Monroe County commissioners voted unanimously on Thursday, November 12, to hire a lawyer for a lawsuit that asks an Indiana court to decide whether the tiny town of Stinesville can carry out an immigration-enforcement agreement its police department signed with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without its elected town board’s approval — a local fight, in a town of roughly 200 people, that has drawn in the Indiana attorney general and a United States senator.
At their regular Thursday meeting, the commissioners voted 3–0 to approve a legal-services agreement with Bloomington attorney Larry Allen, capped at $2,500 and paid from the county’s general fund, for work connected to the lawsuit, according to the B Square Bulletin and WFHB local news. Allen is listed as one of the county’s attorneys in the case, along with Daniel Canon and Jonathan Little. Commissioner Julie Thomas said the commissioners filed the lawsuit in Monroe County Circuit Court challenging who has the authority to make the decision, and told WFHB that the county is asking a judge to block the agreement from being carried out while the question is decided.
The lawsuit itself was filed on Tuesday, November 10, at 2:45 p.m. in Monroe County Circuit Court — hours before the Stinesville town board voted 2–1 that evening to ratify the police department’s agreement with ICE, with board member Richard Carter casting the deciding vote, local outlets reported. The complaint names the town of Stinesville, police chief Shane Pittman and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita as defendants. The board, however, stopped short of giving Pittman a clear go-ahead to spend the $122,500 in federal money the town has already received under the agreement; for now, the town is holding on to the money.
The agreement is part of ICE’s 287(g) program, which allows federally trained and certified local officers to perform certain immigration-enforcement functions under ICE supervision. Stinesville’s deal, signed in February by Pittman while he was deputy police chief, follows what Senator Jim Banks’ office described as the program’s “Task Force Model,” under which local officers can arrest people on immigration grounds and work with ICE to transfer them to federal custody.
How a town of 200 ended up in court
The dispute has been building for months. On September 17, the county commissioners adopted a resolution calling on Stinesville to suspend the partnership and hold public discussion. On October 6, Attorney General Rokita answered with a six-page advisory opinion concluding that police chiefs and town marshals may lawfully enter 287(g) agreements without approval from their town or city councils, that the state’s Interlocal Cooperation Act does not apply, and that government actions discouraging participation could violate Indiana law and expose officials to civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation. Stinesville’s own town attorney, Darla Brown, told the board she disagreed with Rokita’s interpretation, and last month gave the board two options: ratify the agreement, or terminate it altogether.
Senator Banks also weighed in before Tuesday’s vote, sending a letter urging the town board and the county commissioners to ratify the agreement and release the funds. Banks wrote that 45 Indiana law enforcement agencies, including the Indiana State Police, have entered 287(g) agreements, and that ICE has committed more than $1 million to its Indiana partners. “Depriving the Department of funding to which it is lawfully entitled jeopardizes the safety of Stinesville and its residents,” he wrote.
The county’s lawsuit, as described by the commissioners and local reporting, contends the agreement was invalid when it was signed without town board approval and that Tuesday’s ratification cannot necessarily cure that defect. It asks the court to declare the agreement void or unenforceable unless lawfully authorized, to prevent Stinesville from carrying it out until lawful authorization and statutory compliance are established, and to bar Rokita from taking enforcement action against the commissioners based solely on their September 17 resolution or on the filing of the lawsuit itself. The commissioners say they are not asking the court to overturn the town board’s vote as such — only to determine whether the agreement was legally authorized when signed and what effect ratification has.
These are legal claims in a newly filed case, not findings by a court: no hearing date has been set, according to WFHB’s Thursday report, and none of the defendants’ court responses are yet part of the public reporting. Rokita’s published position remains that no legal authority prevents the department from entering the agreement or requires prior board approval, and that local entities violate state law by restricting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
The case now sits in Monroe County Circuit Court, where a judge will decide the authority question at the heart of the fight: whether a police chief can bind a town to a federal immigration-enforcement agreement on his own signature. Until the court rules, Stinesville is holding the $122,500 unspent, and the county says it wants the agreement blocked from being carried out. The ruling will matter well beyond one small town — more than 45 Indiana agencies hold similar agreements.
For immigrant families across Indiana and the Midwest — including Punjabi and other South Asian communities in Indianapolis, Chicago’s suburbs and smaller towns along the interstates — the Stinesville case is a concrete example of how immigration enforcement is being decided not only in Washington but in town-board meetings and county courtrooms, one small agreement at a time.