 Thank you for having me today. Again, this is for Yang for the record. And I am the executive director and the council for the Vermont Human Rights Commission. And I know that all the committee members are aware that the Human Rights Commission is a state agency that investigates claims of discrimination and housing in state government employment and in places of public accommodations, which would include roads and lots of enforcement agencies as well. Part of our mission and statutory mandate is to also provide education and training in advanced policies and legislation relating to the protection of Vermont's most vulnerable, which is why I'm here today. The commission supports H518. I have provided my written testimony to the committee. I just wanna go briefly through the language that we do support again, allowing local entities to determine their level of cooperation with federal immigration authorities, honors of knowledge and insight and experience possessed by these agencies regarding their own members in their agencies and their communities. And we know from 30 years of implicit bias studies and that people have implicit biases about immigrants and what they look like, the same way that people have bias about what a U.S. citizen or an American looks like. And so the commission certainly supports language that would prohibit agencies and constables from adopting policies that would allow for greater communication or involvement with federal immigration authorities that are permitted under the model policy. And lastly, the reason why I'm here is I have proposed an amendment to H518, part of the biggest criticisms that I've heard from various community members is that the current fair and impartial policy is ineffective because there really is no teeth for lack of a better word, no meaningful consequence when an agency fails to effectively adopt the model policy. The human rights commission was recently has started to mandate under Act 183 to do inspections of businesses in regards to sexual harassment. And so the amendment that I'm proposing here comes from language that gave the human rights commission similar rights to inspect. And so I just wanna review that. So for the purposes of assessing compliance with the provisions of this section, the human rights commission are definitely made with 48 hours notice at reasonable times and without unduly disrupting business operations. Enter and inspect the records of any state, county, and municipal law enforcement agency or question any person who is authorized by the agency or constable to comply with the requirements of this section and examine agencies' records, policies, procedures, and training material related to the fair and impartial policing policy an agency or constable may agree to waive or shorten the 48 hour notice period. Following an inspection examination pursuant to the section, the human rights commission shall notify the state, county, and municipal law enforcement agency or constable of the results of the inspection examination, including any issues or deficiencies identified provide resources and identified any technical assistance that the attorney general of the human rights commission may be able to provide to assist the state, county, and municipal law enforcement agency or constable address any identified issues or deficiencies. Let me just say for the record as well that although Act 183 gave the human rights commission this ability to inspect businesses, if we suspected that there would be any, in fact, actually the statutory language doesn't require that we actually suspect that anybody has violated a sexual harassment policy but it is a way for us to be notified of sexual harassment issues, it's also a way for us to ensure that people are adopting effective sexual harassment policies and even though that has passed, the human rights commission hasn't done those inspections and the reason we really haven't done those inspections is lack of resources and lack of time. Our goal and our hope is that we would only use that statutory right when there's indication that a business or an agency does not have effective policies or we know through investigations or lawsuits that they don't have effective sexual harassment policies. So because of lack of resources this isn't something that we would engage in on a routine basis. My feeling about adding this language to 518 is that we would be using it in the same manner that because we already have a statutory mandate to do an agency initiated complaint that should there be indications from the community, from community members that a law enforcement agency has not adopted the fair and impartial police policy or that there are concerns that law enforcement agencies are not following the FIP policy that that would really be the basis for why the human rights commission would be conducting selection and inspection. And the goal here is to review those policies and to review some of those concerns. I have a couple of questions. China, then the board committee does. But in your package, we have a letter from the ACLU for us to support this matter. Did you, was this amendment discussed in the house? So this, I testified in the house over the phone and I did suggest to them that we would be open to doing inspections. And I said that it would be language that would be similar but I did not have a chance to provide what that language would look like. So that was oral testimony in the house, but yes. There was some confusion that I spoke to representative Brad and I was a little confused by that. I'm also a little bit confused about the current authority to investigate it. For example, the Bennington Police Department has no secrets commanded by several locations. They are doing their own review, but is there anything that will prevent the Human Rights Commission from looking at the Bennington Police Department having just based upon current statute? So currently in order for the Human Rights Commission to do an investigation, we typically wait on someone to file a complaint at the Human Rights Commission or we could initiate our own investigation by initiating our own complaint. But a complaint can't just be based on mere suspicion that discrimination has occurred. We usually need to have sufficient language that supports what we call a prima facie case of discrimination and that's really difficult to do so because we don't have that information without having done the investigation. So oftentimes we don't do an agency initiated complaint because we don't lack the information to even start the investigation. And then in terms of Bennington, all I can say is that I can't speak as to whether or not the Human Rights Commission is doing any investigation. I understand that, that's not what I asked. I actually asked is under current statute could you and with this, the second part of the question is gonna be if this were in effect, would you then be more clearly able to do that or would it be more likely to do that? So we would more clearly be able to do that and more likely able to do that. So what this inspection would allow us to do is gather sufficient information to see if it would even support a complaint to open an investigation. We do not just start an investigation without there being a complaint that contains language that suggests there could be discrimination. So for example, just because we hear about something happening in the news doesn't mean