Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents walk down a street during a multi-agency targeted enforcement operation in Chicago on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2025. (Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"We've been doing as much as we can with existing authority under labor trafficking laws to go after this issue of illegal aliens being employed in the state," Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Blake Lanning told the Indy Star. "But in many ways, Indiana law was not designed for this problem, to address this problem."
Lanning said the attorney general’s office worked closely with the state’s GOP legislature to craft the bill, which comes after Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita threatened to sue local jurisdictions who do not comply with federal immigration orders.
"Now that's a problem in Indiana, particularly because there's an Indiana state statute that I enforce that says what you have got to give, whatever level of cooperation is allowed by federal law, you shall give it as a state or local law enforcement official," Rokita told Fox News Digital in an interview Friday.
"And, so, that's what's happening here. That defiance I need to look into now."
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President Donald Trump on Jan. 31, 2025, with an executive order on his desk. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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"The rhetoric that they are continuing to use in these rooms — the mentioning of cartels, the mentioning of Hispanic men, talking about the Spanish speaking language," Castoreno added. "They're not talking about Ukrainian immigrants. They're not talking about immigrants from any other part of the world, except for Latin America."
However, efforts to defeat the legislation face an uphill battle in Indiana, where Republicans enjoy supermajorities in both the state House of Representatives and Senate as well as control the governor’s office.
Michael Lee is a writer for Fox News. Prior to joining Fox News, Michael worked for the Washington Examiner, Bongino.com, and Unbiased America. He has covered politics for more than eight years.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/red-state-lawmakers-look-punish-local-governments-defying-trumps-immigration-crackdown