Vermont State Police arrested 11 people and cited two others on trespassing charges Monday after the group declined to leave a Williston building that houses an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.
All 13, whose ages range from 21 to 85, are scheduled to be arraigned on criminal trespassing charges in Chittenden County criminal court on March 2, state police said in a press release.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George declined to comment Tuesday.
According to organizers, roughly 25 protesters gathered Monday afternoon inside an office building that houses ICE’s National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, a facility that performs intelligence gathering for immigration agents in the field. The Trump administration last year planned to hire more workers for the center to expand social media surveillance, Wired reported.
The protesters demanded that the building’s landlord cancel ICE’s lease. They sat in front of the offices singing and speaking about some of the people killed by ICE in recent weeks, organizers said in a press release.
The group refused to leave when asked by the property manager, who then called police. Williston police initially came by, but didn’t take any action, according to Julie Macuga, a community organizer at the protest.
Macuga, who was not arrested Monday, said Vermont State Police eventually arrived at the office and told protesters they’d be arrested if they didn’t leave the building. Some people left, but 13 remained inside.
State police, in their press release, said they encouraged the group to leave, informed them they were trespassing and only started making arrests after people refused to follow a dispersal order.
In their statement, state police said that while they respect the rights of people to protest, private building owners also have the right to restrict people from their property.
This particular ICE office building, one of two in Williston, has increasingly been at the center of protests over federal immigration enforcement, VTDigger reported. In late January, protesters also staged a similar sit-in at the office, but were not arrested, organizers said in a press release.
“We just wanted to show what people are able to do,” Macuga said on Tuesday. “It often feels like we're a little bit powerless, but I think we're slowly making progress on this, and we're going to keep going until ICE is out of Williston.”
