Judicial Watch Seeks Pete Buttigieg’s Testimony for Creation of South Bend ID Card for Illegals

Judicial Watch announced recently it filed its opposition to South Bend, IN’s attempt to prevent former Mayor Pete Buttigieg from testifying under oath in a Judicial Watch Access to Public Records Act (APRA) lawsuit. The lawsuit seeksrecords of communications of Buttigieg’s office related to the creation of a municipal ID card for illegal aliens, and concerns whether personal email accounts were used to conduct official city business.

The ID card was created by La Casa de Amistad, a local not-for-profit corporation. In a June 8, 2019, report the ID card — or Community Resident Card — was referred to as “a novel approach” that other cities were looking to replicate. At the time, Buttigieg was a candidate for the Democrat Party’s presidential nomination. The report notes that the mayor worked closely with La Casa de Amistad on the program.

Judicial Watch filed suit after the City of South Bend failed to properly respond to four open records requests seeking several categories of records, including emails between Buttigieg, members of his staff and officials of La Casa de Amistad regarding the Community Resident Card program (Judicial Watch v. City of South Bend (No. 71C01-1908-Ml-000389)).