A Chittenden County sheriff deputy’s contact with federal authorities during a traffic stop last month led to a Mexican farmworker’s deportation, prompting fresh scrutiny of a program that pays local officers to assist with security along the Canadian border.
In response, Chittenden County Sheriff Dan Gamelin has suspended his agency’s participation in Operation Stonegarden, Vermont Public reported. But members of five other northern Vermont police agencies patrol the border as part of the federal program.
That’s what Sgt. Scott Costella was doing on July 19 when he pulled over a car in West Berkshire with two dairy farmworkers inside. Within minutes, he summoned U.S. Border Patrol agents to the scene.
The car’s passenger, 22-year-old Alex Genri Jimenez, was later deported, prompting an ongoing investigation into whether Costella violated state policing policy that limits collaboration with federal immigration authorities.
The incident has reignited a debate about whether Operation Stonegarden is compatible with Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy. State law requires every Vermont law enforcement agency to abide by the protocol, which was adopted years ago in an effort to address biased policing.
The incident has reignited a debate about whether Operation Stonegarden is compatible with Vermont’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy.
Law enforcement and elected leaders have defended Stonegarden, saying participating officers focus on crimes such as drug trafficking and human smuggling — not civil immigration violations. But Costella’s traffic stop reflects the sometimes blurred line between the two.
“We’ve always said the existence of Stonegarden agreements are antithetical to the purpose, concept and goals of the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy and would inevitably lead to violations,” said Will Lambek, a spokesperson for farmworker advocacy group Migrant Justice, “and that is exactly what has happened in this instance.”
As a population of farmworkers — most of them undocumented and many of them living on dairy farms near the border — has gained more visibility through the advocacy of Migrant Justice, the group has pushed to further restrict local officers’ ability to aid federal immigration agents.
The goal is to “ensure that Vermont law enforcement are not in the business of deportations,” Lambek said. “That has been the clarion call and the clear animating demand for over a decade now.”
The policy states that officers “shall not facilitate the detention of individuals by federal immigration authorities for suspected civil immigration violations,” nor shall they “hold people for, or transfer people to, federal immigration agents, unless the agents provide a judicial warrant for arrest.”
The requirements set forth by Operation Stonegarden directly conflict with that policy, said Lia Ernst, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont.
For one, Operation Stonegarden requires officers to “honor requests for cooperation” from the feds, such as sharing information, participating in joint operations or holding immigrants who have civil detainers — all things that state policy is intended to prevent, Ernst said.
“I don’t see any way the requirements of participation could be reconciled with the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy,” Ernst said. “It’s long past time for us to cease participation in Stonegarden and similar programs.”
Gamelin’s deputies have conducted 147 Stonegarden shifts since the beginning of 2025, according to records obtained by Seven Days. Costella has done by far the most of any, with 105 Stonegarden shifts during that time period. In May, he completed 11 in a single month. Most shifts are 9 to 10 hours long.
Officers are paid time and a half for Stonegarden shifts, which Gamelin said can range from roughly $50 to $80 an hour depending on the officer’s base pay. Eight of Gamelin’s deputies have participated in the past 18 months. Gamelin said he has also taken Stonegarden shifts, though not for several years.
In an emailed statement to Seven Days, Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark defended Operation Stonegarden, saying it is “consistent” with state policing policy because it focuses on criminal law enforcement.
Clark joined 19 other states in suing the Trump administration last year for threatening to withhold federal funding — including Stonegarden grants — from states that did not agree to assist with civil immigration enforcement. A district court subsequently sided with the states.
Clark said state policy does not allow “participation” by Vermont law enforcement in civil immigration enforcement activities such as deportations. She did not comment directly on Costella’s traffic stop, which raises the question of what constitutes “participation.”
According to bodycam footage and police reports, Costella was patrolling dirt roads along the border when he passed a car without a front license plate. He turned around and stopped the car after learning the registration was expired.
After asking the driver for his license, insurance and registration, Costella returned to his cruiser to grab his cellphone. “potato hill rd on stop,” he wrote to two Border Patrol agents, followed by a second text message: “need one of you,” according to a copy of the messages released by Migrant Justice.
Border Patrol agents arrived 25 minutes later and detained the car’s passenger, Jimenez, a dairy farmworker who had been in Vermont for about two years. The driver, also a Franklin County farmworker, was not detained.
Migrant Justice revealed details about Costella’s traffic stop on the eve of a primary election in which Sheriff Gamelin faced a Democratic primary challenge from Kevin Bloom. Gamelin released a statement that night reaffirming that “Vermont law enforcement has no role in enforcing federal immigration law.” (He went on to win the nomination.)
