The Merrillville Town Council isn’t going to fight with Attorney General Todd Rokita unless and until he takes his next swing.
The council at its Tuesday night meeting voted unanimously to table a resolution to rescind its prior resolution opposing ICE processing centers in town limits. The council issued a statement June 29 after receiving a letter from Rokita accusing the town of intimidating property owners “to discourage the consummation of any transaction that could result in ICE acquiring real property in Merrillville,” among other things, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
Resolutions, the Post-Tribune also reported, are used to express policy or a governing body’s opinion on a subject and don’t carry the force of law.
Councilwoman Shauna Haynes-Edwards, D-2, made a motion to table the resolution after Councilman Shawn Pettit, D-6, made a motion to deny it outright on the grounds that the town doesn’t need someone “coming into town and telling us how to do economic development.”
“For the residents in the audience, I do want to speak out: As I told my fellow councilors, I’ve been in constant contact with Opus Development — 8709 and 8719, which is 300 feet south of my house — has two leases on the table for private businesses to occupy that building, so that building’s off the table, ladies and gentlemen. The other questions I have, Mr. President, for our esteemed Attorney General, is number one, would you like it in Munster, Todd? Because it was 300 feet away from my house,” Pettit said, referring to the town in which Rokita grew up. “Number two: We’re the only community that I see in Northern Indiana that has this issue on their plate that I’m aware of, so why just Merrillville are we looking at it?
“And third, and most importantly, to the ladies that represent the tornado areas: It’s in extremely bad taste, Mr. Rokita, to bring this up when we’re trying to recover 225 people that lost their houses.”
“It feels as if this this violates our First Amendment right of free speech,” added Councilwoman Keesha Hardaway, D-7. “We represent 5,000 residents each; we are a voice, and we are their voice, and he is trying to squelch the voices of the town of Merrillville, and I will not tolerate that.”
Council Vice President Rhonda Neal, D-1, while supportive of the initial resolution, hopes that the town’s defiance doesn’t cause it further headaches down the road, especially with impending disaster relief.
“I do not want the residents of Ward One, who took the worst hit, to be denied any type of funding, and I would not want to put the town of Merrillville in a case where we’re now being fined tens of thousands of dollars for all Indiana codes that they’re saying we’re neglecting,” Neal said. “If we don’t have to start an outright war yet, then let’s not do that. But I am not supporting ICE. I’ve never supported ICE. I don’t want us to become a target to say ‘Now, we’re definitely bringing ICE.’
“You can’t bully us. We’re not going to be bullied.”
Council President Rick Bella, D-5, who asked for the new resolution to be crafted, asked attorney Ricardo Hall whether the town has any real power to stop the federal government if it really wants to put a processing center within the town.
“The short answer is ‘No’,” Hall said. “I mean, we have this as political issue, and then we have the legal issue. Politically, I think there’s solidarity, but there is some point of departure because we are dealing with federal authority versus state authority, and in Indiana, we have unity between the federal rather than the state, so it would be, legally speaking, an uphill battle. But politically, this is where it’s up the people, right?”
Bella emphasized that some of the town’s objections center around the impact on its first responders and the lack of communication from ICE.
“And to be clear, our initial resolution was just letting them know that we don’t think Merrillville is a good location, obviously, but there’s a lot of other reasons too because we don’t have a huge police force here that can show up and assist, you know, ICE. We don’t have EMS service or the fire department, and it causes a lot of strain on communities where these warehouses are operating,” Bella said. “The initial concern, too, is we had never heard from DHS or ICE. We’ve sent letters. We’ve made phone calls. Chief (Costa Nuses) has met with authorities, and they still haven’t communicated with us. Same with the attorney general. He simply stated that we need to follow these three things, or he will compel us to do so. So there hasn’t been really good communication back and forth. I don’t really know why. We’re here all the time to just reach out. We’re happy to talk.”
Nuses added that the last he heard, ICE was no longer interested in Merrillville.
Merrillville resident Selena Castillo said that even though she understands that the resolution is a non-binding document that can’t stop the federal government, she and her family will still be attending future meetings to ensure the council stays resolute.
“I’m relieved to see that (the council) still feels strongly that they don’t want one, but (Rokita) wants them to sell out our principles, so I want to go down swinging,” she said.
Rokita, in a letter dated June 24, told the Merrillville Town Council that his office “has cause to believe that Merrillville has taken and continues to take actions to limit and restrict federal authorities’ ability to enforce federal immigration laws in violation of Indiana Code” because of the resolution. If it doesn’t, the Attorney General’s office “will undertake legal action to compel Merrillville’s compliance with state law,” he wrote.
The town in its statement on the letter, which it also submitted to the AG’s office Monday, said the resolution is a First Amendment issue.
“We are frankly surprised by the letter from the Indiana Attorney General as well as the timing of it. The Town Council passed Resolution No. 26-02 six months ago,” the statement said. “We hope that the Indiana Attorney General agrees with us that this expression of the opinion of the Town Council of Merrillville, not having the force of law, but expressing its sense on a matter of great public import, is consistent with the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Article I, Sec. 9 of the Indiana Constitution and not at all violative of (Indiana Code).”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
