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A significant amendment on Tuesday — and the promise of another tweak — made little dent in opposition to a proposed mandate that Hoosier sheriffs notify federal immigration authorities when they suspect an arrestee is in the United States illegally.
Rep. Garrett Bascom, R-Lawrenceburg, told a Senate committee that his legislation “takes a more passive statute that says you must cooperate” with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and “defines what that cooperation is.”
House Bill 1393 would require jails and detention facilities to tell county sheriffs when they have probable cause to believe that someone they’re booking on unrelated misdemeanor or felony charges isn’t legally in the country. Sheriffs would have to report that information “to the proper authority.”
That’s after the committee accepted, by consent, a short but substantive amendment.
Previously, a local police officer would’ve had to make the initial probable cause determination and notify the sheriff. And for an alleged misdemeanor offense, the officer would’ve been required to make an arrest instead of issuing a summons.
“You kind of put the onus on the officer on the street,” Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, told Bascom. “… I want them back out on the street, patrolling and protecting our community, as opposed to doing paperwork.
Freeman, who authored the amendment and chairs the committee, said officers also “need discretion.”
Zach Stock of the Indiana Public Defender Council said the amendment had pushed the agency’s opposition into neutrality. “We, like Sen. Freeman, love discretion,” he explained.
But remaining witnesses remained opposed or neutral, even as they thanked Freeman for the changes.
“We think that improves the bill. We still don’t support the bill,” said Chris Daley, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.
“So I brought you a long way there, to the author probably not liking me very much today, and it still doesn’t get you guys to where you can support it or even be neutral to it?” Freeman asked.
“That’s absolutely right,” Daley replied. “If I could just explain why —”
“I’ll never understand why. But go ahead,” Freeman retorted.
Daley and others fear the legislation has fostered anti-immigrant sentiment.
Some witnesses, as during the bill’s House committee hearing, said it would lead to racial profiling. Several also opined that probable cause — the legal standard police must meet to make arrests and get warrants — isn’t enough to trigger a notification to ICE.
Police officers “are no longer involved in this situation under my amendment,” Freeman told one witness. “So, I took care of that problem and the racial profiling … There is no racial profiling.”
Others remained concerned.
“This bill will undoubtedly foster racial profiling. The standard of probable cause is most troublesome and inherently subjective, and will lead to judgments based on appearance, language, proficiency or access,” said the Rev. Gray Lesesne, dean of Christ Church Cathedral and its “diverse” congregation.
That prompted Freeman to note that “only a few” other standards exist, like reasonable suspicion and beyond a reasonable doubt. He quipped, “If you want to come up with one, tell me.”
Asked how jails determine citizenship-related probable cause, Tippecanoe County Sheriff Bob Goldsmith told the Capital Chronicle that staff don’t ask arrestees “for their papers.”
“When they’re booked into jail … we talk to them. There’s a questionnaire that they go through to ask if they’re born in the United States,” said Goldsmith, who is also president of the Indiana Sheriffs’ Association. “If they’re not born in the United States, then ICE is notified. Now, they may very well be a citizen, but ICE will tell us if they want them or not.”
ICE can use detainer requests to ask law enforcement agencies to hold onto “potentially dangerous aliens” for an additional 48 hours beyond when they would’ve been released so agents have time to take them into custody.
Tippecanoe County’s jail has offered ICE such notifications for decades, said Goldsmith, who called the federal agency “cooperative and responsive.”
But other counties have reported different experiences.
While testifying on a separate bill, Indiana Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Stephen Luce said ICE offered “no contact” for 13 of 77 Hamilton County arrests involving detainer requests last year. He estimated that ICE doesn’t follow up on 15% to 20% of its detainer requests.
“Having worked with ICE in the past, they only come when they want to,” said Sen. Sue Glick, R-LaGrange. “And people can lose their entire livelihood while they’re languishing in the county jail — at the expense of Indiana taxpayers.”
She joined two Democrats in opposing the legislation, which advanced from committee on a 5-3 vote.
Freeman said he intended to bring a second reading amendment removing a provision that would offer law enforcement officers and agencies immunity from civil lawsuits sparked by ICE notices.
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