An Open Letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers of Vermont:

People fill a committee room on Thursday, April 18, 2013 in Montpelier, Vt. A Vermont House committee is hearing testimony on a bill that would allow farmworkers in the country illegally to become drivers. Last week, the Senate gave final approval for a bill to create driver privilege cards for people not eligible to get an enhanced driver’s license under the federal REAL ID law. The measure is expected to extend driving privileges to 1,200 to 1,500 immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Guatemala and mostly working on Vermont dairy farms who are in the United States without the legally required immigration papers.(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

I am writing to you over concerns I have about the arrests of Enrique Balcazar, Zully Palacios and Alex Carillo.

First I wish to make clear that I understand these arrests were legal, and secondly that I understand you are officers of the federal government because you want to serve the United States and protect its citizens. I appreciate both of those things, especially your willingness to be of service, and this letter is not meant to criticize those. I am happy about them, not concerned.

The concern I have, though, is with why Enrique, Zully and Alex were arrested. The facts I’m aware of are these:

• First, dairy farming accounts for 80 percent of Vermont farms, many of the around 1,500 migrant workers in Vermont are employed by them, and that there are no work visas for year round employment. Dairy farming has thus become dependent upon undocumented workers (Middlebury College Environmental Studies Program, Fall 2016). Because of this, I doubt your office will want to conduct detentions and deportations of significant numbers. It’s possible the federal government is unconcerned about disrupting Vermont’s economy, but I doubt it.

• Second, the people arrested posed no significant danger to any U.S. citizen, and in fact, in typical free market fashion, they were benefitting the U.S. economy and themselves.

• And third, the people arrested were outspoken. Sadly, these points force me to conclude that Enrique, Zully and Alex were arrested to suppress their free speech.

It is a truth that the vast majority of even the most visible and worst oppression in our country was perfectly legal at the time, e.g. displacement of Native Americans; slavery and the capture and return of fugitive slaves; the internment of U.S. citizens of Japanese ethnicity during World War II, etc. And so it goes around the globe.

Arresting a few people in Vermont to suppress their free speech is not nearly the magnitude (except to their families) of the above, but it is to set your foot on the same slippery slope. It is the trickle over the dam top that left unchecked washes away the dam.

I know that you did not join ICE with the goal of suppressing free speech, but you have most likely just done so, and like all of us whose actions affect others you need to consider that. History teaches that legality and orders are not protections against doing the wrong thing, and along with those arrested it is your own well-being, your own estimation of yourself, that is at stake here.

If you have read this far I appreciate your doing so, but words from a stranger can only go so far, and no doubt there is more to the story than I can be aware of by myself. If you wish I would be glad to meet with any of you in person so that we have an opportunity to know each other, and so we can talk in person about the above. As you might be able to tell I did not initially intend to do this publicly, but unfortunately after spending some time on the relevant websites, it became clear to me I was not going to find a way to send this letter to those directly in charge of the operations, hence the open letter.

Cc Timothy Moynihan, Associate Director, Office of Professional Responsibility, ICE and to the Director, Boston Field Office for ICE

This commentary is by Stuart Graves, of South Burlington, who is a retired physician.