Immigration attorneys worry how ICE detainees will be treated at two slated Indiana sites

For immigration attorneys like Sarah Burrow, the announcements that Camp Atterbury and the Miami Correctional Facility will be used to house immigrant detainees in Indiana on a large scale is spurring several important questions.

Will she and other attorneys be allowed to speak with clients who are held at either facility? And will detainees be able to appear in front of immigration judges before any further action is taken against them?

“I haven’t heard anything at all” in terms of answers, Burrow said.

The move to employ those sites as detention centers comes in the wake of the Trump Administration’s opening of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention facility that was hastily constructed more than a month ago on an isolated airstrip in South Florida’s Everglades.

Civil rights groups have filed a lawsuit against Florida and the federal government, with immigration attorneys alleging “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees’ constitutional rights are being violated by being barred from meeting with lawyers, as well as by being held without any formal charges being filed against them. Some bond hearings also have been cancelled.

Concerns that a similar lack of due process could happen in Indiana are shared by immigration attorneys like Burrow, director at Lewis & Kappes and president of the Indiana chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and by state-based groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

When asked by The Indiana Lawyer about attorney access and immigration court hearings by The Indiana Lawyer, as well as other inquiries about what state or federal agency would actually be in charge of either site, state and federal officials were limited in their responses or did not respond at all.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun has spoken publicly in general terms about the prospect of both sites being used for ICE detainees.

Braun announced a series of partnership agreements with federal immigration authorities to assist in deporting individuals unlawfully in the United States.

The agencies announcing new cooperation agreements are the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, Indiana State Police, Indiana Department of Correction and Indiana National Guard.

“Indiana is not a safe haven for illegal immigration,” Braun said in the announcement. “Indiana will fully partner with federal immigration authorities as they enforce the most fundamental laws of our country.”

The formal partnerships were authorized in Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and let ICE delegate certain immigration enforcement powers to state or local officers.

Molly Craft, Braun’s deputy communications chief of staff, said via email the details on whether DHS or Indiana’s DOC will be in charge of Atterbury and/or Miami Correctional are still being finalized. The same goes for attorney access for ICE detainees and what kind of reimbursement the state can expect to receive from the federal government for use of the two facilities.

“The contract is still being finalized. I would estimate the timeline is a few weeks,” Craft told The Lawyer in regard to any announcement regarding operational details.

Attorney-client access?

Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith has spoken publicly about the issue of attorney-client access. WTHR reported that at a town hall in Terre Haute, Beckwith claimed that undocumented immigrants don’t deserve due process.

“(Undocumented immigrants) don’t have a right to see a judge. They’re here illegally,” the station quoted Beckwith as saying.

Lisa Koop, the Goshen-based national director of legal services for the National Immigrant Justice Center, said her organization is very concerned about the use of both sites for immigrant detainees and the lack of answers about who’s running things and what accommodations will be made.

“Attorney access is critical,” Koop said, stressing that if attorneys can’t reach clients, they can’t advise them of their rights and possibly prevent their deportations.

Koop said her organization had no immediate plans to sue over access at Atterbury, but she added that “nothing is off the table” in terms of efforts to make sure detainees have legal protections and due process.

Burrow said she has clients in ICE detention facilities in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Kentucky, where a lot of detainees with Hoosier addresses are also being sent. She said almost every ICE site has a different protocol for attorney-client interactions.

She acknowledged it’s already difficult enough to have reliable communications with clients at those sites.

“So creating infrastructure for attorneys to communicate with clients in a makeshift facility is going to be quite the challenge,” Burrow said.

Burrow said communications with clients held at ICE facilities are generally not in person.

Some facilities require attorneys to call and schedule calls with their clients. Others have attorneys schedule video calls online through a web page.

Just finding clients in general can be challenging if they get picked up by ICE, Burrow said.

“I sometimes spend hours of my day trying to locate people. It’s not uncommon for ICE to ‘lose a human,’” Burrow said.

