Hundreds of people gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in St. Albans on Friday, waiting to hear if Wuendy Bernardo, a migrant farm worker who has lived on a dairy in Orleans County for over a decade, would return home to her family or face deportation proceedings.
They cheered as she emerged from the office around 10:30 a.m. to return home to her family with orders to report back on July 21. Migrant Justice, a Burlington-based migrant advocacy organization, estimated that roughly 200 community members turned out to support Bernardo.
“It’s really difficult because every time I come here I don’t know if I’ll be going back to my family or not,” Bernado said, tearing up while Will Lambek, a Migrant Justice spokesperson, translated.
Susanna, 79, a retired textile designer from Albany, paced around the parking lot in her raincoat ahead of Bernardo’s arrival. She met Bernardo more than six years ago when she began taking her to prenatal appointments at Bridges to Health, a migrant health care program through the University of Vermont.
“I’m really nervous about this,” she said.
She described Bernardo as a charming friend and an excellent mother who loves gardening and her family. (Susanna asked for her last name to be withheld because of her work with migrants).
Bernardo is a mother of five children, ages five to 18, and guardian to two orphaned half-sisters, according to Lambek. All her children are still in school, and none have immediate concerns about their immigration statuses, he said.
“We’re in a moment of intensifying attacks against immigrant communities around the country and here in Vermont,” Lambek said. “These are premeditated political actions to tear families apart and violate people’s rights.”
Bernardo and her community have been under increasing stress since she was first detained in Vermont in 2019, according to Susanna.
“For a while it was just, ‘be careful and observe the speed limits, and don’t do anything outrageous,’” said Susanna, who also came out to support Bernardo’s prior ICE appointment in April. “And now, of course, it’s no holds barred.”
Bernardo pulled into the parking lot at 10:00 a.m., accompanied by her daughters. Supporters cheered and called “I love you Wuendy,” as she joined her attorney inside the ICE office. While inside, dozens of cars lined up and down Gricebrook Road and more supporters joined the semi-circle surrounding the office’s front doors. Thirty minutes later, Bernardo walked outside smiling while her daughter tugged the end of her ponytail.
Bernardo’s saga with immigration officials began in 2019 when she was stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection while a fellow parishioner drove her home from church. She and two of her children were detained at a border patrol facility and then the ICE office in St. Albans where they were processed and released, according to Lambek. He said border protection agents gave no reason for pulling the car over.
Border protection and ICE officials did not answer a request for comment by the time of publication.
Following the 2019 detention, Bernardo was on a telephonic check in schedule until ICE told her in 2022 to come to the office, ordering her to bring a plane ticket that showed she would leave the country. Bernardo applied for a stay of removal — a formal request that her deportation proceedings be delayed. She was allowed to remain in the U.S. while that request was under consideration, according to Lambek.
But earlier this year, Bernardo was again ordered to report to ICE. In April, about 100 supporters rallied outside the office to support her stay in the country, and she was told to return in two months. Attorneys refiled her stay of removal, and that stay remains pending, according to Brett Stokes, Bernardo’s attorney and the director of the Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law and Graduate School.
‘A lot of risks’
Abel Luna, a 36-year-old Migrant Justice field coordinator, joined the rally supporting Bernardo with his daughter. Luna, who was a farm worker in New York state beginning at age 13, called the recent detentions and deportations of migrants in Vermont a “fear tactic” by the federal government.
Since April, at least 25 migrant workers and students, including farmers, landscapers and construction workers, have been detained in northern Vermont by border officials.
On Saturday, 29-year-old Jose Ignacio De La Cruz, known as Nacho, and his stepdaughter, Heidi Perez, 18, were pulled over by border officials due to “suspicious border activity,” according to Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Ryan Brissette. The agents smashed their car window and detained both De La Cruz and Perez. De La Cruz is being held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in Swanton and Perez is at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, according to the state prison locator.
The two have filed petitions in federal district court alleging their detainment was unconstitutional. The chief judge of Vermont district court, Christina Reiss, issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting ICE from moving them out of state. Both remain in custody pending deportation proceedings.
Luna said his community was seeing more arrests during the second Trump administration, especially mass arrests, including a group of eight farm workers arrested in April at Berkshire’s Pleasant Valley Farms, the state’s largest dairy, and the detainment and monitoring of community leaders who worked closely with Migrant Justice like Bernardo, De La Cruz, and Perez.
“Nacho especially, and Heidi in her own right, were both very politically active,” Stokes said. “I think it’s important to consider whether that was a justification for this arrest.”
Stokes didn’t know if they were targeted for their organizing work, but Luna said outspoken migrant leaders were detained during both Trump administrations.
“But it doesn’t matter who you are, you could be driving on the road and get stopped and detained,” Luna said. “There may be some targeting of leaders, but being a migrant worker in the state of Vermont, being a border state, there’s a lot of risks.”
Stokes said Bernardo’s situation was unique because she was first detained with an expedited removal order upon her initial entry to the U.S. in 2014, and later let out on parole. Bernardo is currently ineligible for asylum because she didn’t apply during her first year in the U.S., and right now, she doesn’t have a pathway to citizenship. Like many others in the U.S., Stokes said, she has spent her time in the U.S. undergoing periodic check-ins by ICE officials.
ICE under Trump
ICE practices have changed under the second Trump administration, according to Lambek. While those under ICE supervision like Bernardo were once monitored through email or telephonic check ins, ICE is now ordering more in person appointments. Lambek said this increases stress for migrants, who know that visiting an ICE office could result in detention and deportation.
State leaders have supported Bernardo’s case for more than two years, including a 2023 letter of support by 67 state legislators, and Stokes said the congressional delegation has assisted his office in getting information from ICE about other migrant deportation cases. But Vermont officials could do more to support migrant workers who live in the state, he said.
De La Cruz and Perez had robust community support from Migrant Justice and were able to quickly get in touch with Stokes to start working on their petitions to remain in the state, but that type of support often requires knowing attorneys, like Stokes, exist.
“A lot of other folks who are detained in the state aren’t that lucky,” said Stokes, who can’t find clients to represent unless they get in touch with him.
“There are many other ICE detainees in the same facilities that I’m in that haven’t contacted me that I don’t think anyone knows are there and they don’t know who to call,” Stokes said.
There could be a better effort to provide intakes for ICE detainees and triage their individual situations, along with pushing for universal representation in immigration proceedings, he said. Vermont has a small community of legal support for immigrants, and he said it was important for the state to fund that work in a meaningful way.
But for detainees who are well-connected, rallies can help support those like Bernado facing stressful situations.
“I felt a lot of nerves going in, but hearing the chants of ‘Si Se Puede’ gave me strength and made me think that everything was going to turn out okay,” Bernardo said while Lambek translated. “It’s nice to know that there are still good people in this world, people who are out here supporting our community.”
