ST. ALBANS, Vt. — When dairy farmer Wuendy Bernardo arrived for a mandated check-in with federal immigration authorities Monday morning, she feared she would be detained and deported on the spot.
But half an hour after the undocumented Guatemalan woman entered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building here, she walked out the same door, holding her 5-year-old daughter’s hand.
“As you can see, we’re free,” the 33-year-old said in Spanish, speaking softly into a bullhorn.
As an organizer translated her remarks, a crowd of about 200 people who had gathered to support her cheered and chanted.
“Sí se puede,” Bernardo said. “And united we stand strong.”
According to her attorney, Brett Stokes, ICE agents told Bernardo that she was free for now, but that she must return in 90 days.
For more than a decade, Bernardo and her partner have lived and worked on an Orleans County dairy farm, milking cows and raising a growing family. They have five children of their own and take care of two of Bernardo’s orphaned half-sisters — all between the ages of 5 and 18.
Bernardo entered the country without permission in 2014 and was immediately apprehended, according to Stokes. She has had to check in with ICE officials ever since, but those appointments have grown more frequent — and more fraught — since President Trump took office, vowing to deport a record number of undocumented people.
Bernardo’s case has drawn significant attention in Vermont over the years, with dozens of state lawmakers calling on ICE to pause its removal proceedings against her in 2023. The Globe last week published a story documenting the strong ties that have developed between Bernardo’s family and John Morin, the farmer who employs her and her partner.
“I consider them more than just employees,” he told the Globe. “They’re part of the family.”
Morin and his partner, Lynn Beede, drove Bernardo and two of her children to Monday’s meeting. As they waited outside, Morin said he was nervous, and Beede signaled that she was too emotional to speak.
“I don’t have any tissues with me,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek.
After Bernardo reemerged with her freedom intact, Morin said he was filled with “relief and happiness.”
“I’m glad for her family and for everybody,” he said. “The outcome was good today, but it’s not over yet.”
Bernardo was not the only Vermonter facing a nerve-wracking check-in Monday morning.
Steven Tendo, a Pentecostal minister and community organizer who fled his native Uganda in 2018, entered the building alongside Bernardo for a similar appointment with ICE officials. He was also told to return in 90 days.
Tendo, 40, has said that he faced political persecution and torture in Uganda after a charitable organization he founded tangled with the Ugandan government over its civic education efforts, VTDigger has reported. He has said that government-aligned forces cut off two of his fingers in one of several episodes of torture — and that his brother and uncle were killed due to their political activities.
In 2019, a federal immigration judge denied Tendo’s application for asylum, citing inconsistencies around aspects of his story. After spending more than two years in a federal immigration detention center in Texas, he relocated to Vermont, where he lives in Colchester. He now works as a licensed nursing assistant at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.
Tendo’s legal status is less precarious than Bernardo’s because, after a similar check-in earlier this year, he was granted a temporary stay of removal. (Bernardo has also applied for such a stay, but it remains pending, according to Stokes.) Nevertheless, Tendo told the Globe as he arrived for Monday’s appointment that he was worried “because the agency that we are dealing with is unpredictable.”
“The wave of fear, the kidnappings that have been happening, really, really make it very hard, even though you know you’re not a criminal,” he said.
Activists often show up to the St. Albans ICE office when undocumented Vermonters are asked to report, but organizers said Monday’s rally was the largest yet. As Department of Homeland Security officers guarded the building’s entrance, protesters held signs reading “Support our farm workers” and “Stop disappearing our community members.”
After Tendo addressed the crowd, protesters followed him and Bernardo to the facility’s entrance, chanting, “Steven, you are not alone!” and, in Spanish, “Wuendy, you are not alone!”
After exiting the building and speaking to the crowd, Bernardo told reporters that the repeated check-ins were “very stressful” for her — and especially for her children.
“I talk to them about what’s happening to me, but especially for my younger children, they aren’t able to understand it,” she said. “They count on me as their mother, and I don’t want to leave them home alone.”