Winneshiek County Sheriff in Iowa requests change in venue for lawsuit over ICE-related Facebook post

Winneshiek County Sheriff Dan Marx is asking a judge for a change of venue and ultimately to dismiss a lawsuit brought against him and the county by Iowa Attorney General Bird over a Facebook post about immigration detainers from February. In the post, Marx wrote his office won’t assist federal agents if their requests aren’t “within constitutional parameters.” He said his office will actively work to block detainers, which he called an unconstitutional request from federal agencies to arrest or hold someone. Bird found the Sheriff was in fact following state law and complying with detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but said the Facebook post suggested otherwise in violation of state law. In March, she gave Marx a deadline to remove the Facebook post and replace it with a new post written by her office or face a lawsuit. While the sheriff’s office did remove the post, it did not replace it with the post written by Bird’s office. Bird announced the lawsuit shortly after the deadline she had given Marx had passed. In court filings this week, Sheriff Marx asked the court to take note of the fact that the Facebook post was removed and that the sheriff has complied with all immigration detainer requests. In a separate filing, Winneshiek County is asking a judge to drop the county as a defendant because all the claims are against the sheriff.