Records obtained by Seven Days show Vermont state troopers, sheriffs’ deputies and local cops are regularly clocking in to work Stonegarden shifts under the instruction of Border Patrol. When they see something they deem suspicious, they can call in the feds, according to a 2025 request for proposal.
Operation Stonegarden, a grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was created in the wake of 9/11 to improve border security collaboration between federal and local law enforcement. Vermont agencies have participated for years.
In the federal fiscal year that ended in September 2024, Vermont received a total of $760,000 through Stonegarden, which was divided among six law enforcement agencies: Chittenden County Sheriff’s Department, Swanton Village Police Department, Orleans County Sheriff’s Department, Essex County Sheriff’s Department, Newport City Police Department and Vermont State Police.
The Chittenden County Sheriff’s Department received $218,854, more than any other local agency that year. The grant awards fluctuate annually, and in 2025, Vermont received a total of $150,000, significantly less than previous years.
Still, the money can be significant for local agencies. In 2024, Operation Stonegarden funding accounted for one-fifth of the Swanton Village Police Department’s operating budget, the Boston Globe reported last November.
Most departments use the money to pay their officers an overtime rate for shifts patrolling the border, according to applications each department filed for funding in 2024. But some also use it to buy special equipment.
The Orleans County Sheriff’s Department bought an ATV with all-terrain tracks and night vision goggles to help with evening patrols. The Newport City Police Department, which has been participating in Operation Stonegarden since 2009, bought snowmobiles, ATVs and a boat.
“We have been involved in many incidents that have led to Drug and Currency siezures [sic] and apprehension of illegal entries into the US,” the Orleans Sheriff’s Department’s application for funding says. “There has also been numerous intelligence reports from our patrols that have been gathered and assist with the overall mission of border security.”
Seven Days obtained the departments’ applications from the Vermont Department of Public Safety through a records request. The department redacted the overtime rates that officers were to be paid for shifts. So, too, were the number of shifts that departments expected to work.
A request for officers’ daily incident reports from Operation Stonegarden shifts was denied on the basis that the records would disclose law enforcement techniques that “could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law.”
In an interview last Thursday, Sheriff Gamelin stood by his statement that his deputies are not expected to enforce federal immigration law, even during Stonegarden shifts. Their objective is to assist with “drug trafficking interdiction, gun interdiction, human trafficking and human smuggling interdiction,” he said.
“We cannot do any immigration enforcement on that program,” Gamelin said. “We have to follow the [Fair and Impartial Policing] Policy of the state and my own policy.”
Gamelin said his department has participated in Operation Stonegarden for about 15 years. Every month, the Border Patrol releases a schedule of Stonegarden shifts that local officers can sign up for. At the beginning of each shift, they’re assigned a particular area to patrol based on the agency’s needs at the time, Gamelin said.
That could include traffic enforcement on the interstate, watching a port of entry, patrolling rural back roads near the border or watching a field where there’s suspected illegal activity, he said.
It’s long past time for us to cease participation in Stonegarden and similar programs.
Lia Ernst
On Stonegarden patrols, local officers are expected to follow the policies of their departments. Traffic stops such as the one Costella initiated are supposed to be handled without notifying federal authorities, Gamelin said. But he also acknowledged that the expectations of each agency can appear to conflict.
“It puts you in a tough situation when you’re working up there,” he said. “But if you do it right, you shouldn’t have any issues.”
Asked what a deputy on a Stonegarden shift should do if they saw someone who appeared to have just walked across the border, Gamelin said, “I wouldn’t even touch that. We can’t notify [Border Patrol] that you have somebody that just came across the border.”
When asked if apprehending those individuals wasn’t part of the point of Stonegarden, he reconsidered.
“It’s illegal to do it,” he said of walking across the border. “So if it’s smuggling somebody across the border, then that’s criminal activity, so that is different, I think.”
Costella, who has been with the department for 25 years, has been reassigned to non-patrol duties while an investigation is under way into whether he violated policy by calling Border Patrol.
At least one sheriff has called for amending the Fair and Impartial Policing Policy because of the way it conflicts with the border security work.
Essex County Sheriff Trevor Colby brought his concerns to the Vermont Criminal Justice Council’s Fair and Impartial Policing Policy Subcommittee last September. He said he doesn’t have a problem with not asking people about their immigration status but said he should be able to call Border Patrol to investigate.
“If I’m doing an investigation and somebody has illegally entered the country along the border, our general practice is going to be to put them in contact with Border Patrol,” Colby told the committee.
“It feels like this policy blurs the line between civil immigration enforcement and criminal enforcement,” he said. “And that is the issue I really have.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Double Duty | Some Vermont cops are paid to patrol the border — despite a state policy that bans collaboration with federal immigration authorities”
This article appears in August 19 • 2026.