SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. — The South Burlington Public Library has retrained its staff on what to do if federal immigration agents come into the building. Library Director Bree Drapa told trustees Thursday that a new Vermont law barring civil arrests in public libraries has shifted the staff's role toward witnessing and documenting any arrest.

At the Library Board of Trustees meeting on Nov. 12, Drapa said the library had to revisit its ICE protocol after the Legislature passed the law this year. "Basically, what this law said is that ICE could not civilly arrest people in a public library," she said.

The law adds public libraries, schools, state buildings, hospitals, polling places and places of worship to the places in Vermont where people cannot be subject to civil arrest, WAMC reported when the House passed it in May. Under the law, the state attorney general's office can bring a civil action on behalf of the state over violations, according to the enacted text.

Drapa said staff were retrained at their most recent staff meeting. They were told that if ICE does arrest someone in the library, "which they're not supposed to do, it's not our job to interfere or engage." What changed, she said, is that staff now have "more of an active documentation rule," because a person arrested that way can sue ICE and the state attorney general can also sue.

"I just like the mantra be professional, not helpful," she said. She added that staff were reminded that interfering with ICE is a federal crime.

Drapa said she attended a know-your-rights training put on by the ACLU of Vermont and the Vermont Library Association. It covered how to recognize a warrant, phrases staff can use and how to witness an arrest. She said the training changed her view of the staff's role, from "strict rule followers" to "reporters and documentarians."

She also said the definition of harboring had become "more defined or maybe more ambiguous." She described harboring as a federal crime of concealing or shielding immigrants who are in the country illegally. As an example of what an institution should not do, she said a library could not simply stay open around the clock. The training suggested calling an advocacy group to wait outside if the library had to close, she said.

Drapa said immigration enforcement activity seemed to increase around the election. That made it a good time to update the protocol, especially since many staff and city administrators had turned over, she said.

Asked by a trustee whether staff could film an arrest, Drapa said library policies do not bar filming. "I'm not gonna say no to you as a city employee, and I'm not going to require you as a city employee," she said.

South Burlington was the site of an ICE operation in March that led to questions and several state and local inquiries into the conduct of Vermont police that day, according to a Public Assets Institute analysis published by Vermont Business Magazine.

Separately, Drapa said a new code of conduct covering all of City Hall, where the library is located, will go to the City Council on Monday. She said she had wanted such a policy since she arrived, "especially after the overdose" and other problems around the building.