that the Human Rights Commission would then use its statutory authority to investigate because we don't have sufficient information. The ability to do an inspection would give us the information that we need to start such a complaint and start an investigation. This will be purely based on the model of the policy in that case. Right. Yeah. So I'm, I am a little confused about this because the model policies are public information. You don't need to go to the law enforcement agency to inspect their policy. They're all public documents. And so you could get a public document at any time so why, why, and then, so it looks like what you're looking at is whether the policies are sufficient in some way, but you can look at those policies at any time. Sure. So it does say here, the language is inspect and examine the agency's records, policies, procedures and training materials. And I'm not sure how much of records, policies or procedures or training materials which are public, which are not, and. So can their policies are public and their training material is usually done through the academy, not. I mean, there is some individual training that's done at agencies, but I'm curious about what records you would be looking at is like, is it the records where somebody stops somebody and then they file their, they are two record keeping systems in the state and they file the record. I mean, they file the charge or the stop or is that what you're looking at? Because I believe those are also public. Sure. I think it depends on what would be the basis to do the inspection in the first place. So for example, if we're hearing from community members that this particular police enforcement agency is violating the FIP, the policies or that they haven't enacted it or even though they've enacted it, they really haven't followed it, that depending on those circumstances that we were dealing with someone who is from an immigrant community or someone who's African-American, the folks might be, we might be asking questions about data or records related to stops regarding immigrants or relating to stops regarding African-Americans. And again, I think it's based on the facts and what would be our reason for doing the inspection in the first place. And so. So this continues on the same line. Questioning. So when you, you know, when I was on the agriculture committee, we discussed having an inspection policy for farms to see whether they were following the phosphorus requirements. And the idea was we were trying to catch bad activists or people who maybe didn't understand what their responsibilities were. So you were needing to go there and inspect. So in this case, when you go into a law enforcement agency and you, I'm just wondering if you walk us through, how did that work? So you notified the law enforcement agency under this language that you want to inspect. They have 48 hours, but they can make it short. Then when you show up, how would you inspect? Sure. So how do I foresee this is again, let's say that there's been a lot of news coverage and lots of phone calls that the Human Rights Commission that says this particular police agency is not following the fit or they seem to be targeting a certain group of people and we have concerns about them that first I would start with a letter to the agency and saying that under this language, we are asking to look at maybe recent stops involving people who are African American or immigrant, whether or not any of those people have been referred to federal immigration authorities and we look to look at their policies and ask them to identify where those policies are posted and probably ask them to see how many complaints have been made about these activities involving African Americans or people in the immigrant population and so it would start off with being a letter and say is there an opportunity to sit down and talk about it, we'd like to look at these things, can you provide them or when can we come in and look at them and it may be that we come and look at them or we see those documents and none of it is concerning and then we would say thank you and we would not open an investigation but the possibility exists that when community members complain that police agencies are not following the fed that we could end up seeing data or seeing information that aligns with some of those complaints and those two things together could conceivably be a basis for starting the complaint just to start an investigation. We have not determined at that point that discrimination has occurred or has not occurred that is just enough to open an investigation to then use our statutory mandate under our existing statute to do a full investigation to see if discrimination is happening. Okay and so to take it one step further so now I'm inserting information going over concerning information you would go based on that but what I think is more likely that you would have agencies that say we don't have any of this information we don't have in this category anything that you have said you're looking for would you or could you notice like which make the decision to go in on the possibility that they may not be offering all the information is that part of this possibly too that you could go in and say our inspection involves going into the computer system to look at what you have or don't. So here's my thought is if we ask for if we have statutory language that allows the Human Rights Commission to do these inspections I do trust that the law enforcement agencies would comply with the inspection but if it turns out that they are not collecting that data they don't have that information or those records. I wouldn't start a complaint just to further investigate but what that does do is it informs me as the executive director of the Human Rights Commission that we're not collecting the information that we need and that these inspections have revealed that and I would probably be back here next year saying perhaps we need to be asking for more data collection or more information to inform us about what is happening in the communities and the relationship between community members and law enforcement agencies. Okay, you can ask for that now. In other words, you can send them a letter and I'll ask you for these things. There's no requirement that they comply with that at this point. I'm sure. Right, so the only way that the Human Rights Commission can seek this information now under our existing statute is to start the complaint first and then to do the investigation. What I'm saying is we don't have enough information to initiate our own agency complaint at this point. We're waiting on people to file a complaint at the HRC. But I, and I take that point, I think it's a good one. I would be more comfortable with a piece of statute that said these pieces of data must be provided. What you described was more like the ability to go in and search and it's open-ended. You could search records, is the word you. To my mind, that means anything within law enforcement agencies, from the computers to the paper files to the audio files, that's about as open-ended as a designated power bill, so. Sure. I understand that and I would say that last year when Act 23 passed, the legislature believed that sexual harassment was such an important issue that it was important to give the Human Rights Commission that kind of statutory authority to do that level of inspection. And I would say that fair and