Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed a response with the Montana Supreme Court this week asking it to dismiss a petition brought by Gallatin County Attorney Audrey Cromwell, escalating a months-long dispute over whether local officials must share criminal justice records with federal immigration authorities.
The clash traces back to October 2025, when Cromwell advised county employees that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not entitled to receive confidential criminal justice information, known as CCJI, without a court order. Knudsen responded in April 2026 with a letter calling that guidance legally wrong and ordering Cromwell to bring her office into compliance. When she refused, he invoked supervisory control — a statutory authority that allows the attorney general to direct county attorneys on matters related to their official duties. Cromwell then filed her petition with the Supreme Court rather than comply.
In his response, Knudsen argued the case should never have landed at the high court in the first place. He contends the dispute is a nonjusticiable political question, that Cromwell lacks standing to challenge his supervisory authority, and that any ruling the court issues would amount to an impermissible advisory opinion. He also argued that even if the court were inclined to take up the case, no statewide emergency exists to justify bypassing the district court system.
“Entertaining this petition would chart a path for any county attorney to run to this Court to resolve any interpretive or policy disagreement she had with the Attorney General,” Knudsen wrote. “A decision on the merits would nullify the Legislature’s grant of comprehensive supervisory authority.”
On the underlying legal question, Knudsen argued that Montana’s Criminal Justice Information Act contains no purpose-based restriction on a criminal justice agency’s access to CCJI — meaning once an agency qualifies as a criminal justice agency, it is entitled to the information regardless of whether it intends to use it in a criminal or civil context. He said Cromwell’s reading would require courts to examine the reason behind every information request, a limitation he said appears nowhere in the statute.
Knudsen further argued that ICE plainly meets Montana’s statutory definition of a criminal justice agency, which covers any federal agency whose principal function is the administration of criminal justice. He pointed to ICE’s publicly available detention statistics to support his contention that most individuals in ICE custody are either convicted criminals or face pending criminal charges, putting the bulk of ICE’s work within the statutory definition.
Cromwell has maintained that ICE’s deportation and removal proceedings are civil in nature and that the purpose behind an information request must be considered before CCJI can be released. Knudsen called that position an outlier, saying no other Montana county has taken a similar stance.
“Cromwell is an outlier,” Knudsen wrote. “No other county has distorted the plain meaning of Montana’s Criminal Justice Information Act to create a de facto sanctuary jurisdiction that is uniquely hostile to ICE’s important operations.”
The attorney general has also directed Cromwell’s office to produce documents and communications related to the matter, a demand she has also refused. Knudsen indicated in his filing that the document request is independent of the interpretive dispute and relates to the truthfulness of Cromwell’s claim that her October 2025 guidance was limited to a single case rather than constituting a broader policy.
The Montana Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will take up the case.
By: DNU staff