Evansville residents booked into Kentucky jail after ICE arrests
Multiple men who list Evansville addresses were booked into the Hopkins County Jail in Madisonville, Kentucky, after arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, online county booking records show.
Bookings posted Thursday afternoon showed three people with Evansville addresses lodged in the facility. That followed at least three additional bookings from Wednesday that also listed ICE as the arresting agency. The Wednesday entries were listed as released in the online booking logs; the records did not specify whether those people were freed or transferred to other detention facilities.
Indiana court records reviewed by News Block did not show pending or completed criminal charges against any of the men, and Hopkins County bookings did not list specific charges. Because concrete identifying information and formal charges were not available, the individuals are not being named in this report.
- 3 Evansville addresses booked Thursday into Hopkins County Jail
- At least 3 additional bookings from Wednesday also list ICE as arresting agency
- No specific criminal charges listed in Hopkins County online bookings
The arrests spurred rapid circulation of social media posts claiming local law enforcement participated in stops on Washington Avenue and South Riverside Drive. But representatives of the Evansville Police Department and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office told reporters they were not involved.
"We have no agreement, contract, or informal partnership with ICE," Sheriff Noah Robinson said, noting the county's role is limited to statutorily required obligations to honor immigration detainers at its jail.
Evansville Police Department spokesman Sgt. Anthony Aussieker told the Courier & Press the department had "not been made aware of any ICE operations" and pointed to previous statements from Chief Phil Smith that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility. "We make custodial arrests depending on when Indiana statute is violated or not," Smith said in a past statement cited by the paper.
ICE maintains a searchable online database for people in federal immigration custody. That database requires either a person's country of birth or an immigration "A-number" to locate records; neither element was available in the Hopkins County bookings accessed Thursday afternoon.
The events underscore the practical limits and legal distinctions between federal immigration enforcement and local policing in Indiana. Local leaders have repeatedly said municipal agencies do not conduct immigration enforcement operations and that cooperation is generally limited to complying with lawful detainer requests at jails.
| Detail | Count |
|---|---|
| Evansville addresses booked Thursday | 3 |
| Evansville-related bookings Wednesday | At least 3 |
Officials did not provide further details about the circumstances leading to the arrests, and attempts to identify the detainees through public court records produced no additional information. News Block will continue to monitor court filings and ICE custody records and will update coverage if more details become available.
