Trump’s moves rattle immigrant advocates

President Donald Trump promised to dramatically remake the nation’s immigration policies when he took office this month.

Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has fired off a flurry of executive orders and immigration-related announcements, including those aimed at shutting down illegal immigration, restricting entry into the country and ending birthright citizenship.

His moves have rattled many advocates and Indiana immigration attorneys representing clients applying for asylum—even people like Lisa Koop, who was anticipating the president would act swiftly on his agenda.

“I think there’s no way around recognizing that things are incredibly bleak for the immigrant community and the people who serve those communities,” said Koop, the Goshen-based national director of legal services for the National Immigrant Justice Center.

Trump’s supporters, both nationally and in Indiana, argue the shift in immigration policy is long overdue.

Lawmakers in the Indiana House and Senate who support the president’s moves have proposed a number of bills to dovetail with Trump’s immigration priorities.

House Bill 1393, authored by Rep. Garrett Bascom, R-Lawrenceburg, would require police to provide the name, address and other identifying information to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after arresting or issuing a summons to an individual reasonably suspected of not being lawfully present in the United States.

It is the first significant immigration bill to get a committee hearing in the 2025 session, clearing the House Veterans Affairs and Public Safety Committee on a 9-2 vote.

On the federal level, Congress passed the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention bill named for a 22-year-old Georgia nursing school student who was murdered in 2024 by an immigrant living in the U.S. illegally. The act was passed two days after Trump’s inauguration.

Indiana Republican U.S. Sen. Todd Young strongly advocated for the bill, which requires ICE to arrest immigrants living here illegally who commit theft, burglary, larceny or shoplifting offenses and would mandate that they be detained until they are removed from the United States.

Young said the bill would ensure states have standing to bring civil actions against federal officials who refuse to enforce immigration law or who violate the law.

“Laken Riley should still be with us today. The man who killed Laken entered the United States illegally and was arrested and released multiple times before killing Laken,” Young said on Jan. 8. “Securing our border is a national security priority, and this bill is one of many steps we should take to reverse the Biden administration’s open border policies.”

The legislation received bipartisan support and was the first bill Trump signed into law, on Wednesday.

But the measure spurred some opposition in Congress and from advocacy groups concerned about the elimination of due process for many immigrants.

The American Immigration Council described the bill as “misguided” and argued that it could cause immigrants living and working legally in this country for years to be placed in indefinite detention if accused—not convicted—of low-level crimes like shoplifting.

“This bill does nothing to improve safety or fix our broken immigration system,” Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, said in written remarks. “Under the guise of preventing violence, the bill forces immigration officers to indefinitely detain and deport non-citizens who pose no public safety risk, without access to basic due process. The bill also gives state attorneys general unprecedented power over immigration policy. The bill strips people of their basic rights and upends how the U.S. government enforces immigration law.”

Legal challenges likely

To clients alarmed at how the barrage of executive orders and new legislation might affect them personally, Carolyn Grimes, owner of the Law Office of Carolyn Grimes in Carmel, said she likes to tell them to take a deep breath.

She acknowledged that things are moving at a fast pace, and clients hear things on social media and news outlets that might not always be accurate regarding immigration.

“We don’t really know what’s going to happen until we have an actual case,” Grimes said.

She predicted that every one of Trump’s immigration executive orders will be challenged in federal court.

That’s already happened with the president’s executive order blocking birthright citizenship, the right outlined in the 14th Amendment (ratified three years after the end of the Civil War) that makes anyone born in the United States a citizen.

The Trump order would deny citizenship to those born after Feb. 19 whose parents are in the country illegally. It also forbids U.S. agencies from issuing any document or accepting any state document recognizing citizenship for such children.

Trump’s order drew immediate legal challenges across the country, with at least five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrant rights groups.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour temporarily blocked the birthright order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it will “vigorously defend” the president’s executive order, which it said “correctly interprets the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

The Associated Press reported the judge’s decision prevents the Trump administration from taking steps to implement the executive order for 14 days. In the meantime, the parties will submit further arguments about the merits of Trump’s order. Coughenour scheduled a hearing on Feb. 6 to decide whether to block it long term as the case proceeds.

