How did an organization that advocates for Vermont’s migrant farmworkers become the state’s leading organizer of opposition to U.S. immigration policy? In this week’s cover story, Lucy Tompkins traces the history, accomplishments and dramatic growth of Migrant Justice. She visits dairy farms, protests and a Franklin County asamblea of workers to better understand what makes the homegrown nonprofit so effective.
It’s the latest from Lucy, who also gave us the definitive account of what went down on March 11 in the South Burlington standoff between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local protesters. More recently, she analyzed hours of bodycam footage from the city’s top cop on that day to show the conflicts he faced trying to keep the peace.
Lucy joined Seven Days almost a year ago to report on immigration, the northern border and refugee communities in Vermont — a beat we anticipated and sought to cover before Donald Trump won his second presidential term.
She’s been busy, to say the least.
One of her first stories, on July 22, 2025, was a scoop about the Winooski schools superintendent, a U.S. citizen, who was detained and questioned for hours while returning from a visit to Nicaragua. In the months since, she’s documented numerous accounts of Vermont residents detained by ICE agents, as well as the efforts — sometimes successful — to release them. She’s talked with immigrant parents who, fearing arrest, have assigned guardians for their kids, and she’s ridden along with U.S. Border Patrol agents policing the boundary between Vermont and Canada. Before Christmas, she accompanied a traveling priest who performs religious services on Vermont farms.
Lucy digs deep to find stories that would otherwise stay hidden and, with clear-eyed, rigorous reporting, tells them with care — and context.
Dogged, thorough and patient, Lucy has cultivated sources on all sides of the issues. She digs deep to find stories that would otherwise stay hidden and, with clear-eyed, rigorous reporting, tells them with care — and context. You can see every article she has produced in the past 10 months at sevendaysvt.com/lucy.
We owe Lucy’s presence here to Report for America, a national service program that places talented, mostly early-career reporters in newsrooms around the country. Media outlets such as Seven Days compete to host them by proposing an under-covered beat. Once chosen, news publishers advertise a position in hopes of attracting the right candidate. Report for America makes the connections.
We lucked out with Lucy, who was uniquely qualified for this reporting job — and not just because she speaks Spanish. After graduating from the University of Montana with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she got a Fulbright scholarship to study international asylum law in Germany. During the pandemic, a reporting fellowship returned her to the U.S. to write national coronavirus stories for the New York Times. She’s covered housing and homelessness for the Texas Tribune.
At the time she applied to Report for America, Lucy was working at Documented, a nonprofit newsroom in New York City. But she was ready to get back to journalism that “makes a difference in your local community,” she said — the kind she’d experienced during college and for seven months postgraduation when she worked at the daily Missoulian.
She’s found that at Seven Days.
Since it was founded in 2017, RFA has become a powerful recruiter for local newspapers, online news sites and radio stations, many of which could not otherwise attract such talent. VTDigger, Vermont Public and Seven Days have all hosted “corps members” who become part of a national cohort that receives training and support throughout the experience.
RFA also aims to teach the news outlets a thing or two, with a three-year funding structure that incentivizes reader engagement. In Year No. 1, it pays for half of the reporter’s salary and benefits; in Year No. 2, a third; by Year No. 3, a quarter. RFA wants you — the beneficiaries of Lucy’s hard work — to chip in to pay the balance.
The money we raise also covers expenses related to Lucy’s prolific news gathering. For example, it was her idea to publish a version of this week’s Migrant Justice article in Spanish. The price tag for a professional-quality translation on a 24-hour turnaround? More than $1,000.
Help us keep Lucy on the job for another year. Give Seven Days a tax-deductible donation through Report Local, one of our fiscal sponsors and the nonprofit umbrella organization that runs the RFA program. With your support, we’ll keep this timely coverage coming.
This article appears in May 27 • 2026.
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