With the election behind us, many are wondering how to fight back against the unprecedented threats to restrict our rights, which President-elect Donald Trump will make good on as soon as he is inaugurated in January.
To push back against the threats we know are coming, states and cities must now build firewalls for freedom to ensure its officials do not voluntarily assist in attacking our civil liberties and civil rights — and the ACLU is here to help. We have a playbook for defending our fundamental freedoms, which includes a comprehensive, nationwide strategy for protecting access to reproductive care, immigrants' rights, free speech, and more.
Vermont has some of the strongest protections for civil rights and civil liberties in the country, but there is more we must do to counter those who seek to turn back the clock on the progress we have made together.
To prepare for Trump administration and the objectives outlined on the campaign trail, the ACLU has issued recommendations for a wide range of polices to help protect the people we know will be most impacted, our friends and neighbors in the LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities, as well as people seeking and providing legal reproductive and gender affirming health care.
With these threats in mind, we urge state policymakers to prioritize legislation and administrative actions in the following areas:
- Impose stronger restrictions on the use of state and local resources to aid in federal immigration actions: This includes strengthening existing non-cooperation policies such as the Fair and Impartial Policing policy, and ending the use of Vermont prisons for ICE detentions
- Provide funding for threatened health care services: We know that the Trump administration will work to limit access to reproductive and gender affirming care by cutting off federal funds and rewriting administrative rules to target providers of essential health care. To ensure access to patients here in Vermont we must be prepared to financially support the providers who are on the front lines fighting every day to give their patients the care they need.
- Improve oversight of law enforcement: Donald Trump has already said he wants to deputize state and local law enforcement to help him target vulnerable communities and quash protest against his actions. To guard against this, we need to limit unnecessary interactions with law enforcement by prohibiting nonpublic safety traffic stops and impose more meaningful oversight of law enforcement.
- Increase digital privacy protections: We need greater protections to publicly and privately held personal data which could be used to target vulnerable communities. This includes limiting what sensitive information is collected in the first place, as well as how and when that data can be shared. Furthermore, we must ban practices like dragnet warrants that sweep people into law enforcement databases because they happened to be in a particular place or used a certain search term. This practice has been used across the country to target people trying to access legally protected health care as well as those who are engaging in peaceful protest.
There's a lot of uncertainty around what the next few months will bring, but we’re already fighting to make Vermont a key piece of the national effort to defend against existential threats to our civil rights and civil liberties. We are working with elected officials right now to draft policies we can put in front of the legislature on day one which will better protect all of us from the threats of a Trump administration, or any future administration which seeks to overstep its bounds to harm the people of Vermont.
That is why we are asking all Vermont’s elected officials to use the resources in their power to push back on the attacks that we know are coming. We hope you will join us by signing our Firewall for Freedom petition that we will deliver to elected officials when lawmakers are sworn in this January.