Protesters scuffle with Vermont State Troopers as they block vehicles leaving the scene of arrests by ICE agents in South Burlington on Wednesday, March 11. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Updated at 7:47 p.m.
A man taken into custody Wednesday, after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed a South Burlington home, was not the person they were seeking, according to federal authorities.
The ICE operation drew widespread criticism Thursday from officials across political parties and advocacy organizations in Vermont.
“From my perspective, what unfolded yesterday in South Burlington was totally unnecessary,” Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, said in a statement Thursday.
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“The actions of federal law enforcement, from outside the state yesterday, further demonstrates a lack of training, coordination, leadership, and outdated tactics which put both peaceful protesters and Vermont law enforcement in a difficult situation,” Scott added.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah George, a Democrat, also had harsh words.
“Based on my conversations with local law enforcement, and as confirmed by witness accounts, videos, and photographs, ICE chose escalation over professionalism at every turn,” George said in a statement. “The result was chaos, harm, and fear visited on our community by a federal agency that appears more interested in spectacle than safety.”
He wasn’t there
ICE agents seized a man and two women Wednesday evening from a single-family home on Dorset Street in South Burlington amid protests and after an hourslong standoff. Federal authorities did not identify them. But local attorneys confirmed that ICE agents removed Cristian Humberto Jerez Andrade, 31, and two sisters: Daysi Camila Patin Patin, 20, and Jissela Johana Patin Patin, 31.
Jerez Andrade is being held in Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans; the two women were booked and released from Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington on Thursday morning and remain in ICE custody, according to Nathan Virag, a lawyer with the Association of Africans Living in Vermont.
An emergency motion for a court order to prevent Jerez Andrade’s removal from Vermont was approved on Thursday, said Virag, who also filed a habeas corpus on his behalf in U.S. District Court arguing that DHS failed to provide a lawful basis for his detention. Jerez Andrade has lived in the U.S. for 10 years after being forced to flee Honduras, court documents state.
The Patin Patin sisters are from Ecuador and both are asylum seekers in the U.S., according to Virag. A motion to prevent the removal of Daysi Camila Patin Patin from Vermont was approved. The status of her sister’s case was unclear. Virag said he wasn’t sure if the sisters were already transferred out of state by 7 p.m. Thursday.
Members of the Vermont State Police Critical Action Team prepare to enter a house where a suspect who fled an earlier attempted stop by ICE is thought to be in South Burlington on Wednesday, March 11. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
Neither of them was named on the warrant ICE agents used to enter the home Wednesday around 5:30 p.m., according to Migrant Justice, nor were any of them the driver of the car allegedly involved in collisions earlier that morning that started the federal manhunt on a busy city street not far from Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School and South Burlington High School.
A federal warrant issued Wednesday permitted ICE agents to go into the Dorset Street home to “effectuate the arrest” of Deyvi Daniel Corona-Sanchez, 24, a Mexican citizen who had recently been living in South Burlington, according to a press release Thursday morning from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont.
Corona-Sanchez was wanted on a criminal charge of illegally entering the United States after having been previously deported.
A crowd estimated by police and activists to be at least 200-300 people had gathered outside the South Burlington residence Wednesday while authorities worked to obtain the warrant to enter the home. ICE agents stormed the house but did not remove Corona-Sanchez, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in its release.
“The occupants of the residence were identified, and Corona-Sanchez was found not to be present in the residence,” the release stated. “The arrest warrant for Corona-Sanchez remains active.”
According to the court records, Corona-Sanchez was previously deported in 2022 following his arrest when found wading across the Rio Grande River near Eagle Pass, Texas, part of the U.S. border.
Corona-Sanchez was also arrested in January by the Middlebury Police Department and charged with drunken driving, court records stated. That case is still pending.
The ICE activity in South Burlington began around 7:40 a.m. Wednesday when ICE agents tried to take a man into custody, and that man fled in a vehicle, crashed into several vehicles and then ran away from the scene on foot to the home on Dorset Street, according to South Burlington Police. That pursuit apparently led to the standoff.
