By Paul Bean
Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in an X post Tuesday night, highlighting two Vermonters caught in recent detentions.
“Despite being a U.S. citizen, Winooski Superintendent Wilmer Chavarria was detained and questioned for hours with no cause by agents when crossing the border back into America,” Welch wrote. “And now, one of his seven-year-old students has been detained with his mother after visiting family for Thanksgiving.”
A news report by Mike Donoghue points out that this mother and her 7-year-old son were detained at the U.S.-Canada border in Highgate Springs on Thanksgiving after attempting to enter Canada and being turned back. Upon re-entering the United States, CBP officers discovered fraudulent documents in their vehicle, including a fake Green Card and Social Security card belonging to the mother.
The pair (along with an adult male traveling with them) were transferred to ICE and are currently being held together at a family immigration detention facility in Texas pending removal proceedings. CBP emphasized that the child has not been separated from his mother at any point.
The family, originally from Ecuador and recent residents of Winooski, became the subject of concern when the boy did not return to school after the holiday; initial reports and statements from the school superintendent incorrectly suggested the family had simply made a “wrong turn” in the Midwest.
“Their stories represent the chaotic and broken system President Trump has created,” the senator added. “I’m proud to stand with Wilmer Chavarria and every Vermonter who believes in justice.”
This testimony also follows recent controversial news about a video circulating widely on social media showing what appeared to be staff and students at a Vermont public school raising the flag of Somalia during what appeared to be a ceremonial event.
Chavarria, a U.S. citizen, was held for five hours by CBP in July despite showing a valid passport. The second-grader and his mother remain in custody in Texas.
The episode prompted Chavarria to testify before Congress days ago, where he joined Welch and other lawmakers in a bicameral forum on the detention of U.S. citizens at borders.
“Since this incident, I do not feel free to travel,” said Chavarria in testimony to a bicameral forum following the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) refusal to respond to multiple requests from members of these committees for information on the number of U.S. citizens who have been detained by CBP and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The forum was put on by Democrat representatives and senators, including Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA-42) and attended by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Reps. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC-AL), Ro Khanna (D-CA-17), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30), Melanie Stansbury (D-NM-01), Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA-10), Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ-03), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-12), and Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12).
“I am fearful that a visit to my mother could mean extended detention or a fabricated plot to destroy my life—like they threatened to,” Chavarria continued. “If the goal is to make some citizens feel like they are of a second class with only some of the rights, but not others, then they have succeeded. But I choose to believe that the pendulum will swing the other way, and that our collective disgust for these abuses will catalyze into a powerful backlash against overreach. I thank you for being here to support me and my fellow Americans as we ride out a dark time in our history.”
The student’s case, which Welch also highlighted as a fresh example of overreach, involves a second-grader from the same district who was separated from his father and placed in immigration detention in Texas alongside his mother following a Thanksgiving trip to visit relatives.
“Their stories represent the chaotic and broken system President Trump has created,” stated Welch in the post. “I’m proud to stand with Wilmer Chavarria and every Vermonter who believes in justice.”
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Categories: National News
If you’re doing nothing wrong, than you have nothing to worry about. Comply, though it may be inconvenient, and you’ll be moved along. Why people have to make this so difficult is beyond me. When you cause a fuss, and make a spectacle, it elevates the situation. Mistakes will be made, we have millions of people who shouldn’t be here. The fact that they are checking up on people’s status shouldn’t be a shock. I want to know who is here, just as ICE or CBP want to. Grow up, if you’re American, you’ll be processed as American. If your not supposed to be here, or have a shady past, see ya. The only ones sqwaking are the ones that have questionable issues with VISA overstay, past criminal backgrounds, etc. And for God sake, cut em some slack, they trying to make our communities safer, and are getting death threats, screamed at, shot at, etc.
A “chaotic and broken system”..??? What the hell do you call our open border policies overseen by the Biden administration and the Democrats?!!! Trump derangement syndrome on full display..
“broken system President Trump has created”, seriously? Joe Biden broke the system entirely by opening the ‘secure’ border to permit a mass influx of people to enter the US against the provisions or standing, Congressionally approved and Presidentially signed Immigration Law, hence permitting them to enter illegally!!
Why aren’t they just called blatant liars? They are smiling while doing it no less. Fraudulent id at the boarder will get anybody trouble.
How come we have foreign people running our schools?
Most of us wouldnt have a problem with a “foreigner” running a school if he wasn’t such a virtue-signaling activist who advocates for actual lawbreakers and immigration fraudsters.
Peter Welch, listen up, it is very obvious that because you stand for nothing you’ll fall for anything. Whatever law school you graduated from must have cut the word “illegal” out of all their books. Maybe you should see if you can get your money back.
The only error I see is that Border Patrol allowed him back into the US so he could go on to fly a foreign flag on taxpayer-funded property at a Winooski public school in a subversive act against this country in order to further the indoctrination of young people that the current wave of “newcomers” such as himself are so resolute in propagating.
It is his conduct and mindset that are shameful and it is the US Border Patrol which is conducting themselves properly. I’ve been detained in years past for a somewhat extended period at the northern border myself, & yet somehow managed to recover from the “trauma”. Nix the drama, Welch.
And Ron Wondering is completely correct – it is the twisted ideology & illegal policies of the Biden sock puppet administration that created all these problems. A nation without borders is not a nation.
The super didn’t know his wife was illegal and had fake documents. Lol
” Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) criticized the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in an X post Tuesday night, highlighting two Vermonters caught in recent detentions.”
What a morbid brain dead Marxist. Complaining about two individual persons in VT whereas thousands are in the country that he should be concerned about. Self serving Marxist without any brain matter to realize common sense. Bet if you blew in one year, there would not be any resistance and could blow out a match near the other ear. And he getting paid for being a zombie. But this revelation isn’t just limited to Welch the welsher, also the other two, don’t need names.
So I guess that if he had another brain, it would be lonesome?
I do not know his circumstances, but I suspect his associations caused him to be scrutinized. His citizenship guarantees he will eventually be admitted to the US, but the circumstances of his admission depend on whether he is wanted, is suspected of terrorist links, or suspected of criminal activity, such as assisting illegal aliens. His subsequent raising of the Somali flag is one clue as to why CBP was interested in him.