Tim Kipp is a retired history teacher of 39 years and a political activist since the 1960s. He was arrested for trespassing at Citizens Bank on April 26 and directed to appear in Windham Superior Court Criminal Division. He intended to make these remarks to the court, but learned on June 2 that the state’s attorney declined the case. Also arrested was Dan DeWalt, whose remarks also appear in this issue.
BRATTLEBORO-I have been summoned to the Vermont Superior Criminal Court because of an act of conscience — I willfully broke the law. The state of Vermont has charged me with interfering with a profit-taking corporation, Citizens Bank, which finances private detention centers and prisons for immigrants.
These institutions typically violate due process rights by jailing without hearings an average of 70,000 people per day, including about 170 children. Seventy-four percent of these people have no criminal records.
Citizens Bank underwrites CoreCivic and the GEO Group, which run these private prisons for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). In the past years, ICE and other federal agencies have aggressively deported millions of immigrants.
These prisons have been charged with multiple abuses, deaths, neglect, fraud, forced labor, and other human rights violations. From 2017 to 2026, 75 have died while incarcerated due to physical abuse and poor medical and sanitary conditions. Amnesty International describes these federal prisons as “appalling” with “torture and enforced disappearances.”
The state of Vermont has ordered me to account for my nonviolent civil disobedience against a corporation that sponsors gross human rights violations.
When will the state of Vermont and the U.S. Department of Justice hold to account Citizens Bank and the other 679 ICE contractors for their sponsoring and profiting from the violation of human and constitutional rights?
When will the state of Vermont and the U.S. Department of Justice be held to account as accomplices in the unconstitutional incarceration and deportation of millions of people by ICE and others in federal law enforcement?
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The vast majority of U.S. immigrants have come to our country to escape oppression, to protect their families, and to build a more secure life.
I, like millions of fellow citizens of good will, am compelled to resist unjust laws in order to seek social justice and in this small way to try to make a democratic difference.
When the government itself violates the law, citizens have an obligation to act. No less than Thomas Jefferson in our Declaration of Independence admonished that “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed” and therefore it is the “right of the people to alter or abolish” an unjust government. Jefferson knew what he was talking about.
These are perilous times for our nation. Not since the Civil War have our democratic values and institutions been so comprehensively attacked by authoritarian forces here at home.
Michael Luttig, the renowned conservative jurist, now retired from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, describes these crisis times as the “end of the rule of law in America.” He warns that if citizens do not act we will lose what democratic rights we have.
While ours is far from a perfect democracy, citizens throughout our history have struggled for social justice in order to expand and strengthen our democracy. Look to the abolitionists, the unionists, the women and civil rights activists, to the community builders, to gay/lesbian rights advocates, to environmentalists, and now at unprecedented levels to democracy defenders. We are sweeping across the nation.
These magnificent citizen movements have defined our potential for real democracy. We are never more democratic then when we fight for it.
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Judge, I taught United States history for 39 years and have been a political activist since the 1960s. I have been in this “patriot’s game” all my life. This love for my country is a love for social justice and authentic democracy.
I take this action for social justice with the understanding that democracy is a constant state of being, of always evolving, and that it requires continuous defending. I don’t imagine quitting or going away.
Judge, could this act of nonviolent civil disobedience be a considered a citizen’s arrest for the protection of democracy?
It can be said that democracy is like good Vermont organic manure: It only works when it is spread around.
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