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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has opened immigration-related investigations into several nonprofits, government agencies and businesses, with his office alleging that an influx of migrants has created housing and possible labor trafficking issues in Evansville, Seymour and Logansport.
Entities receiving civil investigative demands from the attorney general are Evansville-based Berry Global Group Inc., which is Indiana’s sixth largest public company in terms of revenue; the Cass County Health Department in Logansport; Logansport Community School Corp.; Tent Partnership for Refugees, a New York City-based nonprofit founded by the CEO of Chobani Yogurt that pairs migrants with available jobs; God is Good, a Christian ministry in Evansville that assists immigrants and refugees; and the Jackson County Industrial Development Corp. in Seymour.
The Logansport school district, Berry Global, Tent Partnership, God is Good Foundation and Jackson County Industrial Development Corp. did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday from Indiana Lawyer.
“Illegal immigration caused by ‘border czar’ Kamala Harris’ perversion and misapplication of federal law has made every state a border state and imposed unsustainable costs on Logansport and other cities across the nation,” Rokita said in a news release. “It has also created serious sex and labor trafficking risks in all communities. I’m creatively trying to use every tool in the law to stop the Left’s intentional destruction of Indiana.”
Rokita announced the office is investigating coordinated efforts among international and local nonprofit “refugee resettlement” organizations and employers to bring large numbers of migrants to Indiana communities.
He said the “rapid growth of alien populations in certain communities has caused overcrowding in housing facilities as multiple families and sometimes dozens of individuals reportedly share space in structures intended to be single-family dwellings. It also has raised concerns about potential labor trafficking.”
Rokita’s office said it is conducting these investigations pursuant to its authority under Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act and indecent nuisance statute.
“The influx of these illegal aliens, which are coming from over 150 different countries, has strained our schools, and the children of taxpayers are suffering as a result. It has caused unneeded stress on law enforcement, local hospitals and health care facilities, and our housing and labor markets,” Rokita said in the release. It also raises serious questions about how these individuals’ arrival in Indiana is being facilitated.”
Related to Friday’s announcement, Rokita’s office also has targeted “sanctuary city ordinances” in several Indiana cities and counties, with West Lafayette, East Chicago and Gary all repealing their ordinances.
The Herald-Times reported in August that Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté said his office would defend the county’s law on undocumented immigrants.
“My office takes seriously our obligation to enforce the laws while respecting everyone’s constitutional rights. Our Standard Operating Procedure does exactly that,” Marté said in a news release.
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This probably yields nothing other than potential sanctions for Rokita.
He has experience getting sanctioned.
It is such a shame for Hoosiers to be represented by a grandstanding clown like him.
+1
Wow, now Rokita is even targeting Christians. Makes me think of Pastor Martin Niemöller’s famous poem, “First They Came.”
Churn out the press releases! Looks like Theodore is angling for a Washington job.
Our grand children will be facing calls for reparations bc, for the second time in our country’s history, we have trafficked nearly 4 million people into & around this country to be exploited for cheap/free labor. This continues to be our national disgrace.
The same people who demand $15/hr minimum wage for citizens are providing slave wages to non-citizens for the same jobs, in cooperation with the cartels and “sanctuary” cities.
I agree the school/university systems have failed to teach the basics of civics, history, math & economics.
This is a wild take, comparing kidnapping people from Africa and bringing them to America unwillingly to be sold as property … to a program that migrants ask to be in, because the alternative is to stay in places like Haiti and be killed by gangs that even kill the people who run orphanages.
What was that again about schools failing to teach history?
It’s telling that you think it’s letting people from other countries work the jobs that nobody else wants to and start lives here that is the national disgrace and not the calls to lock them in internment camps or deport entire families, some of whom are US citizens, to countries where they never lived. I bet the nazi’s also thought similarly about their Jewish neighbors.
Only interested in furthering his own political profile. Lots of face time on Faux News. He couldn’t care less about Indiana.
I’m sure some of these people are good people but they broke the law. They need to go back to their homes. It has nothing to do with religion. We are a country of laws. In addition, we have citizens in dire need. Let’s call a spade a spade, citizens come first.
What makes you think they are in the country illegally? Refugees usually have asylum status, and are in the USA legally.
Oh, please. Republicans have never once cared about American citizens. They’re the ones who take away critical resources from communities by gutting domestic spending! What a dumb, bad-faith statement with no purpose other than to demonize people who ARE HERE LEGALLY (yes, TPS and asylum-seekers are legal). Shame on you.
Our asylum-seeking system has been rendered a joke – clearly an end run around legal immigration. That’s why people like Walter can say they are in the USA “legally”. It is an IQ test. If you come to this country illegally, and DON’T claim asylum, you’re a fool. If they don’t show for their asylum “hearing”, are they then in the country illegally? Just asking.
Todd Rokita is a Grade-A sleazeball.
The Fox 59 story on Logansport by Angela Ganote stated that most of the immigrants there were children without parents or guardians. There can be nothing good that comes from that. Let Rokita do his job before it becomes a more serious problem.
If the problem is the Tyson chicken plant, as per that story, why isn’t Tyson on the list of entities Rokita is going after?
It wouldn’t be the $2500 check Tyson wrote Todd in September, would it? That wouldn’t be Todd’s price for silence, would it?
https://www.transparencyusa.org/in/contribution/2301329
Great question, Joe B. IBJ should follow up on this. I was wondering the same thing as I read this story. The meat packing plants in Logansport are ground zero for this issue, have been for decades now.
Great way to support Indiana. Attack businesses and shrink the labor pool.
Now if businesses are exploiting undocumented immigrants, then I can see a really good reason to investigate.
Could it be possible that Rokita’s investigation into illegal migrants flooding into Evansville, Logansport, and Seymour is because he has been told they are EATING THE DOGS, EATING THE CATS! in those communities? If so, he may be in line for an award from PETA.
He’s beating up Kamala–still—and she lost.
That’s the definition of zealot.