Indiana AG sues Merrillville Town Council for obstructing ICE
The Indiana Attorney General’s Office is suing the Merrillville Town Council for violating a new state law requiring compliance with federal immigration enforcement.
Attorney General Todd Rokita, a Republican, made the announcement during a visit at a truck driving school in Gary, on Thursday, while highlighting state immigration enforcement efforts. He said this is the first enforcement action taken under the FAIRNESS Act.
The new law, championed by Republican Gov. Mike Braun as a tool to bolster immigration enforcement, requires every governmental body in Indiana to comply with detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It also prohibits policies obstructing federal immigration officials.
Rokita had already sent a cease and desist letter to Merrillville’s town council, demanding it rescind a resolution passed in January opposing any new ICE facilities in town.
The Attorney General’s Office has since obtained emails showing council members using the resolution as a pretext to ask private businesses to avoid leasing or selling property for an ICE facility.
Those actions, Rokita claims, are direct violations of the FAIRNESS Act.
“It’s one thing if the sites are picked, and there’s a zoning board meeting, or some other kind of meeting, and they’re able to have an intelligence specific discussion about why that site wouldn’t work. That’s not what this resolution did,” Rokita said. “This resolution categorically said not in Merrillville. And that’s aiding and abetting illegal aliens, putting them above U.S. citizens.”
Rokita claimed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had at least two property deals fall through because of the council’s actions. He said the lawsuit is aimed at getting the council to rescind the resolution and stop interfering with DHS.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday afternoon, according to a spokesperson with the AG’s office, but it hadn’t appeared in online records by publication. The AG’s office said they couldn’t share the filing until it had been processed by a court clerk.
