EVANSVILLE — Furious opposition from Berry Global Group Inc. and the Haitian Center of Evansville to Attorney General Todd Rokita’s quest to know what they know about migrant-related human labor trafficking confounded Rokita, who said they should be helping him.
But a Vanderburgh County judge ruled Wednesday that, by a “narrow” margin, the Indiana Attorney General’s Office may not compel Berry Global, now known as Amcor, and the Haitian Center to cooperate with it.
Specifically, Superior Court Judge Robert J. Pigman denied the AG’s petition seeking an order enforcing civil investigative demands (CIDs) for information that it sent to Berry Global and the Haitian Center. Why? Because the CIDs “do not meet the statutory standard of reasonable cause and relevancy,” Pigman wrote in his nine-page order.
It was a lawyerly ending — for now, at least, given the AG can appeal — to a case dominated by arguments about the limits of the attorney general’s authority to prosecute federal immigration and human trafficking crimes.
Will the AG’s Office appeal? The state agency told the Courier & Press in the hours after Pigman’s ruling landed that it is considering what to do next.
“We’re reviewing the court’s order, evaluating our options, and are committed to vigorously pursuing appropriate next steps,” said a statement from Rokita’s office.
It all goes back to the 2024 election
The case began, for all intents and purposes, days before the 2024 election when Rokita — a former Republican member of Congress and a darling of conservatives — told Fox News Digital that illegal immigration has “created serious sex and labor trafficking risks in all communities.”
“I’m creatively trying to use every tool in the law to stop the Left’s intentional destruction of Indiana,” Rokita said then.
Rokita sent civil investigative demands to several nonprofits, local government agencies and companies around Indiana, charged with statements his aides insisted were not accusations. Berry Global and the Haitian Center were among them.
“The (AG’s Office) has reasonable cause to believe that you may be in possession, custody, or control of documentary materials or may have knowledge of facts that are relevant to an investigation being conducted concerning human labor trafficking and indecent nuisances,” the agency’s CIDs stated.
The attorney general argued that migrants searching for employment are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation by labor traffickers or other criminal elements who would coerce them into forced labor arrangements. They face barriers to socialization and language, housing and transportation challenges.
Rokita told the Courier & Press in July that it’s reasonable to think Berry Global and the Haitian Center might have information that could help the AG’s Office identify and root out risks of labor trafficking and also identify migrants who are at risk of being exploited.
But Berry Global and the Haitian Center argued the attorney general’s CIDs were unnecessarily burdensome and unsupported by any demonstrated reasonable cause or specificity about improper conduct.
Their lawyers repeatedly demanded to know what reasonable cause the AG’s Office had to believe that Berry Global and the Haitian Center knew something about human labor trafficking and the places where it happens.
The AG’s CIDs were accompanied by sweeping, multi-page demands for documents, electronically stored information, explanations and details about the recipients’ activity relative to migrants.
More: Rokita says Berry Global, Haitian Center should be helping on immigration
Interrogatories demanded, among other things, that Berry Global identify and describe which procedures or processes it uses to verify the work eligibility of individuals it recruits or hires, including whether it uses the Department of Homeland Security’s online E-Verify system or participates in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE’s) Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program.
Rokita’s office also demanded Berry Global name the legal status of each migrant it employed in Indiana in the past three years, “including their specific status, such as Temporary Protected Status or nonimmigrant status, which allowed each Migrant to obtain work authorization, and whether any Migrant was Unlawfully Present or lacked work authorization.”
The AG demanded of the Haitian Center, among other things, that it “identify and describe any and all instances of which Haitian Center is aware in the past three years of a Migrant who is Unlawfully Present being recruited by, paired with, or placed with, an Employer.”
There’s been lots of action in the case
The case has taken numerous twists and turns, including early court rounds that went in Rokita’s favor, an unsealed docket, consolidation of the separate cases involving Berry Global and the Haitian Center into one — and the involvement at different stages of five of Vanderburgh County’s seven Superior Court judges.
One of the judges, Les Shively, recused himself when he realized that criticism he leveled at Rokita publicly months earlier as co-host of WNIN PBS’s “Shively & Shoulders” public affairs show might be a problem. The AG’s Office then publicly disagreed with Shively over his remarks on the TV show.
The case finally settled with Pigman in August.
In his ruling Wednesday, Pigman noted that much of the relevant case law on the legitimacy of an attorney general’s CIDs “turns on the definition of reasonable cause and relevancy and what standard the attorney general must meet to establish them.”
More: Shively’s dispute with AG bursts into the open with Rokita’s rebuttal
“The standard is low, all courts agree on this,” Pigman wrote. “Lower even than the standard the government must meet to justify the admission of evidence in a criminal trial that was seized during a police officer’s stop of a defendant on the basis of reasonable suspicion.”
Pigman cited past cases in which “the court is discussing CIDs issued by the attorney general when there have been specific complaints made against the parties resisting the issuance of those CIDs and in which there have been signed written complaints by specific individuals complaining about the activities of the entities being served.”
“Also, those entities are specifically engaged in the activities that the complainants are complaining about and are alleged to have conducted those business activities in an unlawful manner,” Pigman wrote.
“That does not exist in this case. There are no complainants, none. There are no complaints, written or oral, filed against either one of the respondents (Berry Global and the Haitian Center) here and there is no indication that labor trafficking as defined by Indiana law is or has been occurring in Evansville, Indiana, southern Indiana, or the tri-state area.”
Pigman found “nothing presented in this case, whatsoever, to suggest even remotely that the respondents have information concerning the crime of labor trafficking.”
Decision was a close call, judge writes
But Pigman also found some of Berry Global and the Haitian Center’s arguments unpersuasive.
“Respondents question the real purpose behind the attorney general’s investigation,” he wrote. “They suggest that it is subterfuge for the real purpose of investigating immigration issues that are beyond their authority.
“The court does not find that there is any evidence that either party is acting in bad faith.”
In the end, Pigman found there simply is not enough solid information to suggest Berry Global and the Haitian Center have information relevant to an investigation into labor trafficking.
“Sometimes in a vibrant democracy, the legitimate interest of the government and the legitimate rights and concerns of the people clash or conflict,” the judge wrote. “In free society those conflicts are resolved by law in independent courts.”
Rokita’s request for the information sought in his office’s CIDs does not meet the standard set out by Indiana law and thus falls short, Pigman wrote.
“The miss is a narrow one because the standard is low, but it is a miss nonetheless,” the judge wrote. “So for that reason, and only for the reason, the court finds that the CIDs do not meet the statutory standard of reasonable cause and relevancy.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Indiana AG Todd Rokita loses immigration fight after judge’s ruling
