Michelle Bos-Lun (D-Windham-3), is a third-term Democrat representing Westminster, Rockingham, and Brookline. She is a teacher and has worked in restorative justice.
WESTMINSTER-During the summer and fall of 2025, I worked with a number of my colleagues in both the House and Senate to develop language for a bill that would address ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and other federal agents coming into Vermont masked and without wearing uniforms or name tags as they engaged in immigration enforcement and other activities.
Law enforcement officers usually display badges that identify them so they can be held accountable for their treatment of people taken into custody. But with masks, unmarked black cars, and no identification, it is like the wild west. If someone is detained or arrested by a masked and unidentified person, it can be hard to figure out where loved ones are. We need all officers to be accountable and identifiable.
Our efforts resulted in two companion bills, meaning that the same bill was filed in the House and the Senate. I was a co-sponsor for the House version and had worked with colleagues to finalize the language in the two original bills, which addressed masking and lack of identification on federal agents.
The Senate worked on its bill first and passed it, sending it back to the House for our consideration.
What came back to us was a very different version of this important bill, which I voted on with House members on May 19.
This is the story of how a bill that started out this winter as a response to the policies of federal immigration enforcement agencies and the behavior of their officers ended up last week affecting only Vermont law enforcement.
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At the start of this legislative session in January, “the masking bill” was on the minds of many Vermonters. Our constituents asked us about it repeatedly. Many in the Legislature were eager to stop federal overreach, to protect Vermonters and, we hoped, to ensure them due process.
The House and Senate initially had virtually identical visions: to stop ICE and federal officers from appearing in Vermont without ID and with masks that are scaring our residents.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, with Sen. Nader Hashim as chair, made a major amendment to the bill before it returned to the House. Under the Senate version, Vermont officers would also be forbidden from masking and also be required to have visible identification.
I believe this extension was added after ICE, with backup from the Burlington Police Department, sought to arrest three individuals in South Burlington on March 11. Many of the Vermont officers were masked and behaved aggressively against peaceful protestors and witnesses.
Meanwhile, four other states —California, Washington, New Jersey, and Connecticut — had passed similar laws that prevent masking and require identification for federal officers, with New York also considering similar legislation. Vermont could have been the next state to do so.
But in April, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that due to the supremacy clause — the constitutional principle that federal law overrules contradictory state law — California’s masking law was overturned.
The House Judiciary Committee then made a dramatic amendment to remove the bill’s language that would apply to federal officers, leaving only the new language and changing entirely the people the legislation was designed to regulate.
The committee chair felt strongly that because of the 9th Circuit decision, we should pass this strongly revised version of the bill, as any such law directed at regulating federal agents in Vermont would be more likely to face a challenge in the courts.
As the vote drew closer, a cluster of three Democrats made a plan to offer an amendment that would restore the language to prevent masking and require ID for federal officers.
We also heard that Gov. Phil Scott would veto the bill if it included the restriction on federal officers. If we were to support the new House version, there was a chance the governor would sign it.
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For the past four years, the delegation representing the voters of Westminster, Rockingham and Brookline have held monthly meetings at the Rockingham Free Public Library on the third Saturday of each month. Both our senators, Sen. Nader Hashim and Sen. Wendy Harrison, usually attend, as do my district-mate, retiring Rep. Leslie Goldman (oh, how I will miss her!) and I.
Our May 13 meeting drew an average crowd, about 20 constituents. We started the meeting with Rep. Goldman explaining that we would have to cast a difficult vote the following week.
We asked our constituents: Should we vote for S.208 in this new form? Or should we approve the amendment that would restore the language about federal officers?
One by one, our constituents raised their hands and said why they thought we should “represent their values,” that “people who came to Vermont need to be protected,” and that the “Vermont-only bill is not enough to keep people from being very afraid.”
Every person who spoke advised us to support adding regulation of federal agents back in, even if doing so would increase the chance of a veto or constitutional challenge.
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So, on May 19, when we returned from our weekend recess, we voted on the House version of S.208.
Some in the Windham County delegation really are convinced that the ruling in California would make a similar law a deal breaker everywhere else. This was a difficult and divisive topic.
What followed was the most compelling series of floor speeches I have heard in six years in the chamber. We took a roll call vote, meaning our votes were recorded by name, one by one.
But unlike many partisan roll call votes, many Democrats voted yes and slightly more voted no. Seven Republicans voted to support the amendment to add the feds back in.
All but one of the independents and all the Progressives supported the amendment. Two committee chairs voted for it, voting against the official vote of the House Judiciary Committee — this almost never happens.
The amendment lost, 67–88, but the willingness of people to vote their conscience was moving, as were the multitude of compelling speeches reminding us all why we need this.
Rep. Barbara Rachelson, who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, said in her floor report: ”My constituents ask me why would Vermont not take every reasonable action we can to prohibit secret police in our state.
“They want to know why California, Washington State, New Jersey, and more recently Connecticut adopted a law to require federal, state and local law enforcement to be unmasked and to have visible identification […] and New York is close to passing similar legislation as well.”
Rep. Conor Casey said: “If this body had waited for every constitutional question to be fully settled before acting, we never would have led on civil unions. We never would have led on death with dignity. Almost every consequential thing this body is remembered for faced legal uncertainty when we passed it. We acted because we believed something was right.”
I agree with them.
I thought of the horrific incident last year where Mohsen Mahdawi — a legal resident who thought he was called to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection building in St. Albans for his final meeting before becoming a citizen — was grabbed in front of the building by masked men. They refused to identify themselves to Sen. Becca White, who was there as Mohsen’s friend and to be a witness. Other incidents are equally alarming.
I voted for the amendment. When it failed, I then supported the revised House version, which would prevent Vermont officers from masking.
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Our country should not be like this, but it is. As a teacher of social studies, including civics, for many years, I am alarmed by the erosion in our democracy.
The system of checks and balances is not working as it was intended. The Fourth Amendment (no unreasonable search and seizure) is also being violated often in the past couple of years with federal overreach.
As state representatives, we make policies about what happens in Vermont. We need to protect our people in a basic, but important, way by letting them know the name of the person arresting them or a loved one and under what authority (the U.S. Immigration Service or some other entity).
Vermonters have a right to know this.
Working on legislation like this — trying to protect the rights of all who live in Vermont to be treated with respect if they should find themselves facing a federal authority — is part of the reason I serve.
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The bill has gone to Conference Committee, where three representatives and three senators are working through the differences between the two versions. Then both House and Senate will vote the bill up or down with no amendments.
What is likely to happen by next week is not what I want or what my constituents want. I expect that the final bill will not change much from the House version, that both the House and Senate will pass it, and that the governor might sign it.
Senate conferees could win over the House negotiators and convince them to restore the regulation of federal agents or add language that could trigger this outcome if a condition is met; i.e., if another state’s similar law is ruled constitutional.
That outcome is not impossible, but I believe the House will not budge.
The final version will likely help bring about a Vermont that is closer to what most Vermonters want than what exists now. This is progress, but it is also disappointing.
I want to be part of a body of Legislators who legislate boldly, striving to make justice. We’re going in the right direction, but we just aren’t going far enough.
Change takes time. Maybe next biennium?
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