impartial policing is of the same level, if not more important. Okay. So we'll begin by just reviewing the past. I'm Chair of the Human Rights Commission and I've spent almost 36 years now at the end of this month as a criminal defense attorney. I am not oriented towards a lease, a proposal on a regular basis. You're reading your language and hearing your testimony and you're a big difference. Your testimony is such that you're looking for a patent of conduct. This language is very specific and grants you an absolute right to go into a police department upon any reason whatsoever without a complaint and investigate fines. Now, when I get the police affidavit, I know it is also accompanied by a narrative that an investigation has happened. There may or may not yet be a judge that has found probable cause of a criminal case, which means that there's an ongoing investigation. That's not technically public information at that point in time. And I'm reading this that actually gives you the right to go in and seek any agency's records just for the purpose of assessing complaints when you technically interfere with the police investigation. Not necessarily their business operations. You can accept it here. But with the actual investigation itself, there's no court order that may be needed. You are not in need of any kind of a complaining witness that would generate a reason for investigating this particular agency. And I have to frankly say I'm uncomfortable, even as a criminal defense attorney, thinking that you would have that power if I say that I'm a little nervous, frankly, not what you're asking for. I wouldn't have a response to that if I'm having a hard time knowing the overall intent is to have a pattern of conduct established that leads you to a conclusion that there is in fact a violation of that. That's not what this is saying. This is something ahead of a lot of different guidelines. Do you guys have anything to add to that? Well, of course, I would just like to say that I absolutely respect what you have to say. And I also understand that I hear your concerns. And I'm really here representing the other concerns, which is people in the community who are feeling as if the current policy is ineffective or insufficient to address what we're seeing happening across the state. But I don't, I hear you and I respect that and I don't. It's possible that we could amend this language or change it to address some of those concerns. I can't say that I'm prepared at this moment to do that. Just so you know, the concept I'm presenting, I certainly can understand and agree with. I'm very nervous about how this can present to us. Yeah, and again, in my mind, all this is gathering sufficient information to see if we can support a complaint in the first place to then do the investigation. This isn't to, right? Yes. Can I follow up on that? Yep. So, if- Can you tell me about anything? Oh, I'm sorry. No, I'm just, chew it. You can come back as you chew it. So, I'm even working these now. So, if there's a complaint, you can do this right now. Right? Yes. Okay. But what you said is that there are complaints coming from communities and so then you would want to go look at that agency. But if there's a complaint, you already have the ability to do it. You don't need to have this open. And I do have some concerns about looking at any of the records because that's, that could, as Joe said, impact and non-point investigation. And I'm just wondering if what you're looking at here is the deficiencies in the policy and whether they're actually carrying out the policy or looking at the actions of individual officers and investigating individual officers. Because that's the case that there's already a process to do that and this is one of the reasons that they can be decertified. Sure. Well, let me first, explain the first part of that, which is a complaint. So when I say someone files a complaint that is an individual calls their office and says I have been discriminated against by so and so. There's law enforcement or I would stop unlawfully or I've been targeted unlawfully. That's an individual. What we, that sometimes happens. But what we do sometimes also here during our outreach, our training, is that you have a group of people who say there's a problem with this law enforcement entity. But they are unwilling to come forward. They are afraid of retaliation or it is their friends or their family members. So they are living themselves not with the people filing a complaint. But we'll hear that from several different community members. And that's an example in which, oh okay, maybe this is something that Human Rights Commission is, could look into. So, you know, I mean, a lot of the public response to what was happening in Bennington was why isn't the Human Rights Commission looking into this? Isn't that why we have the Human Rights Commission? Well, we can't look into it because we don't have enough information to even start the investigation. And unless somebody files a complaint to the Human Rights Commission, that can't happen. It can't be a complaint from a community. It has to be an individual that has to disagree. Yes, or we initiate our own agency complaint. And we would have done that if we had sufficient information. But we can't do the investigation until we have the information to support the complaint. It's, again, if there was another agency that is better equipped or that we are supporting to do that work, I mean, the Human Rights Commission is happy to do that. But I would just refer you to all the public statements that have been made, that it is a job of the Human Rights Commission to handle what was happening in Bennington. Well, and it's not just Bennington folks. Right, yes. That just happens to be the example that was brought out. I brought that out, but also, there was a Supreme Court case that highlighted the issue of Bennington, so that was a different way to get at it. But Mike, I'm gonna put my appropriations committee out on it. You said you have problem resources and how to do the jobs that you've got. And we have $253 million in requests over the governor's budget level. And we have also unfunded promise of off-water quality and unfunded promise about weatherization. We have an unfunded well. And the finance committee wants to do about $4 million in tax credits to reduce revenue. So, in all of that, how do, is this anymore than just a window dressing that said, yeah, but we don't provide it with the resources to actually do it? I mean, I think that's a very fair statement to me. And I have been very honest in that. We haven't done any inspections related to Act 183 because of lack of resources. So I don't see this as this ability to go into any law enforcement agency and just ask for a bunch of records because I don't have the time to do that. I actually am dealing with people who have died of complaints in those investigations and more. So my thought is that should another situation arise like we saw in Bennington, that would probably be a situation in which we could utilize this language to say what is happening down there. Please give us some information in regards to the fair part. Did you adopt it? What does that look like? You know, what are the record slide in terms of police stops and does this support an agency-initiated complaint to start an investigation? But, yeah, I mean, I'm being very honest that this isn't something that we're going to be doing