Former Kosciusko County Democrat Party Chair Brian Smith, left, brings up some legislative bills Saturday he thought people should know about as attorney Travis McConnell, center, and local business owner Nathan Underneath, right, listen.

Text and Photos
By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Changes to federal and state laws are leaving some people with questions about what it all means, and a local attorney hosted a discussion Saturday, Feb. 15, to try to provide some answers.

The one-hour public forum, led by attorney Travis J. McConnell, with assistance by local business owner Nathan Underneath, at the Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion was titled “Understanding Recent Policy Changes: What it Means for the Community.”

“So there’s been a lot of concerns that I got immediately the two weeks after the inauguration (of President Donald Trump). I was trying to think what I could do, and decided to try to just educate the community as much as possible, and this is what resulted,” McConnell said.

Immigration

Most of the recent policy decisions have been about immigration, he said.“There’s over a dozen executive orders by President Trump related to immigration, and there’s been one in particular from the state level as well,” McConnell stated. “The main thrust of President Trump’s immigration executive orders have been to prioritize detention and removal of unlawful individuals. Also, there’s been a focus the churches and schools will no longer be sanctuary or safe from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids. What’s important to note, there’s a lot of fear in the community, is what’s rhetoric and scare tactics that often politicians use and what’s actually happening.”

McConnell said he’s checked sources and, as of Saturday, there hasn’t been a single ICE raid of a church or school anywhere in the United States, as far as he could find from a verified source.

“The first part is what they continue to focus on: detention and removal of unlawful immigrants, specifically those who come into contact with the criminal justice system. So the best thing that you can do, if you’re in that category, is not come into contact with the criminal justice system,” he stated.

ICE is coming to jails more often than they have in previous years, McConnell continued.

“Also, on the state level, Gov. (Mike) Braun passed an executive order, 2529, that ordered all of our local law enforcement and National Guard to enter into agreements and full cooperate with ICE. Again, what’s rhetoric and what’s not, there’s been only one actual sheriff that jumped up and took that order — that’s the Hamilton County sheriff. Other than that, no sheriff seems to be that excited about having to do ICE’s job in addition to their own,” McConnell said.

In Braun’s order is a target priorities list that includes criminals, terrorists and significant threats to public safety.

Cheryl Hastings spoke up, saying, “So, under the Constitution everyone living in the United States has Constitutional rights, including the right to remain silent … right now, a lot of organizations are putting out Red Cards, which lists those rights that everybody has, whether you’re documented or undocumented.”

She provided a box of the Red Cards, from the Immigration Legal Resource Center, in the back room for people to take for themselves and/or to give out to others.

More information about the Red Cards can be found at ilrc.org/red-cards.

“The purpose of them is one, to educate people about what their rights are, and, two, if you’re approached by law enforcement or ICE, you can just hand them the card, which makes them aware that you know what your rights are and that you are exercising those rights,” Hastings stated.

McConnell agreed that everyone should know their rights.

“The right to remain silent is the most underutilized right, as a criminal defense attorney. People don’t like to remain silent. You have the right to do it. A lot of people struggle with it. If people used it more, there would probably be a lot harder job for law enforcement,” he said.

A box of Red Cards, informing people of their Constitutional Rights, was made available at Saturday’s public forum on “Understanding Recent Policy Changes: What it Means for the Community.” The Red Cards are from the Immigration Legal Resource Center.

A person also has a right to speak to an attorney, and McConnell said people should assert that right as well.

“If you don’t say, ‘I’d like to speak to an attorney,’ they can continue to talk to you. Once you say you want to speak to an attorney, then they can’t talk to you until they give you an attorney,” he said. A person also does not have to consent to searches and does not have to let a person into their house. A person has the right to not consent to the search of their vehicle, too, but McConnell said a person has a lot less rights in their vehicle than their home.

New Federal Budget Changes

McConnell noted that there’s been a lot of talk over the last few weeks about cutting the budget and axing the U.S. Department of Education.

