Federal agents arrested eight migrant workers on Vermont’s largest dairy farm Monday in what advocates are calling one of the state’s largest worksite enforcement actions in recent memory.
The arrests, which occurred at the Pleasant Valley Farms in Berkshire, were not the result of a pre-planned, targeted raid, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. Rather, the feds say they were responding to a tip that two people were seen leaving a wooded area a couple miles south of the U.S. border carrying backpacks. Those people then reportedly crossed a cornfield and onto the private farmland, Border Patrol said. That’s where one was arrested and the other fled.
It was during the search for that second person that Border Patrol says it apprehended “additional individuals determined to be illegally present in the United States.” Those people were farmworkers ranging in age from 22 to 41, according to advocacy group Migrant Justice.
The workers are now being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton, Migrant Justice said.
“All have friends and family members in Vermont who are concerned for their safety and well-being,” read a statement from the group.
Pleasant Valley, a 10,000-acre dairy farm with 3,000-plus cows, is owned by Mark and Amanda St. Pierre. Their son Jamie is part of the team that helps manage it alongside his wife, olympic runner Elle St. Pierre.
In an email to Seven Days, Amanda St. Pierre said the farm was complying with immigration authorities but had not been told why its workers were detained.
“Our employees were hired following the federal and state employment requirements,” she wrote. “We remain supportive of our employees and appreciative of the valuable role they play in our community performing essential work on our farm. We hope this matter is resolved quickly. ”
Gov. Phil Scott said in a statement that he was notified about the raid Tuesday morning and was working to learn more about what happened.
He called on Congress and President Donald Trump to pass immigration reform that would make it easier for “law abiding, hardworking” people to earn a living in Vermont rather than be “forced to live in the shadows.”
“I have long been clear: migrant workers are an essential part of our communities,” Scott said in a written statement. “They are our neighbors and friends, have kids in our schools, shop at our businesses, and play an important role in our economy and workforce.”
Indeed, Vermont has upward of 850 year-round migrant farmworkers who comprise an “essential” part of the state’s dairy workforce, said Anson Tebbetts, Secretary of Agriculture, Food and Markets.
Border Patrol’s description of what led to Monday’s arrests bears a similarity to the circumstances cited when a mother and her three children were detained at an Upstate New York farm last month.
During that incident, immigration agents arrived at the farm to arrest a South African man accused of distributing images of child sexual abuse, according to media reports. The man was arrested, along with seven other people deemed to be in the U.S. illegally, Thomas D. Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar,” told a local TV station.
“It wasn’t a raid,” stressed Homan, a North Country native who has vowed to support dairy farms amid Trump’s promise of mass deportations. “It was a search warrant execution at a house where a family was found in the country illegally.”
Assurances that the Vermont sweep was also not planned ahead of time will do little to assuage Migrant Justice advocates.
“What happened last night was an injustice,” said Cristian Santos, a member of the group’s Farmworker Coordinating Committee, in a statement. “We demand freedom for our fellow community members and won’t rest until they are free.”