just because we have the right to do it now. And in defense of Bennington, I must say that the University of Vermont that study on traffic data concluded that there was bias based upon the data that the Center for Justice Research at Norwich, their own study is that the University of Vermont study was flawed and was inaccurate. And then the UBM people said, with all due respect to UBM, they said, no, the Center for Justice Research is flawed. Nobody actually has told, in all of that, the people of Bennington are somewhat confused, but I will say this for the public, that they are doing a review of their police policies in the state and private community and the town, so important, so that is on going. But I will say that sometimes the information that people get is not as accurate as one would think. And I know UBM is still running their study, but I've gone over both studies and have read the Center for Justice Research, but I've got the right name. Crime Research Group. Crime Research Group, thank you, Chloe. The crime, that was the Center for Justice Research. Now it's the Crime Research Group. Anyway, their study indicated that there's their medical flaw, the right to do a study. There is one other group that I'm concerned with that nobody has talked about, and that's young people being profiled, whether they're people of color, whether they're whatever, but particularly those under 22, let's say, who are being profiled. And that's one of the concerns that's expressed. And it's not a group that also could do with that. I mean, potentially. Should I buy it for you, please? Sure, potentially. I just wanted to ask, I had a job with question when you were talking about the vanishing situation. So I remember what you were talking about, people saying that human rights action should jump in. Did you contact the editing police department about FIP and their problem? No, I did not. And my question would be one, because you don't need this legislation to send them a letter asking for their policy and how they operate. Right, but they're not going to comply. I work for an enforcement agency, and I don't have an authority outside an investigation to seek that kind of information. And so it's a wishful, yeah, it would be, I've kind of written a wishful letter and say, please give me some information so I can look into it. But that's, I don't think practically that that would... But you've got a stronger position today, if you have, because you can say they denied me this information, this information, this information. And then we could look at, specifically require agencies to provide those categories. Instead, we're expressing concern for this language because it's a very broad brush. So, there is another way to narrow down what you're trying to accomplish. Defensitivities regularly bring suppression motions based on documents that present situations of clear profile. Those documents that they're using are the applications of the narratives of the police officers. There's a defense bar, but it's a simple conversation, but in a terminal where there's an established pattern that they're noticing might help. But then you have the potential of developing a specific complaint. We gave this right to any other agency, name the police or law enforcement type of agency that's given a current launch opportunity to go and investigate records anywhere that they want to. Chloe over there would be screaming, bloody murder and heart beating. She doesn't take a risk, she wouldn't. Just trying to get to where you want to be. Conceptually, she supports. But, and in fact, we did, once it was, whether it was this bill or another bill, we actually removed that ability from the agency's office to do that. Let me just say, let me just say for the record that, so I've heard it from many community members about what was happening in Benton, though what was happening with law enforcement agencies throughout this day of the month. And they, and I've heard a lot of public officials and otherwise say, why isn't the human rights commission doing something? And this is my best response. And I felt that I owed them well to present it. But, I appreciate your response. I think it's a sense of the committee that it should be narrowed to some extent. That it's very broad. And then the other sense of the committee is that we should pick up our jets next. Yeah. And should this committee not adopt this amendment, this legislative session, it's language that is something to consider the next legislative session. I would also say that it's a resource issue as well. Yes. We have expectations that a commission can do things and the public has expectations not resorted to do. It becomes our responsibility to meet those expectations in this environment. That's very difficult. So for your commission does a very good job and I appreciate all the hard work you do. And I want to thank all of you very much. Thank you. Thank you for it. Our next witness is Enrique. Somebody coming with you today. I didn't get it. Do you want to pull a chair up your ladder? No. There will never be any stronger than around here. Something I've left in here, yes. Oh, okay. Not sure you got it. Is that, it's right here out. Yeah. Send a broom to the right eye. I sat and was chair for two hours last year. Thank you. You're welcome. My first. Can you go ahead? Hola, buenos días. Mi nombre es Enrique Valdasar y soy parte de la Comunidad Migrante del Centro de la Vodos de la Comunidad aquí en el estado de Vermont. Y bueno, agradezco el espacio que hacen para escuchar nuestra voz y que nos pareces un momento importante. Hello everybody, my name is Enrique Valdasar. I represent I represent the migrant community here in Vermont and I bring the voices of the very farm workers. Thank you very much for the space and the time we're here to talk to you about this. Estoy aquí apoyando el BIL 518 y también la enmienda presentada por la Comisión de Derechos Humanos. Y también, bueno, hemos visto el testimonio de Mark y que recomienda algunos cambios adicionales en la política y también nos parecen bien, pero vamos a enfocar hoy en la recomendación de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos. So I'm here supporting BIL 518 in the amendment presented by the HRC. We also have seen the testimonio of Mark Hughes. Maybe you got it. He recommends some changes, additional changes and we believe this are good, but now we're going to focus more on our testimonies about the amendment to the HRC. Bueno, como la Comunidad Migrante en Vermont y en todo el país, la Comunidad Migrante siempre hemos sufrido la presión política de inmigración. Hemos estado trabajando aquí en Vermont, hemos estado trabajando por muchos años en la política no más polimigra para realmente parar la colaboración entre los policías de inmigración, pero esta ha sido debilitada con el gobierno de Donald Trump y la policía por querer seguir manteniendo la comunicación con las agencias de inmigración. So here the minor community in Vermont and the whole country will be suffering about the political oppression of immigration policies and we are working really hard for years in this FIP policy, but this has been with me, it's with now under the new administration of Donald Trump and we see that the police is defending and wants to maintain this relationship with the immigration agencies. At the end, it's not something that strength the trust in the police and the community, the minor