MONROE COUNTY – In a major victory in the fight against illegal immigration, Attorney General Todd Rokita secured a consent decree this week in his lawsuit against the Monroe County sheriff over department policies restricting officers and employees from assisting federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws.
Indiana law prohibits local governments from limiting or restricting in any way their employees’ ability to communicate and cooperate with federal authorities in the enforcement of immigration laws. The FAIRNESS Act, a law Attorney General Rokita championed, clarified the scope of this prohibition and gave the Attorney General additional enforcement tools to ensure compliance.
As a result of the FAIRNESS Act and the Attorney General’s enforcement action, the Monroe County sheriff has agreed to eliminate many of his unlawful policies and to undertake measures to ensure future compliance with Indiana law.
“Our resounding successes in this case not only make a big difference in Monroe County,” Attorney General Rokita said. “But they will echo throughout the rest of the state as well, serving notice that we mean business when it comes to exercising our statutory authority to enforce these immigration laws and help the Trump administration detain and deport illegal aliens.”
Under the consent decree, the Monroe County sheriff agrees “not to enact, implement, maintain, or encourage any policy or practice, whether official or unofficial, written or unwritten, that prohibits or restricts MCSO or MCSO personnel from”:
- Engaging in the enforcement of federal immigration laws where permitted by federal law.
- Attempting to ascertain the immigration or citizenship status of an individual in the course of their official duties, including by performing status checks with federal authorities.
- Communicating or cooperating with federal officials.
- Entering into an agreement or other cooperative arrangement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or any other federal agency for enforcement of immigration and citizenship violations, including but not limited to the 287(g) program.
None of these provisions address the Monroe County sheriff’s policy of not honoring immigration detainer requests, however, and Attorney General Rokita is pressing ahead with litigation in this regard.
“We still have work to do,” Attorney General Rokita said. “A soft stance toward illegal immigration — with all the attendant crime, drugs, trafficking and drain on resources — is deeply harmful and unfair to Hoosier families. At my office, we’re committed to stay in this fight for as long as it takes to make Indiana communities safer and freer for everyone here legally.”
The consent decree is here.
