Dear Editor,
This hits close to home. On July 21, Winooski School District Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for over 5 hours. Despite being a U.S. citizen and being married to a U.S. citizen, he was harassed, bullied, mocked, denied contact with anyone and ordered to hand over his work computer and passwords.
As we are seeing now, President Trump’s vitriol and policies were never about illegal immigration. They were never about setting up new structures and laws to have a more equitable system to bring workers to our country and protect asylum seekers and refugees. His administration’s cruel tactics are psychological terror, designed to have us cowering — designed to pit us against each other and to sow racism and hatred, to blame the “other” for any and all problems.
Superintendent Chavarria is a colleague in all things educational and a friend, and his story has sent new waves of anger, fear and shock throughout our community. I applaud those leaders who have publicly spoken up in support of Superintendent Chavarria and I hope we’ll soon have a statement from Gov. Phil Scott or the Secretary of Education, as well. After all, Superintendent Chavarria is a state employee inasmuch as he is employed by our public education system.
Condemnation of this act must be swift and unwavering in its support of one of our esteemed, caring and truly exceptional educational leaders.
Sen. Martine Laroque Gulick, D-Chittenden Central
Burlington
