Commentary: SB 76 is a $10,000 threat to force locals into ICE’s pipeline — in a state that won’t even raise the wage floor

SB 076, is due for second reading in the House today at 1:30.

Bloomington, Indiana – February 9, 2026

Indiana’s SB 76 is being sold as “training,” “support,” and “uniform standards” for law enforcement. Read what it actually does, and it’s simpler than the spin: it’s a bill designed to force local officials and institutions to participate in federal immigration enforcement—specifically the ICE detainer system that holds people for transfer to ICE custody, which is often the first step toward deportation—or risk penalties.

And the stick is not subtle. The bill authorizes the attorney general to go to court and pursue relief that includes a civil penalty of up to $10,000 for each violation when a government entity doesn’t comply with an immigration detention request.

WFYI’s reporting lays out the core mechanism: SB 76 pressures state and local law enforcement, government bodies, and postsecondary schools to “fully comply” with immigration enforcement, including ICE detainer requests—where sheriffs may be asked to hold someone an additional 48 hours past scheduled release so ICE can take custody.

The bill also expands the attorney general’s role in policing “compliance,” including oversight and enforcement. It adds criminal and civil immunity language for actions taken “in accordance” with the legislation. It escalates employer mandates and penalties tied to employing unauthorized workers (including E-Verify expectations). And it layers in benefit and hospital reporting requirements related to Medicaid and SNAP and identification reporting.

This isn’t “deportations” in the sense that an Indiana sheriff personally signs a removal order. But it is absolutely about compelling local participation in the custody-transfer machinery that feeds deportation.

Yes, the bill targets “government entities.” That’s the dodge. In practice, it means local budgets and taxpayers—Hoosiers—are the ones exposed. A $10,000 penalty doesn’t come out of some abstract “government.” It comes out of the same municipal and county money that pays for deputies, dispatch, roads, EMTs, and jail medical bills.

Meanwhile, Monroe County can’t even afford to build a new jail, or fix the air conditioning in the building for the existing one.

In that context, working people don’t need a lecture on why “average wages” feel fake. Averages get pulled up by high earners. What matters is the wage floor and the bargaining power people actually have.

Indiana’s minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, and it has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009.

So when lawmakers suddenly discover the courage to put $10,000 “per violation” into statute, working people see the tell: this legislature can’t find urgency for wages, but it can find urgency for punishment.

SB 76 lands in a state political culture that has spent years weakening worker leverage and compressing wages. Right-to-work took effect Feb. 1, 2012, weakening union security and, over time, labor’s ability to bargain and enforce standards.

Indiana repealed prevailing wage (the Common Construction Wage Act) effective July 1, 2015, removing wage standards from many public projects.

Starting Jan. 1, 2025, Indiana changed youth labor rules so 16- and 17-year-olds can work the same hours and days as adults.

Put that next to a $7.25 minimum wage frozen since 2009, and you get the Indiana model: keep labor cheap, keep workers atomized, keep the floor low—then act shocked when people say the state runs on slave wages.

And here’s the economic reality nobody wants to say plainly: when a state’s competitive strategy leans hard on low labor costs, the hardest, least protected work gets staffed by whoever has the fewest options and the least bargaining power. That’s how you end up with entire sectors dependent on immigrant labor—while the political class simultaneously attacks those workers and the communities they live in.

SB 76 isn’t just an “immigration bill.” It’s a power bill. It shifts authority upward to the attorney general and uses five-figure penalties to force local entities into the ICE detainer pipeline—while Indiana keeps its wage floor stuck in 2009 and carries a long record of weakening worker protections and leverage.

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