community. Y bueno, algo que quería igual decir es que bueno, nosotros yo he sido trabajador lechero aquí y en Vermont tenemos una comunidad lechera, verdad, de trabajadores migrantes que ayudan, que ayudamos a sostener esta industria y que hemos estado trabajando fuertemente para mejorar esta política y ya no ser discriminados y separados de nuestras familias o de nuestros trabajos. So I want to acknowledge that I'm a minor worker, I've been working on their farms and we're a whole community here that are sustaining their industry. We're really important for the state and we have been working for years here and we want to be recognized. Y bueno, enfocando un poco más, como dije la semana pasada, es sumamente necesario que esto se mejore, porque no es suficiente mencionar la política modelo y por ejemplo, el 25% de las agencias no tienen la política modelo o adecuada, la mínima, verdad. También algunas políticas han resultado en que no se han actualizado desde 2011, 2014, 2016 y políticas que ni mencionan nada acerca de inmigración. So I want to rectify the importance of this because we see that the actual structures haven't been enough or sufficient. We talked last week about 25% of the agencies don't have the right policy. Policies that haven't been updated since 2011, 2014, 2016. Also the policies don't even mention the non-collaboration with immigration enforcement. Director Gauthier will testify in a few minutes if that actually wasn't accurate that they're all up to date right now. Entonces también mencionamos acerca de la pata transparencia con el entrenamiento a los policías acerca de este tema anterior. There was also a lack of transparency about the trainings with the agencies and we see this happen. Bueno, las violaciones siguen en varios testimonios y compañeros y yo, como se citaron aquí, hemos mencionado por ejemplo el caso de Orman López, Ember Jens, el caso de José Luis y Armando Franklin y bueno, también la semana pasada les compartí que yo vivía esto en carne propia, en verdad cuando el DMB proporcionó en mi caso y en otros casos información a la Agencia de AES cuando también está cubierta la política de LEPA. And we also brought the violations with him. I talked last week about the case of Orman López in Brugens, José Luis and Armando Franklin County and even about my own experience of discrimination with the DMB collaborating with ICE when the DMB should be covered by the LEPA. Todo esto resulta en una falta de confianza en que realmente todos están cumpliendo, verdad, y por ende la comunidad migrant-empermón no se siente cómoda en usar las agencias de policía. En ningún caso, en casi ningún caso, por ejemplo, violencia doméstica, no a veces no se usa de recurso la violencia física en el lugar de trabajo y entre otros. Incluso algunos empleadores han resultado que amenazan a los trabajadores con llamar a la policía para el desalojo de las viviendas cuando han trabajado ahí por años o con la intención de deportarlos. In all these cases are solved in the lack of trust to the police because they are not complying for and the community, the migrant community in Vermont, doesn't feel comfortable to use the resources from the agencies. We see cases about like domestic violence, violence in the workplace. Even some employers using their power of threatening workers to call the police to keep them out of the farm or with the intention to, they are gonna be deported. Y basado en esta historia, es claro que un nivel adicional de transparencia y rendición de cuentas apoyará a las agencias a cumplir verdad con las necesidades bajo la ley. So based on this history, it's clear for us that an additional level of transparency and accountability will support the agencies to comply with the needs of the law. Y esto no replacerá de las estructuras de cumplimiento, verdad, pero agrega un apoyo, un apoyo mas a esta estructura. This amendment doesn't replace the structures of the compliance, but increase and more support. Confiamos en la comisión de derechos humanos como la agencia independiente para poder jugar este papel. And we wanna say that we trust HRC and the independent agency to play this role. Bueno, por último quiero decir que creo en los valores del estado de Vermont y la constitución de los Estados Unidos y estos pasos importantes para las comunidades, para la comunidad migrante, se muevan hacia adelante y no se retrasen. Lastly, I wanna say that I believe in the values of Vermont and the USA constitution for these steps that are really important for the community, for our migrant community to move forward instead of backwards. Muchas gracias. Thank you, thank you. Can you clarify more clearly or for my memory the issue with the department of vehicles that affected? Sí, bueno, como la agencia del BNB ha proporcionado información en mi caso y en otros en una campaña de las agencias de inmigración en LAIS para deportar a líderes de la comunidad migrante aquí en el Escobar de Vermont. Entonces ellos dieron información básica y necesaria que hemos dado con toda la confianza de la agencia del estado. So the BNB has been collaborated, in my case, in other cases, sharing information that we gave them, trusted them in this campaign of I started being a leader in the community in Vermont. And that was one of the things that I wanted to bring. I know she's not here right now, but we could remind her to look at how the BNB gets not caught up somehow in all of this instead of looking at Vermont State Police, for example, who may be doing an exemplary job, BNB at the same time. It's not caught up in any of this, and yet they're... So they aren't under fair impartial treatment? Well, well, they're non-forcement agents, but not the BNB that gave out that information. So as we're looking at providing identification for migrants so that they can do their job and work, we are allowing the BNB to spread the responsibility to follow the fair in the part of the police and politics of other forces. So I think they need to be included somehow here. That's why I was trying to get that. I realize that the Department of Motor Vehicles is better than the law, but I meant the Department itself. Do they want to move you to having vendors get ideas from the BNB saying it would be tripled? Yes, Senator White. So I think so much responsibility that a number of years ago, I was in the car and I was listening to the issue of migrant workers and I live in Wyndham County. We have very good dairy farms. And I said, wouldn't it be a great idea if we could get driver's license for them? So I introduced a bill and it kind of backfired. So this doesn't really go to the broader issue about the fair and partial policing policy because there are many people who aren't in the migrant community who are affected by it, but the, I keep thinking that we need to make sure that you get some kind of work visas to actually, so that there isn't this issue. And I know Alice in Easton, which was in the Department agency, that they was working on that. That we have to, we need to do this, but we also need to pursue, continue to pursue that because you shouldn't be living in a shelter in the parks. So, I just needed to say that there are other things that we need to do for the migrant community in Vermont outside of the fair and partial policing policy. Thank you. If I may, you're completely right. And I think one thing that we make important right now is that a lot of people don't live in the farms or don't have