Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller will not appeal a federal judge’s ruling that permanently blocks enforcement of two key provisions of a controversial 2011 Indiana immigration bill: one making it a crime to use a consular-issued card for identification and another allowing the arrest of people whose immigration status is questionable.
U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker issued the ruling Friday, finding that the provisions violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution. In June 2011, she ordered a preliminary ban on enforcing the law.
The judge’s decision noted that, under the Indiana law, a person could be arrested simply because the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service had issued a notice “as legally innocuous as informing the recipient . . . that he or she has attained lawful alien status.”