Indiana panel advances AG-backed immigration crackdown

A bill moving through Indiana’s House would further loop all levels of Hoosier government into federal immigration enforcement while cracking down on the state’s employers. Lawmakers advanced it Monday on a 9-4, party-line vote, after three-dozen witnesses spoke for more than three hours.

“This legislation is really intended to try and get at those bad actors,” Rep. J.D. Prescott, R-Union City, told the House’s Judiciary Committee.

His legislation builds on a 2011 law requiring local cooperation with federal authorities like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Lawmakers added to the law last year, when they gave Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita authority to sue so-called “sanctuary cities” for policies interrupting such cooperation. Litigation against Monroe and St. Joseph counties continues.

“We’ve been vigorously enforcing that over the past few months. I think our experience … has given us a lot of insight into how the law could be strengthened and improved,” said Blake Lanning, an assistant chief deputy with Rokita’s office.

House Bill 1531 would create a new mandate: local compliance with federal detainer requests. ICE can ask other law enforcement agencies to hold onto “potentially dangerous aliens” for an additional 48 hours beyond when they would’ve been released so it has time to take them into custody.

Government units and their employees would secure legal immunity for carrying out the requests. But noncompliance would be punished.

Lanning said that, in the six months between March and September 2024, Lake County got 31 detainer requests but “honored none of them.” Some of the arrestees released, he added, had convictions for intoxicated driving, burglary and sexual assault.

But law enforcement representatives said ICE sometimes leaves them holding the bag.

Stephen Luce, executive director of the Indiana Sheriffs’ Association, estimated that ICE doesn’t follow up on 15% to 20% of its detainer requests. He said that Hamilton County made 77 arrests involving detainer requests last year—but ICE offered “no contact” for 13 of them.

“We see it as an issue, like we’re almost moving faster than the feds,” said the association’s president, Tippecanoe County Sheriff Robert Goldsmith.

Lawmakers and local government representatives feared litigation.

David Bottorff, leader of the Association of Indiana Counties, said counties’ liability insurance companies were concerned the legislation added risk: what if law enforcement holds someone too long, or holds the wrong person, in connection with a detainer request?

Lanning, of Rokita’s office, sought to reassure locals.

“Counties should know that if they do face that type of lawsuit—which, like I said, we don’t think is likely—but if they do … they would not be fighting it alone,” he said.

Jim Bopp, a prominent conservative attorney, said locals “can proceed with confidence.”

“Even though smart and creative lawyers can come up with legal arguments to create uncertainty … the state of the law is that these detainers, if relied upon in good faith by local officials, they are not responsible or liable for holding someone for an additional 48 hours,” Bopp said.

Locals that don’t go along with detainer requests could see stiff penalties: Rokita could sue to stop them and to impose a civil penalty of $10,000 per violation. And on his advice, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun could withhold grants or state funding to violators for up to a year.

A fiscal analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency notes the provision “does not limit or specify the amounts and types of funds that could be withheld.” It has potentially “significant” impact, the analysis continues, but the actual impact depends on the governor’s decisions.

“Voters sent a mandate to Washington. I think it was the clearest electoral mandate for aggressive immigration enforcement,” said R.J. Hauman, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “(There) needs to be mass deportations and really bring safety and security back to a lot of American communities.”

One amendment, taken by consent, assures government units facing civil lawsuits over their immigration enforcement efforts that the attorney general will defend them in court.

A second amendment, also accepted by consent, made changes throughout—including deletion of a provision requiring schools to report information about “unlawfully present” and “non-English dominant” students. Witnesses still spoke out against it.

Teacher Kenya Bustos Diaz, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, said she was monolingual until the fourth grade. But she’s a college graduate now, with multiple honor society and dean’s list recognitions. She said that wouldn’t have happened “if the public institutions I attended had profiled me the way House Bill 1531 is asking them to do.”

Taking aim at employers

Business interests flocked to the committee room Monday to weigh in on provisions cracking down on employers using unauthorized labor.

House Bill 1531 would ban employers from “knowingly or intentionally” recruiting, hiring or employing people not authorized to work in the U.S., starting in July. It offers “reasonable diligence” to confirm someone’s work eligibility as an out. That could include using the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s paid E-Verify application or using industry-standard best practices “prescribed” by the attorney general.

Adam Berry, a lobbyist with the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, said his organization would be working with Rokita’s office to formulate the guidance.

Rep. Ryan Dvorak, D-Evansville, was skeptical, saying that would allow industry to shape regulations for themselves. He dubbed the language a “loophole.” He quipped, “I mean, what’s the best practice in the landscaping industry for determining employment eligibility? Are they breathing?”

Lanning, of Rokita’s office, called E-Verify the “bare minimum” and said guidance is typically “above and beyond” that, not an easy way to skirt the proposed ban.

The Heritage Foundation’s Hauman advocated for mandatory E-Verify use, disputing claims that it’s onerous. He also spoke against the “knowingly or intentionally” language amended into the bill.

“It’s … a giveaway to organizations and employers who want to stay reliant on cheap foreign labor,” Hauman said. He added that companies “pretend that they’re looking for American workers.”

The bill lays out strict consequences.

If Rokita thinks an employer has violated that ban at any time in the last three years—or while on probation for previous violations—he’d be able to sue. Employers with clean records would get notice and 15 days to provide proof of reasonable diligence. A court could temporarily or permanently suspend all of an employer’s operating authorizations, or put it on probation.

Steve Wolff, a lobbyist representing the Indiana Outdoor Management Alliance, said the provision on investigation launches is too vague.

“Our concern is that there would be opportunity for rival businesses or individuals to put our members in a situation where they have to defend themselves, and even if they’re found to be without violation, that it still would cost them time and money,” Wolff said.

The majority of citizen witnesses spoke against the bill, and urged lawmakers to protect immigrants.

Student Kelin Peraza-Argueta said it’s been 295 days since she was able to hug her deported mother. She dropped out of school for months after the deportation to work full time, supporting her family.

Michael Hess, who said he often works with Latinos while serving tables on Indianapolis’ east side, said he’d “spend every waking moment of my day getting up and organizing people to undermine this bill if it weren’t passed. I s— you not.”

The legislation also mandates that the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s leader provide data on noncitizens receiving public benefits when state lawmakers or officers ask for it.

It additionally requires parole sponsors to file certain information with Indiana’s Department of Revenue, although an amendment removed felony consequences for false reporting.

It next heads to the House floor for consideration.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, nonprofit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.