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Prohibiting federal immigration authorities from using Vermont's state-owned prisons could end up harming the immigrants that Democratic lawmakers say they're trying to protect, Republican Gov. Phil Scott said Wednesday.

Democratic leaders in the Vermont Senate Tuesday called on Scott to immediately terminate a memorandum of understanding with Customs and Border Protection that allows federal agencies to house detainees in Vermont prisons.

Their request follows the arrest by federal agents Monday of Vermont resident and Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who’s currently lodged at Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.

“I don’t know how much more serious it can get before we tell Vermonters we are not cooperating with a hostile, dangerous and unconstitutional federal government that does not care about the basic rights and freedoms of Vermonters,� said Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden-Southeast.

Scott, however, said the contract with CBP, which expires in August, requires either party to provide 120 days� notice before terminating the agreement. And he said ending Vermont’s contractual relationship with the federal government could exacerbate the harm to individuals targeted for deportation.

“I get the frustration that people are feeling. People want to do something about what they’re seeing happening, not just in Vermont, across the country, so they see this as an opportunity to at least take some action,� Scott said. "But I’m not sure it helps the people that are being detained by moving them out of Vermont."

Mahdawi’s supporters celebrated a recent court order that kept the Department of Homeland Security from removing him from Vermont. Scott said ending the contract could result in detainees being moved to states that are friendlier to the Trump administration’s deportation policies.

“Is that in the best interest of those who are being detained? To just ship them off to somewhere else � Mississippi, Texas, wherever some other agreement is being utilized?� Scott said.

U.S. Rep. Becca Balint sent a letter Wednesday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem demanding they justify Mahdawi’s arrest to Congress.

Balint said federal law requires Rubio to demonstrate that someone poses a threat to U.S. foreign interests before impinging on their constitutional rights to due process and free speech.

“I believe what needs to happen is to have Secretary Rubio, Secretary Noem, come before committees of Congress to give us the evidence, give us that reasonable grounds,â€� Balint told ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý. “That’s not happening.â€�

Specifically, Balint has asked Rubio and Noem to demonstrate how Mahdawi’s speech “compromises a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest,� and to provide evidence that his “presence or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.�

Balint called Mahdawi’s arrest a “horrific imprisonment� that was “taken straight out of dystopian fiction.�

“This can happen to any single one of us,� Balint said. “The Trump administration can do this to folks who are citizens, people who are naturalized citizens. And for me that is the part that I think is not connecting with a lot of folks.