This is not normal. Your senses & your values are right.

Yesterday, many in our community experienced something that was extremely violent, shocking, and deeply painful. For those most directly impacted - especially immigrant communities - and for the neighbors who experienced or witnessed the events, the presence of ICE in a South Burlington neighborhood, taking members of our community with the support of state police, brought fear, violence, and uncertainty into a place that should feel safe.

It also showed us all that this reality we feared is not distant. It is here. It may be happening on streets where we walk our dogs, near the schools young people attend, and at the farmer’s market where we chit-chat with neighbors and gather food for our family.

Many of us may now feel this truth more viscerally. We might know someone affected. We may live next door to someone whose family is vulnerable. We may recognize that the people targeted by ICE are not strangers, but they are our co-workers, neighbors, people we love and care for.

If you are feeling shaken, angry, or heartbroken today, your senses are working. Your values are speaking. What happened yesterday should be unequivocally alarming. This is not normal. We must NEVER let it be normal.

In moments like this, we cannot pretend that what happened didn’t happen or that we didn’t see what we saw. We can’t soften the harm or look away from the violence, fear and chaos that was brought into our community nor what reverberated throughout the state. But we can notice how our values showed up.

Yesterday revealed the strength and clarity of the people who live here. In the face of fear and abuse of power by Trump’s ICE, community members acted. They gathered and protested. They checked on one another. They held our values solidly and unwaveringly.

I want you to know that at the very same time that neighbors in South Burlington were standing their ground for one another, LGBTQ+ young people from across Vermont were at the State House for Leadership Day: Youth to the Table, meeting with state leaders, providing testimony, and holding a press conference to deliver the demands they know are necessary for them to survive and thrive in this world. They showed up with clarity, courage, and a deep belief that their voices belong in the rooms where decisions are made. (Here are links to yesterday’s press conference and afternoon youth panel.)

And just as people gathered in South Burlington to refuse silence, these young people stood their ground at the State House, advocating for what they deserve and for the communities they love. 

This is how change happens. We show up where we can and how we can, on sidewalks, in neighborhoods, in hearing rooms, and at podiums. These moments are not incidental and they are not separate. They are woven together, thread by thread, into the fabric of who we are: a community that refuses to stand by when dignity, safety, and belonging are on the line.

That instinct to show up, it’s who we are. It’s what will get us through. 

Our commitment at Outright remains clear. We will continue to stand with the families, neighbors, and young people who deserve to live with safety, dignity, and belonging. We will continue to reject the idea that fear and separation should define our communities.