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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowMonroe County Sheriff Ruben Marté is asking a federal district judge to halt the enforcement of part of Indiana’s new immigration law, the latest request in his case against the state attorney general.
The motion for preliminary injunction, filed on Thursday, requests “swift action” from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana to enjoin enforcement of Section 9(a)(3) of the recently-signed Senate Enrolled Act 76, also known as the Indiana FAIRNESS Act, before it goes into effect on July 1. FAIRNESS stands for fostering and advancing immigration reforms necessary to ensure safety and security.
That section requires any state governmental body that has custody of an individual to comply with all requests made in an immigration detainer request — which is what U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues to local law enforcement, asking them to hold an individual for up to 48 hours beyond their normal release time.
Marté argued in a Thursday 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 seizures pursuant to ICE detainer requests do not meet those standards,” the memorandum stated. “They are not made pursuant to a warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate, nor is there any timely review of the seizure by such a magistrate.”
A spokesperson for Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office did not immediately respond to The Indiana Lawyer’s request for comment on Thursday’s motion.
Earlier this month, after Marte first filed his complaint, Rokita said his office would vigorously defend the FAIRNESS Act and would use every tool provided in the legislation to “ensure no Indiana county becomes a safe haven for illegal immigration.”
Marté also asserted on Thursday that ICE detainer requests are not based on probable cause that any crime has been committed, citing Lopez-Aguilar v. Marion Cty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, a 2016 Southern District case in which a man claimed the Marion County Sheriff’s Department violated his Fourth Amendment rights when it arrested and held him in the local jail, at the request of federal immigration authorities, without charging him with a criminal offense.
In 2017, the Southern District of Indiana ruled in Lopez-Aguilar’s favor, finding that “seizures by the defendants based solely on detention requests from ICE (in whatever form) or removal orders from an immigration court violate the Fourth Amendment unless ICE supplies, or the defendants otherwise possess, probable cause that the individual to be detained has committed a criminal offense.”
The Seventh Circuit later reversed the district court’s ruling on other grounds.
Marté holds that Section 9 of SEA 76 would require his office and law enforcement across Indiana to “unquestioningly comply” with all ICE detainer requests, “despite the fact that such compliance would violate the Fourth Amendment.”
“[Marté] cannot order his officers to comply with Section 9 without violating his oath to protect and uphold the Constitution and exposing MCSO to significant civil liability from suits by individuals whose rights would be violated by the unlawful detentions,” the memorandum stated. “But if he refuses to follow Section 9’s mandate, he will violate his responsibility to uphold state law and will risk civil liability from a suit by the Attorney General to enforce the law.”
Rokita and Marté have been entangled in legal disputes over immigration since 2024, when the attorney general accused the sheriff of instituting a policy that he said violated the state’s anti-sanctuary city statute.
That case is pending, with Special Judge Luke Rudisill staying the matter earlier this month, as the federal lawsuit plays out. Rokita’s office has asked the court to reconsider the stay order.
The federal case is Sheriff Ruben Marté v. Todd Rokita, in his official capacity as Attorney General of Indiana (26-cv-00701).
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