Kopp said many of the president’s executive orders left ambiguity about how they would actually operate and be enforced.

In regards to birthright citizenship, Grimes said she has received calls from people asking if their children are even U.S. citizens anymore.

Whether immigrants are here legally or illegally, they are all entitled to due process, Grimes stressed. “It’s a matter of, can we ensure our clients’ due process rights are being protected?”

Katie Rosenberger, an attorney with Indianapolis-based Villarrubia & Rosenberger PC, echoed Grimes’ concerns about due process.

Many of her clients are concerned they’ll be rounded up and put on a plane for deportation without a court hearing.

“I think there’s a real and genuine concern over due process,” Rosenberger said.

The law is still the law when it comes to immigration cases, she emphasized, saying the Immigration and Nationality Act and the U.S. Constitution still afford people due process.

The Pentagon on Jan. 22 announced it had begun deploying 1,500 active-duty troops to help secure the Southern border, in conjunction with the president’s executive orders.

As part of that deployment, Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses issued a statement saying the troops will fly helicopters to assist Border Patrol agents and will help construct barriers. The Pentagon also will provide military aircraft for Department of Homeland Security deportation flights for more than 5,000 detained migrants.

The number of troops and their mission might change soon, Salesses said in the statement. “This is just the beginning,” he said.

Salesses added that the Defense Department would develop and execute additional missions in cooperation with DHS, other federal agencies and states to address the full range of threats outlined by the president at the nation’s borders.

How coordination among federal, state and local law enforcement on immigration enforcement or mass deportation might work remains to be seen.

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Chief Chris Bailey released a statement on X that said local law enforcement agencies, including IMPD, do not have authority to enforce federal immigration laws.

“IMPD has not been asked to take part in immigration sweeps, nor do we have any intention of doing so—this is not our role,” Bailey said.

The police chief added that IMPD officers do not inquire about a person’s immigration status during routine investigations.

He urged people who are victims of a crime or need assistance, regardless of immigration status, to call 911 for police, fire or emergency medical services.

Immigration courts

Amid all the immigration-related activity, a new immigration court opened Jan. 27 in Indianapolis’ Minton-Capehart Federal Building.

It will be the first such court to open in Indiana, with attorneys and clients from the state previously directed to Chicago for any federal immigration-related legal proceedings.

Project 2025, a controversial 900-plus page document written by the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 other conservative groups, gives a detailed blueprint on immigration enforcement goals during a second Trump term.

It called for more U.S. immigration courts and more attorneys.

Even if new immigration courts are opening, the system’s case backlogs will get worse, said Koop, the legal services director for the National Immigrant Justice Center.

“The immigration courts are dysfunctional. I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with me on that,” Koop said.

She said she expects ICE attorneys to fight every immigration case tooth and nail under the backdrop of Trump’s orders and a political climate that carries a barrage of vitriol toward immigrants.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October cited more than 10.8 million “illegal entries” nationwide since fiscal year 2021, which began in October 2020, shortly before President Joe Biden’s election.

Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse last year reported more than 3.7 million pending cases in U.S. Immigration Courts, a record backlog for a strained system.

Through October, Indiana saw more than 72,000 pending immigration cases, based on the immigrant’s address.

Rosenberger said it remains to be seen how immigration courts will be impacted by the new orders or policy changes.

She noted that the Trump administration abruptly fired four top officials at the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review, which oversees U.S. immigration courts, on the president’s first day in office.

NBC reported the officials were the chief immigration judge, Sheila McNulty; the acting director of the Executive Office of Immigration Review, Mary Cheng; the office’s general counsel, Jill Anderson; and its head of policy, Lauren Alder Reid.

State action

At the Indiana Statehouse, a substantial number of immigration-related bills have been filed this session.

They range from House Bill 1418, which prohibits businesses from intentionally employing “an unauthorized alien,” to Senate Bill 172, which makes it a Class B misdemeanor for a law enforcement officer to refuse to cooperate with state or federal agencies or officials in the enforcement of immigration laws.

The state’s chief legal officer has also shown a more aggressive approach to immigration issues.

Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita opened immigration-related investigations in November 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.

Josh DeFonce, a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office, said the office cannot comment on details of active investigations.•