Indiana’s attorney general took two major enforcement actions this week targeting potential migrant trafficking. This week, Todd Rokita’s office sent subpoenas to several Indiana entities, including Fort Wayne, the state’s second-largest city; Amazon; and Catholic Charities.
“I believe these entities have vital information to root out labor trafficking right here,” Rokita said in a press conference at the Allen County courthouse Nov. 13. His office declined to disclose the subpoena contents beyond mentioning business, financial, and client records and relationships, saying confidentiality is legally required because subpoenas do not accuse recipients of wrongdoing but solely seek information.
On Nov. 6, Rokita’s office sued the state’s second-largest school district, Indianapolis, over its alleged refusal to comply with a state anti-sanctuary law: “In our estimation, they are clearly operating a sanctuary jurisdiction,” Rokita said in response to a Federalist question. So-called “sanctuary” policies that nullify federal immigration laws are illegal under a 2024 Indiana law that gave the attorney general’s office power to sue entities for noncompliance.
“[S]chool policies that limit cooperation and communication with federal immigration authorities create incentives for criminal illegal aliens to exploit school locations as havens in which to evade detection by federal authorities,” the AG’s lawsuit says.
Assistant Chief Deputy Attorney General Blake Lanning noted in a phone call that sanctuary policies put out a welcome mat for criminal aliens, and the vast majority of the 12-20 million aliens illegally admitted under the Biden administration remain inside the United States. Immigration Czar Tom Homan has asked Indiana and all states to help send these lawbreakers home, saying addressing the Biden administration border crisis will be impossible without state cooperation. A majority of American voters, and the vast majority of Republicans, support deporting every illegal U.S. entrant.
“Because labor trafficking involves coercion, it is very difficult to detect,” Rokita noted. “Often the victims won’t come forward. As a result, we have to look to other sources of information. Employers and nonprofits that encourage or incentivize the mass movement of alien workers to fill jobs should not be surprised that their movement of workers is going to come under scrutiny by me. I want all illegal aliens out of this country and I want the problems associated with the legal immigration like labor trafficking to end.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a Federalist request for comment Friday. Fort Wayne officials told local news it is county government, not the city, that has allegedly signed on to sanctuary policies: “We are not a sanctuary city and have never been one.” A spokeswoman for county officials told The Federalist Thursday they will issue a response Friday after reviewing the press conference.
The majority of illegal aliens receive taxpayer-provided benefits such as schooling, food stamps, and health care. The Federalist estimated in June that nearly one-quarter of government-school students wouldn’t be inside the United States without illegal immigration, and that removing such students would free up $1 billion in Indiana tax revenue per year. Removing all illegal aliens and anchor babies from the United States would save nearly $150 billion per year in taxpayer school spending alone.
Taxpayer-Run Schools Foment Insurrection Against Federal Law
The Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) lawsuit alleges the school district worked with leftist lawyers to keep a minor from being deported in January with his Honduran father, despite the father desiring to take his son with him.
“ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] did not wish to separate the family and therefore sought to reunite the Honduran national with his son so that they could leave the United States together,” the lawsuit says. But when ICE officers tried to retrieve the minor from an IPS school, says the suit, “multiple IPS staff members” hid the minor, called lawyers who oppose immigration enforcement, and after consulting with a woman who claimed to be the minor’s stepmother but “was not identified as a guardian of the child in IPS’s records” released the minor to the lawyer allegedly without ever consulting his legal guardian.
This resulted in the Honduran father missing his deportation flight on the day his deportation order expired, the lawsuit says, allowing him to stay in the country without legal authorization until, presumably, the order was renewed and ICE agents chased him down again. It says this incident shows the dangers of sanctuary policies IPS has allegedly adopted in violation of state law.
Indianapolis and Fort Wayne public schools sent emails early this year assuring taxpayers they would harbor fugitives from immigration law. IPS has publicly declared it won’t verify the citizenship of its public employees, students, or students’ parents to shield illegal aliens from federal law enforcement. It has also declared it will not allow ICE officers to enter public school properties without a judicial warrant. ICE typically employs administrative warrants.
“IPS’s Restricted Access Policy would prevent ICE from effecting the arrest of a criminal illegal alien present on IPS’s property,” the lawsuit says. “… The consequences of barring federal authorities from making such arrests could be significant.”
The lawsuit notes known instances of violent aliens enrolling in public schools next to innocent children under sanctuary policies. In 2024, a Maryland high school enrolled an MS-13 gang member who pled guilty to murder after law enforcement found him. Another illegal alien MS-13 member attended a Virginia public school last year and there carried a loaded gun and threatened to kill a student. Infamously, this September authorities found the DEI-boosting superintendent of Iowa’s largest school district was an illegal alien “charged with multiple federal felonies, including federal weapons and narcotics charges.”
Rokita’s office sent IPS several letters since February requesting compliance with state law, the lawsuit notes, filing the lawsuit after receiving no “substantive response.” The suit seeks a permanent injunction and “any further relief” the court deems necessary to require IPS to follow state law. America First Policy Institute is assisting the attorney general with the lawsuit.
