As Donald Trump sweeps back into power with a promise to launch the “largest deportation operation in American history,” Arizona voted to expand the immigration enforcement machinery at his disposal. By a wide margin, voters approved a ballot measure to grant state and local police the authority to arrest undocumented immigrants for crossing the border.
Under current U.S. Supreme Court precedent, only federal agents can enforce immigration laws. But by adopting Proposition 314, Arizona joins Texas and other states in trying to challenge this constitutional limitation. So far, the Biden administration and immigration advocacy groups have blocked these laws in court, and one such challenge is currently awaiting a ruling from a federal appeals court.
“It would take a sea change in constitutional interpretation for the Supreme Court to permit this,” said Lynn Marcus, director of the University of Arizona’s immigration law clinic, of Prop 314 and similar laws. “Because of the constitutional provisions it butts up against, I don’t see foresee the law ever taking effect.”
But Trump has repeatedly said he wants to deputize local police for his plans, and his Justice Department is unlikely to keep standing in the way of states that want their cops to pitch in.
Immigration rights groups have vowed to fight Prop 314 and similar laws in court, even if the Trump DOJ changes course and urges judges to uphold them. It’s shaping up to be one of the earliest legal battles around Trump’s vow to deport millions of people, and possibly the first to reach the Supreme Court during his second administration.
Arizona still has not been called for the presidential race, although it seems Trump will likely take the state after narrowly losing there in 2020. But Prop 314 was quickly called, with more than 60 percent of voters favoring it so far.
“The passage of Prop. 314 will divide Arizona families, and it will pit Arizona neighbors against each other,” said Reyna Montoya, founder of Aliento, a Phoenix-based group that serves undocumented and mixed-status families, in a statement on Wednesday.
Prop 314 reached Arizona voters after the Republican-controlled state legislature passed a similar bill earlier this year, which Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, vetoed. “This bill presents significant constitutional concerns and would be certain to mire the State in costly and protracted litigation,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter in March.
Legislators repackaged the bill as a ballot measure, which cannot be vetoed. On top of making unauthorized border crossings a state crime subject to arrest, Prop 314 also authorizes state judges to order deportations, requires agencies to verify immigration status for enrollment in public benefit programs, and makes it a felony to sell fentanyl that results in death.
“Proposition 314 will not fix the flaws in our immigration system, nor ‘secure the border’ in the way its proponents have represented,” said Noah Schramm, border policy strategist for the ACLU of Arizona, in a statement on Thursday. “What it will do — if the courts ever allow it to stand — is break families apart, exacerbate racial profiling, and increase criminalization of immigrants and communities of color.”
Opponents of Prop 314 critiqued the hodgepodge measure as a resurrection of the infamous Senate Bill 1070, Arizona’s “show me your papers” law that was passed in 2010 and partially struck down by the Supreme Court in 2012.
In Arizona v. United States, the court ruled that federal immigration laws generally preempt states from further criminalizing undocumented status and unauthorized entry. The 5-3 decision struck down three parts of S.B. 1070, including the provision that authorized police to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally. Two of the current right-wing justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented.
Before being struck down, Arizona’s S.B. 1070 set off a wave of copycat laws in other states. This time, for Prop 314, Arizona Republicans borrowed from their colleagues in Texas, specifically from Texas’s Senate Bill 4, which was signed into law in December 2023. Other states have passed their own copycat versions of S.B. 4, including in Iowa and Oklahoma.
“These policies erode the trust built between law enforcement and local communities,” said Victoria Francis, deputy director of state and local initiatives at the American Immigration Council. “They create a climate of fear surrounding interactions with law enforcement, a concern voiced by law enforcement leaders themselves.”
After the passage of SB 4 in Texas, the Biden Justice Department and immigrant rights organizations wasted no time in challenging it through multiple lawsuits. The Justice Department emphasized that Texas cannot ignore the US Constitution and established Supreme Court decisions. They have also taken legal action against similar laws in Oklahoma and Iowa, both of which are currently held up in court.
In Arizona, Proposition 314 is contingent on the outcome of SB 4 in Texas. The Arizona law will only come into effect after its Texan counterpart has been operational for at least 60 days.
SB 4 has already made its way to the Supreme Court, which declined to block the law in March while lower courts review its legality. The law is currently on hold pending a decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Texas attorney general’s office maintains that SB 4 aligns with Supreme Court precedent, while a coalition of Republican attorneys general believes that a previous case, Arizona v. United States, is ready to be overturned.
With the Trump administration’s focus on increasing deportations, it is possible that they may choose to step back from the legal battles in Texas, Iowa, and Oklahoma, leaving the responsibility to immigrant advocacy groups. There is also a chance that the administration may push for changes to precedents that limit the involvement of local law enforcement in immigration enforcement.
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