Seven faith leaders, including multiple Protestant clergy, were arrested when they refused to leave a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Vermont when they were protesting last Friday.
The Vermont State Police (VSP) announced the arrests of seven individuals for trespassing when they refused to leave an office in Williston as part of an anti-ICE protest.
According to authorities, the building in question included offices for other public entities and private businesses, with the owner asking the seven faith leaders to leave the property.
“State police, working in conjunction with the Williston Police Department, responded and spoke with protest leaders,” reported VSP. “That discussion led to several people leaving the inside of the building, while the others indicated they’d need to be arrested.”
“Those individuals were taken into custody and brought to the Williston Barracks, where they were processed and released with citations to appear for arraignment at 8:30 a.m. Oct. 20, 2026, in the Criminal Division of Vermont Superior Court in Burlington.”
The arrested individuals were Jessica Derise, 54, of Williston; Rebecca Girrell, 47, of South Burlington; Elizabeth Gleich, 36, of Middlebury; Karen Johnston, 58, of Colchester; Earl Kooperkamp, 69, of Bradford; Susan McMillan, 65, of Colchester; and 78-year-old Catherine Bock of Burlington.
Derise and Gleich are Congregationalist pastors, Girrell is a United Methodist elder, Johnston is a Unitarian Universalist minister, McMillan and Kooperkamp are clergy with the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, and Bock is a Quaker activist.
“Our national leaders, claiming to be Christian, authorize heinous and immoral policies, and the implementation of those policies starts right here,” said McMillan in a statement supported by the diocese.
“If Jesus were here in the US today, he could easily be caught in this trap and deported. This is not Christianity and I have to fight this cruelty in every way I can.”
Since President Donald Trump began his second term, ICE and Border Patrol agents have ratcheted up their enforcement efforts against people who have entered the country illegally.
Supporters have argued that these efforts are necessary to have a more secure border and immigration policy, and point to the many violent criminals who have been deported as a result.
Critics, including many mainline clergy, claim that ICE’s tactics are too violent, legally dubious, and have harmed immigrants who don’t have violent criminal histories and are otherwise law-abiding, including pastors.
In January, Fox News released a poll which found that 59% of respondents believe ICE tactics are “too aggressive,” a 10% increase from a similar survey conducted in July of last year.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that ICE had arrested nearly 51,000 illegal immigrants in August, the highest number of such arrests in a single month.
“The hard-working men and women of DHS continue to break records as they defend the homeland and protect the American people,” said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the announcement.
“This is promises made and promises kept in action. Under President Trump’s leadership, ICE is working around the clock every day to arrest and deport illegal aliens from American communities. If you are in the country illegally, LEAVE NOW. If not, we will find you, arrest you, and deport you.”
A group of Hispanic Pentecostal faith leaders gathered in Washington earlier this week to urge the Trump administration to extend the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for El Salvador, which expired Wednesday. The removal impacts 170,000 Salvadorans who have lived in the U.S. since the designation began in 2001. There are reportedly 150,000 U.S. citizens who are children of such individuals.
“We all speak the language of mercy. That’s what precisely unites us,” Bishop Ángel Marcial, a leader in the Cleveland, Tennessee-based Church of God, said through an English translator.
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