before landing in New Hampshire on Friday, Lodico said.
His wife, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told VTDigger in an interview that she had driven to where her husband was taken, but when she asked ICE agents where they were taking him, one of them pulled his gun out and pointed it at her while she was in her car.
The ICE action was one of at least two in Vermont that day. Agents also arrested five people in a Londonderry operation.
Windham County Sheriff Mark Anderson told VTDigger on Aug. 7 that none of his officers were in Londonderry at the time of the ICE raid.
“People who know my agency know what our feelings are towards how we deal with civil immigration enforcement, which is we don’t,” he said.
Anderson said the Windham County Sheriff’s Department adheres to the state’s mandated Fair and Impartial Policing Policy, which limits how local and state police can assist in federal immigration enforcement.
“When we are dealing with the civil immigration enforcement side of things, it destroys trust, and so then we are actually hurting public safety just as a matter of consequence of civil immigration,” he added.
The Addison County Sheriff’s Department did not immediately respond to a message left Friday morning asking for comment on the ICE arrests that occurred Aug. 8.
Diaz, of the Vermont Asylum Assistance Project, said Vermont’s lack of an intake system to track ICE arrests and detentions has caused many to go unnoticed since immigration enforcement efforts have intensified under the Trump administration.
“There isn’t a centralized intake system. There isn’t reliable data,” she said. “In the public discourse, we only ever have access to half the story of what’s going on with ICE enforcement in Vermont, and it cuts both ways.”