“Where this would be biggest on our local community, is it reduces funding for critical programs, specifically like free and reduced lunches,” he said. “What the Department of Education does is a lot of different things. But there’s also several federal changes that trickle down from the federal to the state to locals that benefit our community.”

He talked about DOE funding for Title I grants, which are specifically for low-income, special needs, mental health, anti-bullying programs, Headstart programs and preschool grants.

A question was asked where the funding for those affected local programs would be made up if the federal government cuts them out of its budget.“What comes to my mind, as a Christian, is, are the churches going to step up and fill this gap? Who’s going to come up and fill this gap because, from a Biblical context, this is the poor, oppressed, the marginalized and immigrant being left out, as the Bible talks about,” McConnell said.

He said people in the community need to step up and be prepared to fill the gaps if it can, especially those who have the ability to do so.

Local Government Property Tax

Local government includes county government. McConnell said there’s been a lot of talk about property tax cap and reduction and property tax relief by Braun’s office. While giving property owners a break on taxes sounds like a good idea, “the problem with this property tax break is there is no other funding source for our local government that they have the power to tax other than property tax. So if we’re going to hamstring our local government by not allowing them to issue property tax, they don’t have — other than license fees and permit fees — any other way to raise money.”

Local government provides things like law enforcement, firefighters, roads, judges, the prosecutor’s office, etc.

“There’s little to no fat in most local budgets,” McConnell said. The proposal to cap property taxes would cost $1.2 billion possibly over the next few years to local governments in Indiana, he said.

“That’s a lot of people being let go. That’s a lot of officers being let go. That’s a lot of roads being left in disrepair.”

The bill in question is Sentate Bill 1, which already had the 3% cap amended out as of Saturday, McConnell said, and Braun wasn’t happy about it.

Homeless Shelters

There were a couple of bills McConnell wanted to bring to everyone’s attention to regarding homelessness, specifically House Bill 1662 and HB 1123.

“(HB 1662) criminalizes homelessness. Indiana has a bill to criminalize homelessness by making ‘street camping’ illegal in the state of Indiana. It would be a B misdemeanor to sleep in a public space,” McConnell said, noting the bill has little to no support currently, but it’s still in the process and is being considered.

HB 1123 is a bill regarding Victims Of Crime Act (VOCA) funding. The federal government cut the funding by 42% previously and there may be more coming, McConnell said. “This is a bill to make up the shortfall through state funds. It is in the process but needs to be heard in a committee. It’s not yet set for a hearing, so this is a bill that you can call and ask that it be heard for a hearing because this is very important funding for victims of crime acts,” he said.

Miscellaneous Items

McConnell’s last slide was a quick hit on voting, marijuana and LGBTQ+.

Some of the voting changes going through the Indiana House, which probably will pass, include having closed primaries in the next election and a shorter early voting time period. School board elections will become partisan under House Bill 1230.

There are a couple bills about marijuana — one is to decriminalize it, one is to legalize it for people over 21 — and both were introduced by Republicans. McConnell said neither will probably pass. There’s also a bill to finally establish a level of impairment for marijuana in OWI cases.

On LGBTQ+ issues, he said, “We’ve gone back to two genders, is the way it’s being talked about, because there’s male and female only. Transgender is no longer accepted in the military. This is causing a big mental health issue with the trans population in the United States. There’s been an increase in suicides.”

If anyone has friends who are transgender, he suggested you reach out to them to offer your support. Canada is, according to rumor, McConnell said, “accepting asylum for American citizens. So the land of the free is now fleeing to Canada, and Canada is accepting applications for people in the trans population in particular.”

For the full video of the presentation, see the Facebook page for Law Office of Travis J. McConnell PLLC, which will have the video up for the next 30 days.

The slide on immigration is shown from Saturday’s public forum on “Understanding Recent Policy Changes: What it Means for the Community.”