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The Vermont Conversation with David GoodmanAuthor: VTDigger
The Vermont Conversation is a VTDigger podcast hosted by award-winning journalist David Goodman. It features in-depth interviews about local and national topics with politicians, activists, artists, changemakers and ordinary citizens. The Vermont Conversation is also an hour-long weekly radio program that can be heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. on WDEV/Radio Vermont. Language: en Genres: News, Society & Culture Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Vermont Asylum Assistance Project confronts Trump's assault on immigrant rights
Wednesday, 10 September, 2025
As President Trump’s immigration crackdown intensifies, many immigrants who have lived, worked and paid taxes in the United States for years are getting snatched by masked agents and disappeared into a vast network of jails across the country.In Vermont, a small but growing group of young attorneys have thrown themselves into the fight to defend the immigrants’ rights. Newly minted lawyers, including recent graduates of Vermont Law and Graduate School, are now going head to head with lawyers from Trump’s Justice Department.The attorneys have been going into Vermont’s jails and encountering terrified immigrants, many of whom are being repeatedly shuffled between states in what appears to be a deliberate effort to frustrate their attempts to obtain effective legal representation. Some detainees do not even know where they are. Vermont Asylum Assistance Project (VAAP), headed by immigration attorney Jill Martin Diaz, has been a driving force behind the effort to mobilize lawyers and defend immigrants. VAAP has grown from one staff member in 2024 to what will be a staff of eight by November, including four new attorneys who are part of the national Immigrant Justice Corps. VAAP recently received a $100,000 grant from the recently established Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund to hire staff, bring in attorneys and train Vermont lawyers to handle immigration cases.Martin Diaz formerly taught immigration law at Vermont Law and Graduate School, directed its Center for Justice Reform Clinic and practiced at Vermont Legal Aid. They currently are a lecturer in the department of social work at the University of Vermont. In 2023, Martin Diaz was named by the LGBTQ+ Bar Association as one of the 40 best LGBTQ+ lawyers under 40.I visited VAAP’s headquarters in Burlington, where I interviewed Martin Diaz, staff attorney Leah Brenner and volunteer staff attorney Andy Pelcher.“I'm looking around at our office that's not even unpacked and we barely have lights and WiFi. How are we holding our own against Trump's Department of Justice that just got a big, beautiful raise?” marveled Martin Diaz, who described fighting the Trump administration as akin to David vs. Goliath.Martin Diaz said that immigrants are “canaries in the coal mine.”“People are really starting to look at what's going on in the immigration system as a microcosm for what could happen to our democracy if left unchecked, not just for noncitizens, but for everyone.”Pelcher, who graduated Vermont Law and Graduate School in 2018 and went on to get an LLM, or master of laws, described a recent visit to Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, where he encountered a Palestinian man who was a survivor of torture who “had been bounced around to a number of facilities during the 14 months that he had been detained.” Somehow he landed in a Vermont jail. “People are being frequently transferred from facility to facility, seemingly as a means to deny access to counsel, family, local networks of support, and any other means by which these individuals can meaningfully prepare for their defense against removal,” said Pelcher. VAAP, together with the Association of Africans Living in Vermont, took on the man’s case.VAAP’s experience finding and aiding immigrants in Vermont’s jails has led Martin Diaz to oppose the idea of closing Vermont’s jails to ICE. “I would not advocate for more beds, but I would also strongly caution against a wholesale end to ICE's ability to detain people in our state,” they said. “The truth is that there is no substitute for lawyers getting in their cars, going to a facility with our bodies and meeting one on one in private with our clients directly.”“It's really, really difficult to provide people with legal help telephonically, when the people who have your clients in custody have no respect for the rule of law and for individuals rights.”Is America’s legal system up to the task of defending rights and institutions in the Trump era?“I do have hope that the rule of law will prevail and that this horrible, horrible, tragic moment in our history, this painful moment for our community members who are being directly impacted, can also be a galvanizing opportunity for us to rethink what do we want our laws to say? What do we want due process to look like? What checks and balances do we want?” said Martin Diaz.
