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Although a federal judge on Thursday rejected his request to halt enforcement of the state’s new immigration law, Monroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté is not completely shut down yet, as the judge signaled the case could find footing in state courts.
In the order, Southern District of Indiana Judge James Hanlon said Marté’s lawsuit did not appear to be fit for the federal docket, since it essentially pits one state entity, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, against another, the Office of the Attorney General. But Hanlon also noted that the lack of federal jurisdiction does not necessarily mean the sheriff can’t raise his dispute in state courts.
The Indiana Lawyer asked Monroe County Attorney David Schilling in an email on Friday whether he and Marté plan to refile the matter in state courts, but he did not immediately respond.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who has been one of the FAIRNESS Act’s staunchest advocates, called the court’s Thursday decision a “tremendous step forward” in his office’s efforts to root out sanctuary city policies in the state.
“This is a MAJOR victory for public safety, the rule of law, and the people of Indiana,” Rokita wrote in a post on X Thursday.
Since first filing his lawsuit in April, Marté, one of the state’s few Democratic sheriffs, has argued that parts of Senate Enrolled Act 76, titled the Indiana FAIRNESS Act (which stands for fostering and advancing immigration reforms necessary to ensure safety and security), are illegal and would encourage his officers to violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution – which protects citizens and noncitizens alike from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The legislation specifically requires government entities to “comply with all requests made” in immigration detainer requests that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues to local law enforcement agencies, asking them to continue holding an individual in custody up to 48 hours beyond when they would otherwise be released.
Marté argued in an April 30 memorandum that holding an individual past the time they would otherwise be released constitutes a new seizure, meaning it must meet standards set in the Fourth Amendment, namely, that it be based on probable cause that the individual committed a crime and be validated by a judicial officer.
But since immigration detainer requests are separate from judicial warrants – specifically because they do not necessarily seek information about whether there is probable cause to believe the suspected individual has committed a crime or contain space for an agent to include that information, Marté asserted in his complaint – they do not hold the same legal protections, the sheriff has argued.
So Marté asked the court to stop the enforcement of the detainer-specific section of the much broader legislation before it goes into effect on July 1.
Marté is not targeting other aspects of the legislation, such as provisions targeting businesses that hire undocumented immigrants.
Hanlon did not debate Marté’s constitutional arguments against the legislation in Thursday’s order.
Although he cited precedent that the district court can address a motion for preliminary injunction without deciding whether it has subject-matter jurisdiction, he noted that issues of jurisdiction are “always on the table in federal courts.”
“If the Court lacks jurisdiction over this case, Sheriff Marté’s motion for preliminary injunction should be denied on that basis,” Hanlon wrote.
The Attorney General’s Office has argued against an injunction for lack of jurisdiction, saying in a previous filing that the state is “effectively the party on both sides.”
And although Marté has emphasized that he has a personal stake in the case – because he argues the new law would put him in an impossible choice of either complying with an unconstitutional law or not complying and thus subjecting himself to state penalties – Hanlon concluded that Marté brought the matter in his official capacity as sheriff.
Even though a sheriff’s office has some independence and discretion, Hanlon said that doesn’t make it any less a political subdivision of the state.
Since the FAIRNESS Act, as applied to Marté, is essentially the state dictating how its own subdivisions should respond to immigration detainer requests, Hanlon wrote, then it means the case is an intramural dispute “not justiciable in federal court.”
But Hanlon left open the possibility of Marté bringing the matter before a state court.
“If Indiana wants to fine its own political subdivision for not complying with an ICE detainer request under its understanding of the Fourth Amendment, that is for the State of Indiana to work out,” Hanlon wrote.
Marté and Rokita have also been entangled in another, similarly related lawsuit for a couple of years now.
In 2024, Rokita accused Marté of establishing an office-wide policy that he said violated Indiana’s anti-sanctuary city statute.
In April, after Marté filed his federal complaint, Monroe County Circuit Court Special Judge Luke Rudisill stayed the proceeding to see how the federal case played out.
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