Indiana immigration bill heads to the governor, strengthening partnership with ICE

A Trump administration official has called the bill's core provisions the "gold standard of immigration reform."

The bill's opponents fear the legislation would turn everyday Hoosiers into deputies for ICE, but proponents say it's just about enforcing the law.

This story has been updated with the Indiana Senate vote on passage.

The Indiana attorney general could sue local government, hospitals, schools and colleges that attempt to restrict immigration enforcement under a bill that passed the Indiana General Assembly on Feb. 25 after hours of at-times tense debate.

Senate Bill 76 would also add state-level penalties for employers who knowingly or intentionally hire unauthorized workers and require local police to hold inmates at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The bill passed the Senate in a 37-11 vote, with two Republicans voting no. It now heads to Gov. Mike Braun, who has previously expressed support for a similar bill with many of the same provisions and has generally pushed for greater collaboration between local and federal officials on immigration policy.

But critics see it as a continuation of a national approach to immigration enforcement they view as cruel.

"How is it that when we talk about other humans, we reduce their humanity to a piece of paper?" Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, said ahead of the bill's passage.

For others, the bill was simply about ensuring people follow the law and enter the country legally. Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, said on the Senate floor that many immigrants work hard to go through the legal process.

“But I hear people talk like ‘well, anybody that worked hard for something, it don’t matter that much, because we want to give it to somebody else who skirts in under the wire,’” he said.

Modeled after legislation deemed the "gold standard for immigration reform" by the White House's border czar, the bill closes loopholes in Indiana's anti-sanctuary laws by prohibiting governmental bodies and schools from having a policy, "written or unwritten," that could be interpreted as limiting immigration enforcement.

Those three words were the key concern for many of the bills' opponents, who fear the legislation could neuter the ability to use discretion in complex immigration cases and turn everyday employees into unofficial immigration enforcement deputies.

The bill's passage is the latest proof that Indiana is a ready and willing partner for President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign. Already the state has expanded its local law enforcement partnerships with ICE, including a northwest Indiana operation that led to more than 200 arrests, and upgraded the Miami Correctional Facility to hold hundreds of federal detainees. Its passage came days after the death of an ICE detainee held at the facility.

The policy's key enforcer, Attorney General Todd Rokita, has also been one of its biggest advocates. He's sued governmental bodies in the past for alleged sanctuary laws and has called SB 76 the "strongest immigration enforcement legislation" in Indiana's history.

But some have warned it could be the subject of its own lawsuit.

It could also throw schools for a loop as they navigate balancing laws protecting children, students' personal information and SB 76's new requirements regarding immigration enforcement.

Those concerns have already been laid bare in Rokita's lawsuit against Indianapolis Public Schools, which alleges the district violated the law by not releasing a student to be deported with his father. But Carolyn Grimes, an Indiana immigration lawyer representing the student, testified during the same committee meeting that the case was far more complex.

"The school was placed in an impossible position," Grimes said, "faced with federal agents who appear to possess extraordinary authority, a minor expressing fear, no judicial directive ... and a very real fear of political and legal retaliation."

Though it passed mostly along party lines, the employment aspect of the bill got pushback from Rep. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, who worried it would shut down farms employing unauthorized immigrants. She also cited statistics from the Migration Policy Institute that show 62% of undocumented immigrants living in Indiana have been here for a decade or more.

"Hopefully they don't get caught up in this bill," Leising said.

Contact breaking politics reporter Marissa Meador at [email protected] or find her on X at @marissa_meador.