By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
October 18, 2024
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has sent letters to the sheriffs of Lake and St. Joseph counties, demanding that their departments comply with requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or face a lawsuit from the state.
The letters state the attorney general suspects the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the St. Joseph County Police Department maintain policies that restrict their officers’ cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Specifically, the letters accuse the law enforcement officials of failing to honor multiple requests from ICE to detain certain individuals.
Citing to Indiana’s anti-sanctuary city law, the letters order the sheriffs to discontinue any policies they may have that limit cooperation with ICE by Nov. 8, or the attorney general will file a lawsuit.
In a press release announcing the warnings to Lake and St. Joseph counties, Rokita linked “illegal aliens coming across our unprotected Southern border” with increases in crime, fentanyl overdoses and human trafficking.
“Hardworking Hoosiers are sick and tired of paying the price for this left-wing nonsense, and our office will not back down from enforcing state law,” Rokita added.
The St. Joseph County Police Department issued a statement pointing out that the attorney general’s letter did not provide any support for its allegations. Instead, the letter asks the department to confirm whether it has a policy limiting cooperation with ICE and then to “immediately discontinue” if it does have such a policy.
“St. Joseph County does not have any such policy that ‘prohibits or restricts’ actions or communications with ICE of any of the department’s officers or jail staff,” the St. Joseph County Police Department stated. “Nor does it have a ‘sanctuary city policy.’ The department fully complies with federal and state laws and does not restrict the federal enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Rokita is exercising new authority given to the attorney general’s office by the Indiana General Assembly. An amendment made to Indiana Code 5-2-18.2-5 during the 2024 session gives the state’s top lawyer the ability to enforce the anti-sanctuary city statute.
Even before the amended law took effect on July 1, Rokita sent warning letters to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, the West Lafayette Police Department and East Chicago and Gary common councils. West Lafayette removed language from its policy before the deadline and East Chicago and Gary rescinded their welcoming ordinance after the attorney general filed lawsuits against each of them.
The Monroe County sheriff has been sued but is not backing down. Now being represented by attorneys from the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, the sheriff’s office has filed a motion to dismiss Rokita’s lawsuit in Monroe County Circuit Court.
In response, the attorney general has filed a memorandum opposing the dismissal and asking for summary judgment.
Rokita did not mention the demand letters he sent to West Lafayette, East Chicago, Gary and Monroe County in his letters to Lake and St. Joseph counties. However, the attorney general cites to a report from ICE that designates the two law enforcement agencies as non-cooperative, which, he said, means the agencies did not notify ICE “prior to releasing noncitizens from custody” and did not comply with any ICE requests to continue to hold any of those individuals.
Between March 1, 2024 and Sept. 3, 2024, Lake County failed to honor 31 detainer requests from ICE and St. Joseph County failed to honor nine ICE detainer requests, according to the letters.
“In some instances, the individuals who were the subjects of those detainers had committed crimes that pose direct threats to public safety,” the letters said without offering any documentation to support the claim.
ICE says the detainers are critical in the identification and removal of “criminal aliens.” A detainer requests information about the alien’s impending release from local custody and asks local law enforcement to maintain custody for not more than 48 hours, according to information from ICE.
The federal agency says it has the authority to request that a subject be held to allow federal agents to assume custody. The power to make the detainer request “flows from federal regulations” and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary’s authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to ICE.
Since 2003, ICE has issued 21,088 detainer requests to Indiana law enforcement, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. St. Joseph County jail received 384 detainer requests and Lake County jail received 319.
During the Trump administration, Indiana received 4,969 detainer requests compared to 3,864 during the Biden administration, according to TRAC.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office argued the detainer request must be based on probable cause that the individual has committed a crime or local authorities will violate the Fourth Amendment. Holding individuals merely because of an ICE detainer or administrative warrant does not meet constitutional muster, the sheriff argued, because the detainers and warrants do not state probable case that a crime has been committed and they are not issued by a neutral judge.
“As the (U.S.) Supreme Court has recognized, ‘it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States,’” the sheriff’s office asserted, referring to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 ruling in Arizona v. United States.
In its memorandum opposing the motion to dismiss, the attorney general countered that local officials will not violate the U.S. Constitution by honoring an ICE detainer request.
The Fourth Amendment allows federal immigration officials to detain individuals when there is probable cause to believe those individuals have committed a civil immigration violation, including not having legal status, the attorney general argued. Precedent from the federal courts, including the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the attorney general said, allows detention even in cases without probable cause that a crime has been committed.
Local law enforcement agencies also will not violate the Fourth Amendment if they honor ICE detainers that have been signed by an authorized ICE immigration officer, rather than a judge, the attorney general asserted.
“An immigration officer can constitutionally make the necessary probable cause determination under the Fourth Amendment,” the attorney general said in his memorandum. “As binding U.S. Supreme Court precedent holds, ‘legislation giving authority to the (U.S.) Attorney General or his delegate to arrest aliens pending deportation proceedings under an Administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant within the scope of the Fourth Amendment,’ has existed ‘from almost the beginning of the Nation,’” the attorney general said, citing the 1960 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Abel v. United States.
Dwight Adams, a freelance editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