ICE agents then obtained the warrant related to Corona-Sanchez, who they believed was that fleeing man and was inside the Dorset Street residence, the U.S. Attorney’s Office press release stated.
Colton Riley, a deportation officer with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, wrote in the federal complaint charging Corona-Sanchez and filed Wednesday that he was on Dorset Street when he saw a blue Toyota Camry and queried the registration for the vehicle and found it was registered to Corona-Sanchez.
Riley wrote that he then reviewed a photo of Corona-Sanchez from a prior “immigration interaction,” noting that he “believe[d]” that Corona-Sanchez was the person who entered the driver’s seat of that vehicle.
Riley also wrote that the driver of that vehicle was the one who fled from ICE agents Wednesday morning, got into vehicle crashes, where that man as well as another man from inside that car then fled the scene on foot.
Eventually, the filing stated, the two fleeing men went into the home on Dorset Street that ICE agents then surrounded.
Vermont State Troopers and federal law enforcement officials remove demonstrators surrounding a house where a suspect who fled an earlier attempted stop by ICE is thought to be in South Burlington on Wednesday, March 11. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
‘Poor decision-making’
Hours after a tense, daylong standoff that led to some protesters being forcibly removed and teargassed outside the house on Dorset Street, local police said they would have handled things differently.
“That would not have been how I would have done it,” South Burlington Police Chief Bill Breault said at a press conference late Wednesday at City Hall, citing “poor decision-making” and “inappropriate handling” of the situation.
The incident and the police response, which officials said will be thoroughly examined, shut down a section of Dorset Street for hours and pitted law enforcement against protesters who put their bodies on the line to prevent ICE agents from arresting the man they were seeking in a house just a couple blocks from the school campus.
Eventually, four protesters were briefly detained by local police, and two police officers received minor injuries in Vermont’s second largest city, officials said at the Wednesday night press conference where they said ICE was invited but didn’t show up.
ICE officials did not respond to messages Wednesday and Thursday seeking comment.
Burlington and South Burlington law enforcement officials said there should have been more consideration given to the general safety of the community before attempting an arrest on the busy Dorset Street in the area of a high school and middle school at 7:45 a.m., when school is starting.
State and local police officials emphasized they are not involved in enforcing federal civil immigration law and were not made aware of any ICE action in advance.
They said they responded to the scene to try to ensure overall public safety and the rights of the residents to protest, as well as the safety of the ICE agents who were enforcing a criminal warrant.
While he said he offered suggestions on ways in which ICE could have potentially taken the man they were seeking into custody, Police Chief Breault said, “I have no direct authority or control over how they operate.”
At around 5:25 p.m. Wednesday, when federal agents arrived outside the home with a warrant to enter the building, a specially trained Critical Action Team of armed state police wearing helmets and protective gear helped clear the entryway to allow ICE to enter the house. To do so, they dragged and forcibly removed protesters.
“We didn’t want agents being assaulted by protesters, and we certainly wanted to ensure that people that were not directly party to the federal warrant were not inadvertently detained or anything like that. So our goal was really to maintain public peace,” Breault said at the press conference.
Capt. Michael Filipek, who leads the Vermont State Police Tactical Services Unit, said at the press conference that state police responded to protect free speech and maintain public safety.
Although state police officers were seen forcibly pulling and dragging out a few protesters from the front entrance of the house, officials initially said no state or local law officials entered the house.
“We did not participate in the actual execution of the criminal warrant. We followed our fair and impartial policing mandates from the state,” Filipek said. He was referring to the state-mandated guidelines updated in 2024 aimed at curtailing biased treatment of people by law enforcement.
Capt. Debra Munson from the VSP Members Assistance Team then clarified that some troopers did enter the threshold to help with communications. “It was not to help” make an arrest, she said.
In a press release Thursday, Migrant Justice alleged actions Wednesday violated the state’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy and demanded the three people detained be released and any charges be dropped.