Atterbury repurposed for ICE use

Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse listed four Indiana-based detention facilities as currently housing ICE detainees on a smaller scale. They are the Clay County Justice Center in Brazil, Marion County Jail, Clark County Jail and Clinton County Jail.

As of June 23, the average daily ICE detainee population for those sites totaled more than 300.

In announcing the agreement with Indiana for use of Miami Correctional, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the pact would free up 1,000 beds for ICE detention.

Braun also reiterated that Camp Atterbury will be available for temporary use by the Department of Homeland Security to house immigrants subject to deportation.

Indiana Congressman André Carson, a Democrat, has posed many questions about the use of Camp Atterbury to the Department of Homeland Security, but he said the response has not included any information about the impact on military readiness and national security.

“I remain concerned on this use of Camp Atterbury given the deplorable and inhumane conditions at other ICE detention facilities nationwide. The number of ICE detainees—and the number of deaths in detention—have grown at alarmingly high rates since the start of President Trump’s term, which is unacceptable. Also unacceptable is the apprehension and detention of US citizens. The Hoosier state should not facilitate these unlawful actions,” Carson posted on his congressional page.

The Indiana Lawyer also reached out to the state’s two Republican U.S. senators, Todd Young and Jim Banks, with questions regarding attorney access, alleged rights violations, and housing conditions for detainees in Florida, as well as whether there will be federal government reimbursement to the state for the use of Indiana prison space.

Leah Selk, Young’s press secretary said: “Senator Young supports the administration’s efforts to deport criminal illegal aliens and enforce immigration law. We are awaiting more information on how DHS will operate the Indiana facility.”

Banks’ press office did not respond to The Lawyer.

DHS also did not respond to similar questions.

DOC spokeswoman Annie Goeller noted that the Edinburgh Correctional Facility, a minimum security facility, is located within Camp Atterbury and has a capacity of 344. However, she said the facility is not part of the operations at Camp Atterbury and is not included in the discussions about housing immigrant detainees.

Goeller said details about the partnership with ICE, including staffing, transportation, legal services and costs, are being determined, with no timeline having been set for intake to begin.

Burrow said she grew up spending part of her summers in Nineveh, which is located near Atterbury.

She said she had fond memories of Atterbury and when the camp temporarily housed approximately 7,200 Afghan refugees from September 2021 to January 2022, she associated it with Indiana being a safe, welcoming place where people could get their footing before establishing their lives in the U.S.

With Atterbury soon to be used to house ICE detainees, Burrow said she found that devastating, sad and disappointing.

Miami Correctional Facility

There will be no expansion of the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill to accommodate ICE detainees, Goeller told the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

The north-central Indiana prison would simply make 1,000 existing, but unused, beds available to the federal government to increase its detention capacity.

“The Miami Correctional Facility has a total capacity of over 3,100 beds, of which approximately 1,200 are not filled,” she said.

In announcing Miami Correctional’s use for ICE detention space, DHS Secretary Noem dubbed the site as “The Speedway Slammer,” a term that immediately drew pushback from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But the Trump administration showed no indication of backing away from the moniker.

Chris Daley, the ACLU of Indiana’s executive director, said his organization has filed 31 lawsuits against the DOC seeking compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of prisoners who allege they were mistreated at Miami Correctional.

“As of this week, we’ve settled 26 of them. Five of them are still open cases,” Daley said.

Daley said these cases involve prisoners who allege they were confined in segregation cells at Miami Correctional Facility that did not have working lights and where the windows were covered with sheet metal.

“Many of the cells had live wires hanging from where the fixtures had been and in some of the cases prisoners were shocked by the wires,” Daley said.

The ACLU has extreme concerns about ICE detainees being held in the maximum security facility, Daley said.

“It is a completely inappropriate environment for people awaiting an immigration hearing and people awaiting deportation hearings,” Daley said.

Daley said Miami Correctional’s somewhat remote location, about 70 miles north of Indianapolis, will make it more difficult for immigration attorneys to keep tabs on their clients.

He said the ACLU is waiting to see if Indiana elected officials who request oversight visits to Miami Correctional or Camp Atterbury will be granted access to those facilities.•