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Federal district court preliminarily enjoins enforcement of Indiana's new immigration law, SEA 590, in a challenge to the law's constitutionality. HSPRD filed an amicus brief on behalf of five nations in support of the challenge.

In Buquer v. Indianapolis, the plaintiffs challenged two sections of Indiana's new immigration law, SEA 590: (1) Section 19, which authorizes state and local law enforcement officers to make a warrantless arrest of a person when the officer has a removal order issued for the person by an immigration court, a detainer or notice of action issued for the person by the United States Department of Homeland Security, or has probable cause to believe the person has been indicted for or convicted of one or more aggravated felonies, and (2) Section 18, which creates a new infraction under Indiana law for any person who knowingly or intentionally offers or accepts a consular identification card as a valid form of identification for any purpose.

HSPRD lawyers Joshua Karsh and José Behar filed an amicus brief on behalf of five nations (Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia) in support of the constitutional challenge. As HSPRD's brief explains, “Unless Washington’s plenary and exclusive powers over relations with foreign sovereigns and their citizens are established by a clear constitutional line, they will be overridden by a patchwork of conflicting state and local immigration initiatives, and those initiatives will both undermine federal goals and authority and embroil individual states in conflicts with foreign nations.” 

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