Dozens of Vermonters rallied and raised a ruckus this morning to protest the planned expansion of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Williston.
“Today we are sounding the alarm on ICE,” said April Fisher, one of the speakers at the protest. “ICE abducts a person in the so-called U.S. every minute and a half, which amounts to 965 kidnappings every day. So we are sounding our car alarms every minute and a half to sound the alarm on the national emergency that is ICE.”
For much of the protest, car alarms periodically echoed throughout the parking lot surrounding the White Cap Business Park at 426 Industrial Avenue. ICE leases office space in that location, as well as in another building a few miles away at 188 Harvest Lane. Both sites have been subject to protests in recent years. The Harvest Lane location was the destination of a large May Day march earlier this year.
ICE has been on a hiring spree in Vermont. In October, ICE announced it was looking to fill 100 additional call center positions in its Harvest Lane office, offering up to $50,000 in signing bonuses. Call center workers operate ICE’s national tipline: every call ICE receives on its tipline is routed to that location. Records that month also revealed a plan for ICE to hire a dozen contractors at the Industrial Ave office to scour social media to find people for ICE to kidnap and deport.
The social media surveillance work is part of ICE’s National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, but Fisher rejects the idea that its purpose is to target criminals. “Undocumented immigrants in the so-called U.S. have a 41% lower criminal conviction rate. U.S. citizens are twice as likely as undocumented immigrants to be arrested for a violent crime and four times more likely to be arrested for property crime,” Fisher said. “So if they want to fight crime, why are they going after undocumented immigrants? Only one reason: racism.”
Rally participant Julie Macuga said, “People don’t really seem to be fully aware that Williston is sort of a nerve center for a lot of ICE’s activities nationally.” Macuga pointed to not just the ICE offices in Williston and St. Albans, but to state prisons like Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility and Northwest State Correctional Facility, where ICE often holds its detainees. The Department of Homeland Security has a contract to pay the Vermont Department of Corrections for each ICE detainee it houses in those facilities. Vermont Governor Phil Scott renewed that contract in September. Unlike the previous contract, the current one has no expiration date.
“We oppose the disappearance of human beings, and we oppose that they’re disappearing without their constitutional rights. We oppose that they’re breaking up families,” said Sherri Wormser, who also spoke to the assembled crowd.
Participants called on ICE employees to quit their jobs, for the landlords of ICE offices to end their leases, and for local businesses to stop working with ICE.
ICE Gained Power Long Before Trump
The U.S. and Vermont flags outside the ICE offices were raised at half mast today, in observance of the passing of former Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney and the rest of the George W. Bush Administration were architects of ICE, which was established in March 2003 as part of the new Department of Homeland Security.
As The Rake reported last year, ICE’s enforcement actions and deportations have always been a bipartisan affair. President Barack Obama used ICE to deport a record 2.4 million undocumented immigrants. In President Donald Trump’s first administration, ICE deportations ramped up, but it was under the Biden Administration that they reached new record heights in 2023 and 2024.
Exact deportation numbers have been more difficult to obtain since mid-2024, but according to TRAC Reports, monthly ICE arrest numbers have jumped considerably since Trump took office again. ICE arrests averaged 37,494 per month in 2024 and are averaging 51,130 per month in 2025 so far. And as seen in Vermont and across the country, the increased arrests are accompanied by much more publicly intimidating ICE presence, with agents frequently operating in plainclothes and face masks while executing violent and sudden sting-style arrest actions.
ICE shows no signs of letting up, but neither do the Vermonters who oppose it. A larger rally at White Cap Business Park, co-sponsored by local branches of 50501 and Indivisible, is planned for Wednesday, December 10 at 5:00pm.
Patrick is a writer and organizer based in northern Vermont. He is on the editorial collective for The Rake Vermont.