The IPS school board responded by starting a petition on Change.org to oppose the lawsuit. IPS Communications Director Alpha Garrett did not respond to multiple Federalist requests for comment Thursday. Garrett used her public position to argue in 2021 for anti-white “equity” policies at IPS and to claim the “foundation of IPS’ history is rooted in … segregationist policies.”
A different IPS employee emailed the following statement that did not answer Federalist questions about district spending on students who don’t speak English well and whether school board lawyers approved its alleged sanctuary policies:
While IPS takes all legal obligations seriously, we respectfully hope that all concerned parties will recognize the heavy burden that silly litigation and political posturing places on students, families, and taxpayers. Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment. In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.
Schools Becoming Towers of Babel
IPS and Fort Wayne have long been among the state’s lowest-performing districts, and consistently fail to close large achievement gaps that especially disadvantage non-white and non-Asian children. They are also among the highest-spending in Indiana, with Indianapolis spending nearly $27,000 and Fort Wayne spending $16,000 per child per year.
Fort Wayne Community Schools says its students and teachers deal with 70 different languages, and 16 percent of its students do not speak English well. It employs seven full-time interpreters at public expense and 174 other personnel directly devoted to students who can’t speak English well. At the average teaching wage plus benefits in Indiana, that’s a lowball estimate of $15 million in taxpayer spending per year on ESL personnel alone.
Non-English-speakers comprise one-third of IPS students, and in 2024 Chalkbeat Indiana reported the district cannot find one-third of the bilingual assistants it needs. IPS students speak Arabic, Burmese, Creole, French, Kinyarwanda, Spanish, Swahili, and Yoruba — among dozens of others. IPS made teaching non-English-speaking children one of its top budget priorities for 2024-25, increasing its spending on the positions and offering bonuses to attract staff who can speak niche languages like Creole.
In response to this situation, the IPS school board in 2023 adopted a “language justice” policy that “actively challenges the idea that there is a dominant language because multiple languages can coexist within our society.”
More than half of IPS students are chronically absent from school, and so are half of its English Language Learners. Only 20 percent of IPS students, and less than 10 percent of its English Language Learners, in grades 3-8 are on grade level in reading and math. Just 3 percent of IPS students who can’t speak English well are on grade level in both reading and math in grades 3-8 — and statistically that doesn’t improve in high school.
Forty percent of Fort Wayne students are chronically absent, meaning they miss 10 or more days of school in a year without an excuse. Less than 30 percent of their third- through eighth-graders can read and do math at grade level, and so are just 11 percent of their students who struggle with English.
Several Indiana teachers have told The Federalist they switched school districts or jobs after being put in no-win situations like these, where it’s impossible for any children to learn simply because of the sheer volume of language and culture confusion. Indiana’s Constitution requires a “general and uniform system of common schools,” which courts have often interpreted as requiring dramatic state intervention in schools this unable to teach students to read.
Local Governments, Nonprofits Attempt to Nullify Federal Laws
On September 19, two of three local Republican county commissioners, Rich Beck and Therese Brown, celebrated Fort Wayne receiving certification as a “Welcoming City.” The certification from a nonprofit organization, Welcoming America, requires recipients to adopt sanctuary city policies.
Indianapolis is also a certified “welcoming city” after following the same pathway Fort Wayne did. Other cities with this certification include Austin, Baltimore, Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia.
Level one “welcoming city” certification requires a city to: help foreign citizens obtain citizenship; “Local government leadership does not make public statements discouraging immigration or immigrant inclusion;” displacing Christianity as America’s founding religion: “The local government participates in celebrations of immigrant cultures, customs, and beliefs;” “expanding access” to immigrants of public services; and “Local law enforcement agencies do not have policies in place where the primary purpose is to detain or deport immigrants.”
Fort Wayne’s “Welcoming Cities” plan demanded devoting city and local charitable dollars, institutions, and personnel to foreign citizens instead of Americans, increase spending on translating foreign languages, push employers to hire people who don’t speak English, and partner with leftist legal organizations that oppose U.S. immigration laws. The effort received funding from Google, energy monopoly NIPSCO, the local Chamber of Commerce called Greater Fort Wayne, the Allen County Public Library, Catholic Charities, Sweetwater Music, and the St. Joseph Community Foundation.
Rokita also issued subpoenas to Welcoming America and Amani Family Services, a local nonprofit that was a key advocate for the certification and that provides legal resources to help foreign citizens stay inside the United States, including anti-ICE resources and open-borders advocacy from Welcoming America.
Amani’s website directing readers to anti-ICE resources.
Welcoming America also provides legal and advocacy resources to shield illegal immigrants from U.S. law enforcement, including tools for reporting ICE actions in real-time that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has said can facilitate violence against law enforcement. Violence against immigration enforcement officers has increased more than 1,000 percent this year, says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Amani did not respond immediately to a Friday morning comment request.