access to different things. And as Ricky explained, I coordinate a headline of migrant justice and I receive phone calls and we've been working a lot with service providers for any kind of trauma, sexual violence, but violence on the workplace. People are really afraid to call the police because they hear that even if my partner is an abuser and I reach out to the police, they're gonna end up deported because they're gonna be in this collaboration. And with the direct license we do a lot of education about how to take care of the licenses and how that helps really the community to be not only out of the shadows, but to be integrated because we don't have family here so we need our community to feel as a family. So I think it's really important to understand that without the HRC, and you say they can get the records, there's information that they can get, but nobody's doing this. And when we get the information from the agencies that are not complying with the FIP, it's asked the ones that are being affected by this that we have to go and seek for these things and come over and over again to you every time saying like, this is not complying, this is not complying. And we see it not only with our experiences, but because we have to go and search for it. So that's why we are supporting this amendment because we need the agency that's really gonna do the job. I will not say your law that way. That said, there was some misuse of the information. Misuse of the information, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Immigration. I have another question. Thank you very much for coming back. We'll continue to look at this. Thank you. Can I take that? Okay. So unfortunately, all right, it's kind of what the partners said. You know, what it puts a lot of pressure on. We have to plan this work. People will come and work on the scheme of sorts. The international. But there also, if you look at it, the strong is not just in the law. No, no, I know what it is. If you look at it, how it is, it's even more difficult when trying to divide the workers so hard. See it? Tourist. Right. But that's not going to go on. This is a natural condition for the nation. What you're talking about is like foundation. Yeah. Anyway, that's why I'm going to continue. Okay. Our next witness is Richard Goff here, the executive director of the Montreal Justice Training Center. And the police department, we're at an extension. Good morning to me. For the record, Richard Goff here is blackboarded. Yes. Yes. Executive director of the Montreal Justice Training Council. As I mentioned last week, we supported the bills that passed for the House. In terms of that, we do have some concerns with the HRC amendment. Particularly. I think closer to the mic. Particularly if it's based on an assertion that current enforcement mechanisms are rather non-existent or effective. I heard about some agencies being out of compliance in early February, I think, in this room, when a representative from microjustice set the counter number of them. I never, ever received a call from microjustice, never received any information about who these agencies were, what was the level of non-compliance. I only saw specifics last Thursday when the 13th policy was presented to your committee. So I returned to my office and on Friday morning contacted the committee assistant got copies of all the policies and made that my Friday project to reach out to all the agencies. By midday Friday, everybody had who was, who had the current policy, had adopted the policy. Let me break that down for you. Over the 13th, three were already compliant. They weren't non-compliant. Two of the three became compliant after microjustice first got their policy. The third one has been compliant since March of 2018. Has no idea why they were single that was being non-compliant and doesn't know where microjustice got whatever version of the previous policy that they used. Those three were already compliant after they got their policy. There were several others who were working under what was believed to be the compliant policy that the state police had at the time. In early 2019, the BSB from the closest police office revised their policy and brought it into compliance with legislation. That information hadn't made it to the agencies that were using the BSB policy. When they spoke with those agencies, they immediately adopted the council policy. There were a couple of agencies that were using the 2016 essential policy version. Thinking it was compliant, immediately adopted the council policy. One agency did object to what Senator Wade pointed out last week did not include the entire policy because they had bits and pieces of the council policy covered in other sections. And in order to keep things simple, they would simply knowing it was covered elsewhere that they exercised it from the current policy. We had a conversation about cross-referencing and there was a section in there that they didn't include because they didn't think it applied to them. So we had a conversation about that. That agency has since revised their policy and submitted it to the Attorney General's Office to final review. My first reading of it before I went to the AG's office was that I think the AG will find it compliant. As I sit here this morning, 100% compliance among these agencies. Now, it's important to know about all things. First, I have never ever received compliant. This was self-initiated based on information that I received from attending the hearing last week. The second thing that I think is important is that none of these agencies had failed to adopt the policy. A couple were very outdated. A couple were recurrent. But there was no agency that failed to adopt the policy. And the policies even though outdated for the most part were still very robust policies. And were essentially either the earlier version of ESB policy or the earlier version of council policy. But the other policy there was one agency that had changed the leadership. And the leadership change wasn't aware of the requirement for the adoption of policy. So when I brought that individual to be immediately adopted the council policy. So the even though we had we'll say 10 out of compliance with the three of those 13 weren't compliant. Nobody didn't have compliance with me. And let's say the common threat that I saw out of contacted agencies was that they were simply unaware of changes in policy. So when I would send out an email talking about compliance about the new policy if they had what they thought was a compliance stability policy then they assumed they'd stated compliance. So it was a little bit of an indication process. So that is a pretty effective agency is very responsive. Let's talk about the enforcement mechanism. Most of you on the committee remember all the discussions and before about professional regulation were not that resulted in Act 36 2017. Went into effect in July of last year. Act 36 dramatically expanded the categories of misconduct that law enforcement officers could engage in and separated criminal conduct and personal professional misconduct and offenses against council processes. Failure to abide by state requirement was specifically added in that line in which to capture just such offenses that's used in an agency was simply a mistake and that's an education process. An agency never used one of these policies. My response to that one dramatically different. There's also mechanism