GUILDHALL, Vt. (WCAX) – The Essex County sheriff is suing Vermont’s Criminal Justice Council over whether state policy breaks federal law.
It comes as Gov. Phil Scott recently pushed back on the Trump administration, saying that Vermont is not a sanctuary state.
Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy aims to curb bias in policing and limit local police involvement in immigration enforcement.
But for Sheriff Trevor Colby, it’s also raising questions about whether the policy is making Vermont a de facto sanctuary state.
In Essex County, the sheriff and four full-time deputies cover 17 towns, hundreds of miles of road and thousands of acres straddling between Canada and New Hampshire.
Sheriff Colby says the community’s public safety mosaic includes federal border patrol, which at times is the first to respond to a scene.
“Because there is a lack of law enforcement in the northern part of our area,” Colby said.
The sheriff is raising questions about whether Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy makes it illegal for him to work with federal agents, and whether that prohibition is a violation of federal law.
WCAX News obtained internal emails through a public records request, revealing a yearslong struggle between Colby and the statewide Criminal Justice Council on how to enforce the fair and impartial policing policy.
Colby contends the state’s model policy ties his hands from enforcing crimes in border communities.
“The way that the policy is written is an attempt to limit us from doing border enforcement from preventing people from coming into the country illegally,” Colby said.
The state’s policy says Colby cannot enforce federal civil immigration law, but Colby says policing around the border involves enforcing criminal law when reporting suspicious activity to the Border Patrol.
“Any person who crosses through a checkpoint and doesn’t identify who they are or what they’ve brought across, that’s a public safety risk,” the sheriff said.
The Criminal Justice Council and Gov. Phil Scott contend immigration enforcement is a civil issue, and Colby doesn’t need to ask for the immigration status of people he encounters to enforce criminal law.
“The fair and impartial policing policy has always tried to follow that common sense gut check for Vermonters,” said Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden County.
The Senate majority leader says the state’s policy threads the needle and doesn’t prohibit the feds from enforcing the border, nor does it prevent state and local cops from assisting federal agents in criminal cases, just not immigration enforcement.
“The question of their citizenship status does not help local or state law enforcement do anything that would be different than their normal course of business,” Ram Hinsdale said.
But with Sheriff Colby and the council still at odds, Colby says the only way forward is to settle it in court, and he will soon file a lawsuit complaining that Vermont is a so-called sanctuary state.
“But if our consistent behaviors and actions match that, how do you argue it?” he said.
The Criminal Justice Council is collecting feedback on the current version of the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy, and has a public hearing scheduled for Sept. 8.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, Governor Scott said we haven’t received a response from the Trump administration yet over our denial of being a sanctuary state.
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