Joint Statement from the Rutland Area NAACP and the Windham County NAACP
The Vermont branches of the NAACP paused before speaking publicly about Attorney General Charity Clark’s decision to prosecute 13 people arrested during the July 24th protest at the Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) facility in Williston.
We wanted to be clear about what this moment is really about.
This is about power. Who has it, who feels the weight of it, and what people choose to do once it is placed in their hands.
Attorney General Clark has said that her political views cannot influence charging decisions and that she is bound by the Constitution. That responsibility is real. But prosecutors also have discretion, and Vermont’s own professional rules describe a prosecutor as a “minister of justice.”
Following the law does not remove judgment, humanity, or responsibility.
Attorney General Clark had a choice. She chose prosecution.
The Vermont branches of the NAACP believe she made the wrong choice.
The people arrested in Williston were protesting ICE, an agency with enormous power over people’s freedom, families, and ability to remain in their communities. The National NAACP has already called for greater accountability of ICE because of serious concerns about detention, violence, due process, and civil and human rights.
That context cannot be separated from these prosecutions.
Vermont must examine its own role. The State cannot simply remove a federal agency from Vermont, but that does not mean Vermont is powerless. State and local institutions still make choices about cooperation, assistance, enforcement, and the limits they place between themselves and federal immigration authorities.
When state and local institutions and their leaders choose to assist, normalize, protect, or leave unchallenged the dangerous and unethical actions of ICE, they become complicit in those actions.
That is why this moment is so difficult to ignore. Vermont found a clear path to hold protesters accountable. Accountability for institutions with far greater power has rarely been so simple.
The NAACP has spent more than a century paying attention to that imbalance.
A protester has some power. Police have more. A prosecutor deciding whether an arrest becomes a criminal case has even more. The Attorney General carries the power of the State of Vermont, while ICE carries the power and resources of the federal government.
These are not equal forms of power.
Accountability cannot travel only downward.
There is a difference between having the power to prosecute and deciding that prosecution serves justice.
Attorney General Clark still has the power to make a different choice.
The Vermont branches of the NAACP call on her to reconsider these prosecutions and use the discretion of her office in the service of justice and humanity.
Vermonters who share this concern should contact the Attorney General’s Office and ask her to reconsider the charges.
The NAACP knows too much history to accept “following the law” as the end of a conversation about power. The law gives public officials authority. Justice requires them to decide how that authority should be used.
Rutland Area NAACP
Windham County NAACP