Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen sent a formal warning letter Thursday to Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell, demanding she reverse what he called an unlawful policy that effectively shuts Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of the county’s criminal justice data system.
Knudsen gave the county until Monday to take corrective action and confirm compliance with state law, or face potential civil enforcement under Montana’s ban on sanctuary policies.
“Let me be clear: Montana is not California,” Knudsen wrote to Cromwell. “This state does not embrace policies that isolate law enforcement partners or undermine the enforcement of duly enacted federal law.”
The dispute centers on an October email from a Cromwell aide to county law enforcement officials, obtained by Fox News, which stated the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office “does not legally recognize Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a law enforcement agency entitled to receive Confidential Criminal Justice Information (CCJI).” The email told county officials that “ICE is only entitled to public documents.”
“I write in response to your office’s determination that [ICE] is not a ‘criminal justice agency’ entitled to receive CCJI absent a court order. Your policy is legally incorrect and inconsistent with both Montana law and governing federal statutes,” Knudsen wrote. “Montana law defines the term ‘criminal justice agency’ as a matter of statute, not local discretion.”
He told Cromwell it is not within the authority of an individual county prosecutor to unilaterally narrow that definition. ICE, Knudsen wrote, “plainly meets” the statutory definition of a criminal justice agency under Montana law, and Gallatin’s interpretation “endangers public safety” by limiting information sharing with federal agents.
Knudsen also accused the county of engineering the restriction deliberately. The policy, he said, “resembles a ‘sanctuary’ policy in practice, if not in name” and constitutes “a deliberate effort to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities while avoiding explicit acknowledgment.”
Montana banned sanctuary cities in 2021 under Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte. The law empowers the attorney general to investigate alleged violations and pursue civil action against any state agency or local government that refuses to comply.
