Indiana Attorney General threatens to sue West Lafayette due to its immigration policies

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita sent a letter to West Lafayette and two other Indiana cities and Monroe County on Friday, threatening to pursue legal action by July 1 if these government entities refused to rescind any “sanctuary city” policies they had in place.

In a statement, Rokita states that these letters come in response to a law that the Indiana General Assembly passed earlier this year, allowing the attorney general to file lawsuits against any Indiana colleges, universities or local governments not enforcing current Indiana laws banning “sanctuary city.”

“The flood of illegal immigrants entering the United States is a problem that harms all of us,” Attorney General Rokita said in a statement. “The ones paying the price for this lawlessness are Hoosier taxpayers, who must bear increased costs for health care, education and other services used by illegal immigrants.

“A ‘sanctuary city’ is a term for a local unit of government that has adopted a policy to deliberately and intentionally disregard federal law and not cooperate with federal immigration authorities,” according to Rokita’s statement in a news release published Friday.

However, when reviewing West Lafayette’s legislative history, the city never passed a policy establishing itself as a sanctuary city. Instead adopting a resolution in 2017 that stopped short of establishing that status.

The resolution indicated that “local policies must not target communities based on perceived immigration status in order to support the police-community relationships built up over the years with the immigrant community, ensuring that they are comfortable reporting crime as witnesses or victim.”

As well as noting that any city employee or agency of the city of West Lafayette shall not request information about or investigate or assist in the investigation of the citizenship or immigration status of any person unless a court order requires such inquiry or the investigation.

When asked to comment about Rokita's threats to take legal action on July 1, West Lafayette Mayor Erin Easter said the city was currently reviewing the attorney general's letter with the city's legal counsel.

The Journal and Courier also called West Lafayette City Councilman David Sanders, one of the original sponsors of this resolution.

“Looking at what Todd Rokita is saying, there is absolutely zero reference to any unwillingness to cooperate with federal authorities, which is what he’s saying that we declared in our resolution. We say nothing of the sort,” Sanders said.

“What we say is that we, as a city, value all immigrants. We acknowledge that people who are undocumented have violated immigration law which is mentioned in the preamble," Sanders said. “But what we say is, that the city itself will not inquire into immigration status of people.

"That is not, not working with federal authorities," he said. "We say nothing of the sort. It’s just that what we’re saying is the immigration status of people is not something we, as a city, should be inquiring into and engage in discrimination."

In 2017, political discussions over immigration status were a topic that concerned foreign students and faculty across the nation regarding their safety. This was especially true for the students and faculty at Purdue University, Sanders noted.

Due to the university's proximity to West Lafayette, the city is and was a city full of immigrant students and faculty. This, in turn, led city officials to approve the resolution in hopes of addressing the concerns of immigrant students and faculty.

It’s unclear how the city will address Rokita’s threat. Sanders said that before they approved the resolution, the city had its legal counsel review the resolution ensuring it did not violate Indiana code at the time.

Sanders believes Rokita's threat is ultimately just "political theater."

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Attorney General Rokita threatens to sue West Lafayette