Two weeks ago, a daylong standoff with Immigration and Customs Enforcement ended with federal agents removing three people from a South Burlington home and a series of violent clashes between law enforcement and people who sought to impede the arrest.
Since the March 11 incident, all three people detained have been released from custody. Meanwhile, state and local officials have grilled police over their involvement in the immigration enforcement action and their treatment of people at the scene.
Here’s what’s happened over the past two weeks:
What happened to the three people ICE detained during the raid?
Federal judges have granted the release of all the people ICE detained on March 11. None of them were named on the criminal warrant that ICE agents obtained to enter the house on Dorset Street.
Immigration agents arrested two Ecuadorian women, Johana and Camila Patin Patin, and Christian Jerez Andrade, a Honduran man, during the raid.
Johana Patin Patin has a pending asylum claim. Camila Patin Patin hasn’t filed an asylum claim yet but is working on it. The federal judge that ordered Johana Patin Patin’s release said in his ruling that her detention was a violation of her constitutional rights.
Jerez Andrade's release was complicated by a 2021 conviction for domestic abuse and records of arrest warrants out of Louisiana and Florida. Initially a federal judge in Burlington declined to release Jerez Andrade and ordered a bond hearing at immigration court in Massachusetts. An immigration judge then ordered his release on a $10,000 bond. Jerez Andrade still faces deportation proceedings as a result of his arrest by ICE.
So what happened to the man who was the target of the raid?
He’s still at large. Beyond that, authorities have provided little information about 24-year-old Deyvi Daniel Corona-Sanchez of Mexico.
On March 11, ICE attempted to detain a man they believed was Corona-Sanchez, who they say illegally reentered the country. They tried to arrest the man, but the man fled in a car, causing a multi-vehicle crash, authorities say. The man then left the car and fled into a house on Dorset Street.
Corona-Sanchez got on ICE’s radar after he was arrested on a drunk driving charge earlier this year in Middlebury. According to court records, ICE got an alert from an “immigration criminal alien program database” that is typically triggered by fingerprint analysis. The program matched fingerprints from Corona-Sanchez’s arrest in Middlebury and his 2022 encounter with federal agents in Texas.
Do we know if Corona-Sanchez was driving that car or ever in the house on Dorset Street?
As it turns out, he apparently wasn’t there. Corona-Sanchez didn’t drive the car that was involved in the multi-vehicle collision on March 11, nor was he in the South Burlington home that agents raided.
According to a recently filed ICE affidavit, Jerez Andrade told the FBI that he was driving the Toyota Camry on March 11 and there was an 18-year-old passenger in the vehicle.
Not only was he not driving, but Corona-Sanchez was not in the home on Dorset Street when agents executed the warrant, the affidavit says.
Jerez Andrade’s attorney didn’t dispute his client’s statements to the FBI, but said Jerez Andrade disputes ICE’s account of the alleged car chase. Federal authorities have so far not charged Jerez Andrade with a crime related to the alleged car chase.
What happened to the protesters who were arrested at the scene?
Their cases are moving much more slowly. The three people who were arrested and cited by state police don’t have arraignments scheduled until April 23.
Do we know exactly what they are accused of doing?
No, authorities have not released that specific information. If Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George prosecutes the case, the affidavits of probable cause will become public at the arraignments and provide more details.
But generally, at the scene that night, protesters circled the house in an attempt to impede the federal agents. They refused to leave when ICE got a warrant and issued a dispersal order. Vermont State Police pushed protesters away from the door to allow ICE to enter the house. After ICE left the house with the three people they detained, violent clashes broke out between police and protesters in the street. In some cases, officers wrestled people to the ground. Law enforcement officials say people threw objects and spat at police. Federal officers eventually used flashbangs and chemical irritants to clear the crowd.
There are some reports of activists being injured, including one woman who said she was concussed when an officer threw her to the ground, according to Seven Days.
Vermont State Police said one trooper suffered an eye injury when protesters broke the window of a police van leaving the scene.
Vermont law enforcement officials have maintained that their objective was to protect protesters and allow ICE to execute the court-issued warrant.
What’s the fallout been for state and local police who responded to the scene?
The heads of the South Burlington Police, Burlington Police and Vermont State Police have appeared before city councils and state lawmakers and defended their officers’ actions.
Local police have continued to distance themselves from ICE and criticized the planning and tactics of the federal agency, but they also have laid the blame for the chaotic scene on some activists there who, police say, intentionally stoked the conflict.
But critics say Vermont police are the ones who escalated the situation two weeks ago, not protesters. Activists have also said Vermont police helped facilitate the unlawful arrests of three immigrants, which activists say violates the state’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy. That directive prohibits local law enforcement from aiding in civil immigration enforcement actions.
The policy allows Vermont police to enforce criminal immigration law, but it says agencies shouldn’t prioritize that work. It also bars Vermont police from facilitating the detention of people, unless the actions are "necessary to ensure public safety or officer safety.”
Vermont law enforcement officials have said their actions didn’t violate the policy and that ICE didn’t communicate to them that the target of the enforcement action wasn’t in the house.
Are there any formal investigations of law enforcement underway?
So far there’s only one investigation into a local officer’s use of force. Burlington Police are currently conducting a use-of-force review into an officer accused of using excessive force against a protester. Vermont State Police and South Burlington Police have not opened internal affairs investigations related to the incident, officials said last week.
The House and Senate Judiciary committees will hold a hearing on March 31 at the Statehouse to hear from people who attended the protest.
There were a few other local law enforcement agencies on scene. What did they do?
Williston Police, the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Department of Motor Vehicles all had officers on scene during the incident. But they appeared to have played a smaller role and didn’t directly interact with protesters.
Williston Police officers provided assistance for traffic control and didn’t have any officers assigned to “crowd management, protest oversight of enforcement activities,” the department said in a press release.
Eight DMV inspectors also were assigned to traffic control duties, the agency said in an email this week. The Department of Fish and Wildlife said this week it had five wardens at the scene who helped with traffic control.