built into Act 56 that clearly will misconduct and can range anywhere from who will be included. So in Act 56 is a very robust act. Agencies are abandoned to receive complaints. The agency had received a complaint of misconduct in reference to one of their officers. That agency had been required by law. I would like to focus on an amendment in front of us as well but I understand what you're saying but I guess I looked at your list of the 13 communities and I'm going to pick on Ludlow because Senator niggas is not there to listen to Ludlow. The Ludlow Police Department was operating under a very old policy. I spoke to Chief Billings about the change in the policy. He immediately adopted the concept of the policy verbatim. That's great but evidently Ludlow police didn't see the model policy as a priority and it took migrant justice and you calling the Chief in order to get it there neither better means communicating that this is a very important policy point and I have sensed that you recognize the importance of these policies. You've been a leader in this and sometimes you get typecasts and it's unfortunate with police departments just oh okay I have an old policy I'll adopt a new one. Thanks for calling. It goes on tomorrow on Ludlow. So I guess that would be a comment and going back to the amendment from the Human Rights Commission I think we would all agree that narrowing it would be probably something we ought to do in order to make it a broader discipline but do you have any comments on that particular policy? Well I think that it kind of had my comment about Ludlow and just being curious why they wouldn't. It was impossible for me to determine whether or not the Chief could get information I think that a mechanism where agencies had to submit the policies to the council but they did see it as a priority. Actually you covered mine. Great minds think alike. We'll find tonight one too. That's what we say in the call when we get a good shot. We have 82 agencies. I think it's 82. So there are agencies that probably didn't do it like Ludlow didn't see it there but 13 out of 13. I mean I'm just saying that many of them have taken this very seriously. The majority of that 13 took it seriously. There was really a confusion about their version being mine or not but there were a couple that had been able to do it specifically. We share our concerns that that's extremely broad. We're also concerned that a conflation of responsibilities is really a council responsibility to address these as they come in. The enforcement mechanism actually exists within the council at this point. Would you have suggestions on narrowing that? Give me some time to work on it. I have some suggestions. We will obviously not finish our work on this bill today. Any other questions for Rick? Rick, thank you for taking the time to go through these 13 agencies and sharing with us the responses which I think are indicative of some confusion here but there were many, as you said who had already had it adopted for some reason. The next witnesses they insured from the Attorney General's office not a department yet. Do we put it up in the immigration? Well, there hasn't been a full list over the years. Or maybe a legislative re-elect, which I think is what they do to wait for it. I think that's my question. Still it is a parliamentary elected official so who would represent the Attorney General? That's right. Thank you very much. The Attorney General does not oppose any concept of something along the lines of what the Human Rights Commission has suggested here. At the same time it's the Attorney General's position that it is his top priority to pass H518 as it was passed by the House and as we testified at length last week H518 does a number of very important things that we think it is essential to move forward if an amendment along these lines ends up potentially derailing the bill. It is the priority of the Attorney General to make sure that H518 does get passed as it was passed by the House. With regard to some of the enforcement and investigation issues the Attorney General's office does have a statutory role in acting consultation with the Criminal Justice Training Council to make sure that agencies are in compliance. That is an obligation that we take very seriously. We take it seriously because it is the law and we're obligated to follow the law. But just as importantly, we take it seriously because of the incredibly important policy concerns that underlie the Fair and Partial Policing Policy and the immigration aspects of that policy. Fair and Partial Policing is incredibly important for the credibility that trust between the community members in Vermont and the immigration piece is essential to ensuring that everybody who is in Vermont trusts the Vermont police. Exactly, and one of the reasons that I appreciate our Attorney General being independently elected could be that the Attorney General is not beholding to the effective branch. And I'm curious as to whether or not the Attorney General is in the Department of Motor Vehicles liable for releasing the information on Enrique and other people with similar status to us. Senator? It bothers me that they were able to do that and it wasn't the first time that it's happened by the Attorney General. So Senator, at this moment the Attorney General's obviously is involved in litigation on that exact issue. That's right. I'm obligated not to make specific comments. That's the reason that Donald Trump can't release the tax. Maybe not exactly the same. But the I will say Attorney General speaking generally. No, I'm really zeroing in here on that because we can do all we want there in Partial Policing that all of the operation we want from the water enforcement to this mistrust that legitimately comes from the government putting together a licensing proposal to allow people to leave as normal as possible as workers and members of the non-community and then having that information turned over to the immigration services. It just undercuts all the efforts that are being made and makes proposals like this seem more necessary and not suggesting it isn't but we've already talked about being wrong and I will say that that's part of the problem there is mistrusting over it. Absolutely and I'm glad to hear that it's under litigation. And the trust issue is the key issue here and with an HRC role I do want to assure the committee and ensure everybody that the Attorney General takes very seriously ensuring that these policies are being implemented assuming something like this passes we will have a new July 1 deadline to ensure compliance to the extent that we don't already have direct outreach with agencies I've no doubt that Executive Director and myself will be working to be absolutely sure that we have compliance on the part of each agency I think the training issue that was brought up is also really important and Director Gaffer has been working hard to implement training both on the sort of unbiased policing aspect as well as on the immigration policy aspect and our office has been, will be working with state police to do additional trainings beyond what is required with regard to heat incidents fair and partial policing and immigration policy issues which have not been running yet but will be held at barracks around the state in order to make it easy for local agencies to attend and the Director of our Civil Rights Division Puyo Thompson will be assisting