"J" - a Mexican immigrant from a family-owned dairy farm in Northern Vermont - went to the Middlebury Church to obtain a passport from Mexican consulate representatives. Representatives from the Boston Consulate come to Vermont around three times a year to issue passports and “matricula” identification cards, which provide proof of residency in the United States and can be used at some U.S. banks to open accounts.

Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley believes that when someone is a member of his community, it doesn't matter how the person got there. As the state of Arizona prepares to implement the strictest immigration law in the country, this college town set amid dairy country - where many farmers now rely on immigrant labor - has taken a different approach to illegal immigration. Middlebury police don't ask about immigration status, don't seek out workers who are in the country illegally, and have a tough policy against anything resembling racial profiling.

On a map, the nation's borders are innocuous lines of ink. But for U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., they're an increasingly precarious tightrope. As chairman of his chamber's Judiciary Committee, he faces angry Arizonans who want the federal government to back their headline-grabbing efforts to bar illegal immigrants. But as the senior member of Vermont's congressional delegation, he's hearing from dairy farmers desperate to retain an estimated 1,500 hired hands from Mexico, and from truckers and travelers demanding simpler crossings into Canada. How to balance all the questions about immigration?

Translator Bhakti Adhikari of Burlington helped New Farms for New Americans program specialist Josie Weldon explain the different seeds she handed out and the plan for next week. The program is part of The Association of Africans Living in Vermont which serves all local refugees now, including this group of refugees from Bhutan. Many are experiencing their first summer in Vermont. The New Farms for New Americans program serves 50 refugee households.

Since Jan. 23, at least 150 Haitians living in Canada have tried, under cover of night, to slip over the border and navigate the dairy pastures and dense forest of northern Vermont. "This activity is definitely one of the larger groups, if not the largest of any focused nature, that we've had on our border," said Tristram J. Coffin, the U.S. attorney in Vermont. The sudden influx of immigration cases has swamped the federal courthouse, where clerks are learning how to pronounce Creole names and filings are being waived to expedite proceedings.

A group of green-card-carrying Canadian immigrants planning to attain U.S. citizenship said Thursday night they feel at home in the United States, even as Arizona has authorized its law enforcement to stop people suspected of being illegal immigrants. “There’s a big difference in attitude between the northern border and the southern border of the country,” said Laurie Bolduc, 46, of South Burlington. “It’s not as threatening or hostile at the northern border.”

Since January, Haitian immigrants have been pouring over the international border into Vermont in numbers the U.S. Border Patrol says it hasn’t seen in years. Mark Henry, operations officer for the Border Patrol’s Swanton sector, says that since January 21, at least 115 Haitians have been apprehended at the border. Though no one can say for sure, lawyers, immigration advocates and even Vermont’s top federal prosecutor all point to one reason for the trend: Haitians are coming here seeking special protections to avoid being deported back to their earthquake-ravaged homeland.

Mount Mansfield Union High School junior Keith MacDonald was looking for a project. His history teacher, Josh Fairfax, requires all students to do a service project as a class assignment. The parameters are wide open, but MacDonald decided to take a global approach to the task. Recognizing that wars, oppression and natural disasters around the world were leading to an influx of refugees in the United States, he decided to help those arriving in Vermont.

It might go unnoticed to patients and hospital visitors, but there’s a “whole world” behind Fletcher Allen Health Care’s spotless hallways and offices, kitchens and bathrooms, and operating and waiting rooms.Known as the Department of Environmental Services, this world has more than 100 foreign employees who speak 37 languages and represent more than two dozen nationalities. Many of them are refugees who relocated in nearby communities from distant, war-torn countries.

Katherine Paterson is used to being outside of her comfort zone. As a writer, she delves into the heart of hard issues, pulling her unique characters through a range of circumstances, and watching what happens when they come out the other side. Paterson, a Barre Town resident, has been weaving tales for readers young and old for a couple of generations now. With 16 books to her name, many of them geared toward young adult readers, Paterson has tackled issues from racism, religion, and bullying to class and prejudice. But it was her connection to a local family who came to Vermont in 1999 that gave her the impetus for "The Day of the Pelican" - a true test of one novelist's comfort level.

A Vermont dairy farmer who was among those targeted in a federal crackdown on undocumented workers says he thought three illegal workers had proper documentation. Clement Gervais believes his family's farm has been cleared following the November inspection by immigration officials, but federal officials say four cases involving farms are still pending in Vermont. The crackdown has shaken up dairy farmers, some of whom struggle to fill milking jobs and often rely on foreign farmworkers, who may have entered the country illegally.

Migrant workers who are illegally working on dairy farms all over Vermont will be forced to continue living under the radar after the U.S. Labor Department failed to address their status in the new rule on seasonal agricultural workers. The Labor Department on Thursday announced new rules about the H-2A program, which allows farmers to hire foreign laborers for seasonal work. Dairy workers, who spend all year on the farm, have never been included in the H-2A program and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has been urging the Labor Department to allow them into the program.

A Vermont legislative committee is taking up the question of whether the state should apologize for a 20th century program to sterilize citizens who were labeled feeble-minded or criminal. Backers of the resolution say its harms fell disproportionately on Vermonters of Abenaki and French-Canadian heritage, as well as poor Irish and Italian immigrants.

Coming to the United States from a foreign country can be hard for someone not familiar with the culture and the language. A local non-profit educational organization offers classes to help immigrants and those with work visas to ease into the community and learn English at the same time. "Vermont Adult Learning is often the first place they come after moving to the area," said Mary Ide, regional manager.

Vermont is one of the few states without an up-to-date statute banning human trafficking. On Thursday, lawmakers set to work on creating one. "It's a really complex issue and one we don't know a lot about here in Vermont," Sarah Kenney, public policy coordinator for the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We definitely lack a comprehensive statewide plan for dealing with this issue."