‘Gold-Standard’ Immigration Bill Slows In Indiana Amid Redistricting

While the Indiana legislature’s congressional redistricting efforts generate massive national attention, a weaker immigration enforcement bill is quietly moving faster than a stronger, “gold-standard” bill supported by Gov. Mike Braun and border czar Tom Homan.

The two immigration bills, Senate Bill 76 and House Bill 1039, include a lot of identical language. But SB 76 weakens and drops a number of HB 1039’s provisions.

SB 76 is sponsored by Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, who faces primary challenger Darren Vogt after she single-handedly blocked an immigration enforcement bill similar to HB 1039 earlier this year. SB 76 passed the judiciary committee Brown chairs Tuesday afternoon 6-2. In response to a Federalist query about whether she’d give HB 1039’s Senate companion sponsored by ranking member Sen. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, an equal hearing, Brown’s spokeswoman told The Federalist, “Sen. Brown is focused first on getting her bill through Committee and then she’ll see what the House does.”

The legislative session in Indiana opened early on Dec. 1 to consider redistricting into a 9-0 congressional map favoring Republicans. It’s a response to Democrats further gerrymandering states they control to tilt Congress more steeply in their favor.

State lawmakers are pursuing their previously planned bills for the 2026 session, not just redistricting, which Senate leadership has resisted. The Indiana Senate tends to preference corporate interests over voters in this supermajority-Republican state, using crafty maneuvers to confuse voters about their real priorities. Illegal immigration was Indiana Republican voters’ No. 1 priority in 2024.

Big Differences in Employer Penalties, Enforcement

In October, Homan and Braun publicly endorsed HB 1039, also known as the Fairness Act. It would institute escalating penalties for employers who hire illegal aliens and ban local governments, including schools, from refusing to comply with federal immigration enforcement and preferencing foreign citizens above Americans. Some of Indiana’s largest school districts have publicly proclaimed they’re harboring illegal aliens from justice.

Vogt said he supports the Fairness Act, too: “If we’re going to pass laws, we need to sure they have teeth.” SB 76 offers no state enforcement options for businesses that knowingly employ illegal labor.

“In House Bill 1039…we’d have the state able to hold [employers] accountable rather than referring to the federal government. I think that’s vitally important,” said Fairness Act sponsor Rep. J.D. Prescott in a phone interview Monday. He later explained, “They don’t have the bandwidth at the federal level to take on all these cases, so if we would target this at the business licensure standpoint, it makes it much easier to enforce. And, quite frankly, once you start enforcing it, I think businesses will come into compliance very quickly.”

Employers who don’t verify worker legality are “a huge magnet for illegal immigration,” said Shari Rendall, the state and local engagement director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an immigration policy watchdog. She noted that E-Verify is 98 percent accurate and free to use, meaning employers who don’t use it often do so deliberately to enable hiring cheap illegal labor. Rendall also noted the Fairness Act requires information-gathering such as ID checks that government workers who support sanctuary policies avoid to secretly protect illegal aliens from facing justice for their crimes.

Former Trump Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf told lawmakers in October that the Biden administration imported the equivalent of a 51st state’s worth of illegal immigrants, and that the federal government cannot remedy that without dramatically increased state-level assistance.

Comparing SB76 to HB1039

Current major differences between the bills include, according to a Federalist analysis:

• SB 76 does not provide civil and criminal liability protection for police and other government employees for honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers, while HB 1039 does.
• HB 1039 (sections 4 and 5) prohibits local government policies and practices that deter government employees from cooperating with ICE, while SB 76 does not. The Fairness Act includes a prohibition on anti-immigration-enforcement policies that are deliberately unwritten to avoid litigation from the attorney general under the state’s sanctuary policies ban
• HB 1039 has an entire section prohibiting local governments including public school districts from encouraging foreign migration using public resources, while SB 76 has no such provision. Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, and other cities currently maintain programs and policies that preference non-Americans above Americans.
• HB 1039 requires providers to disclose the IDs used to obtain health care paid by Medicaid so the feds can check the list for fraud; SB 76 does not.
• HB 1039 uses the “knowingly and intentionally” standard for hiring an illegal migrant, while SB 76 uses a “recklessly and intentionally” standard. Prescott and Brown’s spokeswoman differed on which was a tougher standard.
• SB 76 has no state enforcement mechanism against employers found to have knowingly hired illegal aliens. It leaves enforcement up to federal prosecutors, who typically manage an overwhelming case load. HB 1039 provides a robust state enforcement mechanism, which makes enforcing illegal labor laws far more likely.
• SB 76’s related provisions appear to expire if the federal definition of “detainer” changes, while HB 1039 accounts for that.
• SB 76 requires the state to train sheriffs on the new policies, and HB 1039 does not, but that’s because having a fiscal impact could torpedo the entire bill. “One of the big drivers behind this [bill] was that law enforcement told her they needed relevant training to ensure they were carrying out detainer warrants correctly,” Brown spokeswoman Becky Rogness told The Federalist in an email.

Because SB 76 and HB 1039 aim at similar goals, Prescott said it’s possible they ultimately get reconciled in a conference committee near the end of session. But it’s more than two months until the end of a wilder session than usual, so a lot can happen.

“I’m focused on getting the strongest immigration bill that we can through the House and Senate that’s enforceable and doing our part as a state to assist Tom Homan and the Trump administration,” Prescott said.

SB 76 could get to its second reading by the end of the week. HB 1039 is likely to get its committee hearing in January, Prescott said, meaning it’s weeks behind SB 76 in a short session pressurized by national attention on redistricting, which Brown vocally supports.

“[T]he FAIRNESS Act is the gold standard for state-level action on illegal immigration and the General Assembly should accept no substitutes,” wrote Wolf and Matthew O’Brien of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in a Dec. 8 letter to Indiana’s Senate Judiciary Committee. A FAIR study found that in 2023 Indiana taxpayers spent $1 billion on illegal immigration from public school tuition to Medicaid, the same amount as a massive two-year budget hole the legislature had to resolve last session with higher taxes.

A Strained Republican Coalition

While corporate press frames redistricting as a simple pro-Trump or anti-Trump decision, the reality on the ground is more complicated. It’s not assured a new map would result in 9-0 Republican wins, meaning it could cause Republican losses without also netting Republican gains. Redistricting is also likely to expand Indianapolis-centered corporate-focused politics and could threaten a Republican congressional seat in the Second District.

U.S. Rep. Rudy Yakym of the Second District helps hold up a conservative-leaning Republican electoral infrastrucure throughout northwest Indiana via campaign funds and endorsements. He inherited the seat of a beloved conservative on whose campaign he had volunteered after former Rep. Jackie Walorski and staffers tragically died in a 2022 car crash.

It’s possible some Republican lawmakers who publicly support redistricting are doing so to earn conservative credibility without cost as they expect it to ultimately fail at the hands of colleagues perhaps better-protected against primary challenges. Indiana’s conservative base staunchly supports redistricting. They supported Trump in 2024 with 59 percent of the state’s vote and are routinely on the butt end of state Republican leadership’s betrayal on policy priorities.

Currently, of the 40 Senate Republicans, 16 support redistricting, 14 are against, and 10 have not disclosed their position. The proposal needs 26 Senate votes to pass. On Friday, the House passed a 9-0 redistricting bill 57-41, with 12 Republicans voting against.

President Trump and Gov. Mike Braun have promised to support primary challenges to Republicans who vote against redistricting. Indiana State Police are investigating bomb threats and SWATting murder attempts against several state lawmakers amid a deeply contentious process generating nationwide attention and fervent protestors on both sides.

The redistricting proposal moved out of its Senate committee Monday and faces a floor vote Thursday.