“I watched so many instances of clear collaboration between immigration enforcement and state and local police officials happen right in front of me: When we collectively watched state troopers bust down the door to somebody’s home so ICE agents could go inside,” said Rachel Elliott, an organizer with Migrant Justice. “I personally was thrown to the ground by a police officer. I watched people get brutalized all around me.”
Wednesday’s incident, which included people sobbing after being teargassed and hit with rubber bullets, she said, has been a long time coming in a state many like to think of as an oasis.
“I think people are shocked that it’s happening in Vermont,” she said. “Not only are people really angry and afraid and hungry to take action, but also, immigration enforcement has been consistently escalating their tactics, not only nationwide, but in Vermont as well.”
Migrant Justice, which had several observers at the scene, said in a press release that officers fired chemical weapons, flash-bangs and rubber bullets, striking at least one protester with a car. Eight people who were detained and removed from the scene were released, according to the release.
“This marks a drastic escalation of longstanding patterns of human rights abuses and violence carried out against our community by local, state, and federal law enforcement,” the release stated.
About 60 local law enforcement members were on site, including those from South Burlington, Burlington and Williston, officials said.
It was clear early in the year that Vermont would likely face an ICE operation, and police prepared for it by pooling local resources, but the situation was complex, said Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke.
“When these operations come to your city, it pits local police against the community that we’re entrusted to serve in,” he said, adding that all actions taken will be thoroughly reviewed for areas of improvement.
Having examined ICE surges in other cities as well as the escalated actions in Minneapolis, Burke said in an interview with VTDigger that he would not categorize Wednesday’s incident as a surge. Local police departments have responded to similar incidents involving serving a warrant to a fugitive that typically don’t see escalated protests trying to impede law enforcement operations.
“We understand the emotion, but that’s what really tips the scale,” he said. “What gets us again at odds with the community is when people feel so compelled that they’re going to physically either impede or hinder lawful operations of whether it’s federal or local law enforcement — and that’s a bridge too far.”
Jess Shapiro, a high school student, was one of several protesters who was injured at the scene. She was on the front line of protesters who linked hands and sat on the street to prevent federal officials from driving away at about 5:50 p.m. She said a state trooper tried to wrench her from her grip with fellow protesters, threatening to break her fingers as she tried to kick him in the groin. When he didn’t succeed, she said he used his elbow against her neck to push her down.
“He struck me down. I was struggling to breathe and I think I passed out,” she said, minutes after, sitting on the street, rubbing her neck and looking dazed. “It’s unreal.”
State police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Shapiro’s allegation.
“This is a first for Vermont, unfortunately,” said Virag, in an interview with VTDigger as he sat on the stoop of the Dorset Street house as pepper spray, flash-bangs and smoke disrupted the crowd. “I mean it really says they are going after innocent people, wasting resources and traumatizing families.”
Adam Silverman, a state police spokesperson, said in a statement Thursday that state police took people into custody at the scene on charges of disorderly conduct, and they were released on citations to appear in court at a later date. Another person was issued a citation on a disorderly conduct charge and released at the scene for a later court date.
Silverman stated that when state and local police began working to reduce their presence on Dorset Street, ICE agents “deployed flash-bang devices and chemical agents to break up the crowd and allow one final ICE agent and a vehicle to leave the scene.”
According to the release, an initial review by state police indicated the use of force by state troopers was “pushing and moving members of the public out of the way as needed, and one deployment of an irritant spray when someone in the crowd smashed a window and tried to get into a VSP van leaving the scene at the end of the operation.”
Vermont’s congressional delegation issued a strongly worded joint statement Thursday regarding ICE action in South Burlington.
“At a time when our country is deeply divided, this is not the way a federal agency should be conducting itself. It is long past time for Congress to take action to rein in ICE’s lawlessness,” U.S. Sens. Peter Welch, D-Vt.; Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., said in the statement.
Sarah George, the Chittenden County prosecutor, called Thursday for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Vermont to open an investigation into the conduct of the ICE agents Wednesday.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Vermont did not respond to a VTDigger request for comment.