Arizona voters hand local police more power to crack down on immigration
Joe Duhownik
PHOENIX (CN) — Arizona voters on Tuesday approved a controversial ballot measure to crack down on illegal immigration and fentanyl sales but rejected two initiatives that would have reduced wages for tipped workers and eliminated judicial retention elections.
Immigration measure Proposition 314 passed with over 62% of the vote, making it a state crime to cross the border outside a legal port of entry and allowing local and state law enforcement to arrest people suspected of crossing the border illegally.
The measure also prohibits noncitizens from applying for jobs or social benefits with false papers, allows state judges to order deportations, and establishes “lethal sale of fentanyl” as a new crime to crack down on the drug epidemic, which is often rhetorically tied to the border crisis.
Republican lawmakers say the measure is necessary to stop the influx of illegal border crossings they attribute to a weak Biden administration.
“We hope it will send a message to people who have been previously deported, drug traffickers, human traffickers, people on a terrorist watch list, that if they try to sneak in, they may be caught,” state Senator John Kavanagh of Fountain Hills, said in a public statement Tuesday. “Deterring illegal immigrants as a whole helps us.”
Some border sheriffs say the measure requires local police to do the job of federal law enforcement without enough resources to do so.
“There’s no embedded funding for this,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said in a news conference in Phoenix last month. “I run a jail. We would be taking in prisoners with no additional funding. This would be creating a huge burden on Arizona taxpayers.”
Activists fear that the new law will encourage racial profiling if police are told to patrol for people who don’t look like they’re citizens. Some have compared the potential impact to the days of SB1070 with its "show me your papers" provision, which sparked boycotts and travel bans that cost the state much-needed revenue.
“Is it the crime, or is it just the intent or the ability to harass a person based on how they look?" asked Roy Tatem, community activist and former East Valley NAACP president. “This type of legislation is dangerous in the hands of law enforcement.”
Tatem criticized the measure for giving police too much discretion to stop people based on appearance, calling it “SB1070 2.0.”
Another piece of the measure is designed to ease the fentanyl problem. But the flow of fentanyl and the flow of immigrants over the U.S.-Mexico border have little overlap. Data shows that more than 90% of fentanyl from Mexico comes via U.S. citizens through legal ports of entry.
“We should be doing all that we can to stop fentanyl. However, I also remember the drug epidemic of the '80s — how Black Americans were villainized, especially in urban communities, by law enforcement because of the association of crack cocaine and gangs,” Tatem said.
Outside the Black Chamber of Commerce election watch party Tuesday night in Tempe, Tatem said he feared fentanyl will be negatively associated with Latinos for the same reasons.
The resolution language is based on a bill recently passed by the Texas Legislature, which is now caught up in federal court fighting the same supremacy clause claims. Arizona’s resolution will only take effect 60 days after the Texas bill — if it survives federal court.
The nonprofit group Living United for Change Arizona unsuccessfully sued to remove the measure from the ballot, claiming that it violated Arizona’s single-subject rule. The state Supreme Court agreed with Republicans that fentanyl is related enough to immigration enforcement that it doesn’t violate the rule. Critics also said it violated the supremacy clause by usurping federal authority.
Members of the Black Chamber kept their spirits high Tuesday night as former President Donald Trump pulled ahead in the presidential race.
“It doesn’t matter who is in the White House. Yes, there are people that might be more friendly to Black issues. But that said, we have some work to do,” said Donna Williams, president of the Phoenix chapter of the Coalition of 100 Black Women. She encouraged people to be more active in their communities and vote local.
Voters reject lower wages for tipped workers
Members warned against the tipping provisions of Proposition 138, which nearly 75% of voters rejected Tuesday night, for its false promise to raise wages for tipped workers across the state.
Though Republican sponsors pitched the measure as the “Tipped Workers Protection Act,” opponents said the measure could have reduced overall wages for restaurant workers who typically earn high tips, and would have kept workers who earn few tips around the same pay.
“I think it’s either arrogance or ignorance,” Black Chamber President Velma Trayham said about why Republicans claimed the measure would increase wages.
Among tipped workers across the country, Black women consistently earn the least.
“Many times tips are based on, not necessarily the person’s service, but it’s presumptions people make about individuals,” Phoenix City Councilwoman Kesha Hodge Washington said Tuesday. “Minorities tend to be tipped lower than their white counterparts, so it would have a disparate impact.”
Judicial retention elections remain
Over 77% of voters also rejected Proposition 137, which would have eliminated retention elections for judges in the Supreme Court, court of appeals and trial courts in the state’s four largest counties.
Republicans pushed the measure in response to Democrats' call not to retain two Supreme Court justices who voted to reinstate the state's 1864 abortion ban, before it was repealed in May. Both Justice Clint Bolick and Justice Kathryn King were appointed by Republicans.
While voters rejected the reactionary measure, they retained both judges, albeit by close margins.
Republican state Representative Alex Kolodin of Scottsdale supported the measure, reasoning that judges should be independent of politics in their legal decision-making.
But Cody Williams, a former Maricopa County justice of the peace, said he’s never known a judge to change their decisions based on the political sway of an upcoming retention election.
Tatem argued that judges’ decisions in many cases are already politically motivated, and suggested people stop pretending otherwise.
“There’s no such thing as complete objectivity,” he said. “There has to be a mechanism of accountability.”