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Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita filed a lawsuit Friday against St. Joseph County Sheriff William Redman and the county’s police department, accusing the agency of persistent failures to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the release of illegal immigrants and a refusal to honor ICE detainment requests.
Rokita filed the lawsuit in St. Joseph Circuit Court.
“Law enforcement officials in Indiana must be compliant and help end this illegal alien crisis taking over Hoosier communities,” Rokita said in a Friday afternoon release.
The attorney general held a streamed press conference after he filed the lawsuit.
The St. Joseph County Police Department posted a response on the department’s Facebook page, saying it had not received a copy of the lawsuit and challenging Rokita’s accusations that it does not cooperate with ICE.
“We regularly communicate with ICE. When the jail receives a detainer or request from ICE, staff promptly informs immigration officials when that individual will be released on their criminal charges for detainment by ICE,” the department posted.
The department’s post noted that neither state nor federal law requires the sheriff or county jail to enforce federal immigration laws.
“Sheriff and the department fully comply with all state and federal laws, and will now unfortunately have to defend itself in court against the State of Indiana,” the post stated.
The department concluded its response by stressing it was proud of its close working relationships with all federal law enforcement agencies, including ICE.
At his press conference, Rokita opened with a story about a retiring teacher that approached him and said “I can’t take it any more.”
Rokita said the teacher told him she spent every day taking extra time to call an 800 number to pick from multiple translators to help explain lesson plans to student immigrants.
He said it wasn’t the students’ fault, but “they shouldn’t be here.”
“It’s not fair to the children of the taxpayers who are sitting there in that same classroom waiting to be taught while their teacher is online or on the phone, translating or trying to translate lesson plans in multiple languages. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to taxpayers. It’s not fair to law enforcement. It’s not fair to our already overburdened hospitals,” Rokita said.
Rokita added that, thanks to the November election resulting in President Donald Trump’s victory, he now had an immigration policy ally in the White House, rather than an obstacle.
In the lawsuit, the state says it is suing Redman and the police department to “compel compliance with state laws prohibiting local government entities from limiting their or their agents’ participation in immigration enforcement activities to less than the full extent allowed by federal law and restricting communication and cooperation between their employees and federal immigration authorities.”
The state alleges that, in June 2024, ICE designated the St. Joseph County Police Department as a noncooperative law enforcement agency.
This designation means that the police department does not provide notification to ICE prior to releasing illegal immigrants from custody and does not honor ICE detainer requests to detain immigrants in the department’s custody for a period of up to 48 hours in order for ICE to assume custody.
Rokita alleged that, in the six-month period between March and September 2024, the police department failed to honor nine ICE detainer requests.
The case is State of Indiana ex rel. Todd Rokita, Attorney General of Indiana v. William Redman, in his official capacity as St. Jospeh County Sheriff and St. Joseph County Police Department,
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