He’d been walking to work when he was pulled into an unmarked car.
His parents found out only when he missed his shift.
In Burlington, students protested outside city hall when a university janitor—known to everyone as “Manny”—was taken in late April. ICE agents had parked outside his apartment for three days. Then they followed him to work.
“They waited. They knew his schedule,” said his coworker, Kayla. “He kept saying, ‘I’m doing everything right.’ It didn’t matter.”
Manny had applied for DACA renewal. His paperwork was pending.
It didn’t save him.
In Montpelier, Rep. Tristan Longley held a town hall after hearing about the farm arrests. “If you think this is just about the border,” he told residents, “you’re not paying attention.”
One woman stood up and said her son stopped going to soccer. “He’s 10. He thinks if he gets in the car, they might take me.”
The room was silent.
Vermont jails don’t hold ICE contracts. But ICE doesn’t need contracts—they need silence. That’s what they got in the northeast kingdom, when a Brazilian family was detained during a wellness check that turned into an immigration check.
Sheriff’s deputies say they were “cooperating with federal requests.”
The family’s lawyer, Andre Oliveira, said what others wouldn’t: “They were profiled. There is no other reason they were targeted except that they spoke Portuguese.”
There are no protests outside Burlington airport yet. No ICE planes. No marches like Manchester. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s happening.
Eva Castillo, who organizes across New England, put it this way: “You don’t need a raid to be afraid. You just need one unanswered phone call. One family that doesn’t come home.”
The Vermont myth is cracking. The state still wears its flannel and civility, but behind the barns and town halls, there are locked doors, missing workers, and students packing “go bags” in case someone in their house doesn’t come back.
And maybe the scariest thing is this:
It’s all happening without anyone watching.