with those trainings so all those pieces aren't generally important it's stuff that we're working hard to advance and I just want to assure the committee of our commitment to those issues in addition to other efforts that may come into play here so I don't know that the H.E. has any role in this at all but it seems to both of my kids who are adults work at resort areas one in Montana and one here and they have what they call the internationals that come every year to work in the ski industry and for the most part, I mean they're legally so they don't have an issue around immigration and the policy they may have an issue around very partial policing but they don't have so is there, does the H.E. have any role in trying to figure out a way I think that the latest week we have something like 1700 undocumented migrant workers mostly in the area of the street why why is it so impossible to get some kind of work visas where there are they call H.1.5s or something that people get to come here because their technology experts are working the ski industry I don't understand why that is so impossible and that was before the secret administration yes and we agree that's a serious concern that is really a federal issue in terms of the visa problem and it is outside of our purview, certainly we agree as a matter of policy that that should be accessible and would help in a myriad of ways unfortunately our office doesn't have any direct authority on that issue direct authority really, so now that we think I don't know that she was able to get any place but I know that she was working through the ag agency to try that. There are business for example in Bennington for years there was a Japanese-American partnership that makes story calls multiple story calls on foreign cars that made Bennington for one so when you say I'm buying a foreign car and something personal I can actually buy and stir it with a made Bennington but that's my little head Bennington but they allow workers to come over for four years they become residents of the community they're involved in the community and they're all legally right here what your question is why are others treated in a similar fashion that are doing work on our dairy farms in our resorts and that really is the failure of the federal immigration laws because they have that set up and I know in industries in the area where I came from Massachusetts actually agreements with other countries to set workers into those technical kind of not computer but it's technical stuff that they do they come from other countries they're allowed to work for a certain amount of time or money or something so it just it has been somewhat of confusion here that a particular seems like a particular workers and a particular workers are more discriminating against than others and that's what we're stuck with because of the failure of the Congress to pass and for us it's less important well I'm just saying there's not a fairness there because we don't have history of discrimination against other workers anyway that was behind it so I know I was interacting crazy maybe a few and others should work together to see where we're going other questions for David David thank you very much captain almost says a tenet thank you thank you yes for the record captain Gary Scott the state police as they said last week overall the state police and the public safety as mentioned last week the JADD funding is significantly concerned we worked extensively with the AG's office to get our policy to meet the language the Department of Justice would accept to get that funding and to particularly what was mentioned today with the Human Rights Commission again that's as many of you mentioned up there kind of a broad overreach we have internal policies very vibrant IA process internal affairs process legislative mandate the citizen's advisory commission the state police advisory committee and we have civilian review that occurs with complaints we have received no complaints the case that was mentioned earlier the Omen Lopez case was not found to be in violation of policy or federal law everything was done to follow the policy so what is happening we put all our traffic stop data out cases are put out that way so there's complaints to men we deal with them so I think that as we have a captain a fair and partial policing for the state police is obviously a priority for us in what we're doing I appreciate that is there any record on another group that's the younger 22 another for example so we can pull that is it asked on the model policy or is it part of it not each specific I would like some consideration for that too because there's another group that is frequently in the outreach we've done we've met with the Mexican consulate from Boston we've met with farmers throughout the state so we'll continue we're not hearing the same complaints I do think that the model policy the one in defiance bias policing is if it's motivated by an individual's actual worst perceived personal characteristics and personal characteristics doesn't move age but if they don't ask is it there you mean the on the traffic stops what's with this now we can pull that though we're looking to go further than we have we will continue to look at all that male, female, license plates license and driver one other question regarding the policy we go to the front of the rights how does the law enforcement see that it would be a concern NCIC and who was looking at that that can be issues when you're talking about open records and the violation of the NCIC federal standards of an agency who came in and out of work through those types of things so there's definitely concerns there for that and we would oppose it it's too broad as you all too broad one other question when if a agency we have a model policy the floor and then we have agencies opting above the floor if you're working in collaboration around the agency say drug enforcement who should policies come into play the officer follows their independent agency policy where the state trooper working on the drug task force is doing working in Winooski for example they would follow state police for safety in Winooski and that can create confusion sometimes you can see how that might other questions we have to thank you very much for being here I appreciate it I I I missed some of the testimony could you join us for about three minutes please I think I was looking at two things one is how an agency state government like the department of motor vehicles not the motor vehicles in fact the law enforcement are not that but the agency has thought of this how it can share information with immigration and that should have been clear that they can't or shouldn't we might want something of that and secondly hopefully after hearing the testimony we can work with the human rights commission ACLU attorney general's office the trading council and others on revising the proposal from the to make they will have access is there one of the points that senator benny made make it clear that they would not have access to information of part of the investigation that is not allowed if they have somebody following the complaints so anyway I hope oh yeah but that's the very information that they need to have so many times I don't know how whether or not this is possible whether we will have something in the bill but as many have stated it's important to get this bill through this year not the end of this