Tucson human rights advocates say they’re scrambling to help the public understand the implications of a “border-security” ballot measure, Proposition 314, which they say will harm public health and safety, waste local resources and erode community trust in law enforcement, while doing little to address its supposed target: fentanyl smuggling.
Modeled off a new Texas law, SB 4 — currently facing a lawsuit over its constitutionality — Prop. 314 is like SB 1070 “on steroids,” opponents say, referring to the controversial “show me your papers” law passed by Arizona legislators in 2010.
SB 1070 sparked a public outcry, widespread protests and state boycotts, before it was largely struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
But the response to Prop. 314 has been muted until recently, as the measure has been lost in a “bombardment” of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy proposals that aim to stir up, and exploit, anxiety over immigration, said Alba Jaramillo, a Tucson immigration attorney and co-executive director of the Immigration Law and Justice Network.
“A part of me believes people are getting desensitized to the (anti-immigrant) narrative,” Jaramillo said. “There is so much fear. ... We think it’s going to pass due to the lack of information — not because people actually support this.”
Over the past month, local organizers have tried to spread the word by pressing local officials to speak out against the bill, creating informational videos and organizing rallies, said Jaramillo, also a community organizer for the Coalición de Derechos Humanos — or Human Rights Coalition — in Tucson.
Recent polling indicates broad support for the measure, with 63% in favor. That includes 52% of polled Democrats, according to a September poll from Noble Predictive Insights, which surveyed 1,003 Arizona voters.
“I’m actually terrified,” Jaramillo said. “There just isn’t enough public awareness of what the bill actually is.”
Border Patrol agents arrive to transport waiting asylum seekers east of Sásabe, Arizona, in this 2023 photo.
Prop. 314 would make it a state crime for noncitizens to enter Arizona from Mexico outside ports of entry, enabling local police to arrest violators and state judges to order deportations — historically the jurisdiction of the federal government.
That provision would not take effect unless the similar Texas law is upheld by the courts.
Supporters of the ballot measure say it’s necessary to address an “invasion” at the southern border, and that Prop. 314 would only be enforced close to the border. A provision requires law enforcement to have probable cause, such as witnessing someone crossing the border or video evidence, before detaining someone. And the border-crossing provision would not apply to someone who entered the state without authorization before the law took effect.
“A large number of these people are bogus seekers of asylum that don’t qualify. They are inundating us,” said state Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, in a September debate on the measure.
“We’re not preempting federal immigration law,” Kavanagh said. “We’re simply saying we want to help the federal government. Because we all suffer from the danger and the expense of illegal immigration.”
Amid a global surge in migration, more families with children have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border between ports of entry in order to surrender to Border Patrol agents and request asylum, a process that is strictly limited at official ports of entry. Under U.S. and international law, it’s legal to request asylum on U.S. soil, regardless of how one entered the country.
It’s a shift from decades earlier when most migrants entering the U.S. outside the ports were adult men seeking work, and trying to evade the detection of border agents.
Immigrant-rights advocates point out there aren’t any geographic limitations in Prop. 314, which they say will enable widespread racial profiling, particularly because Prop. 314 would give “civil immunity” to authorities enforcing the law.
That would shield law enforcement from civil lawsuits alleging racial profiling of Latinos or other minorities, Jaramillo said.
“It gives them free reign,” Jaramillo said. “The law does not include any measures of accountability on how they will ensure racial discrimination doesn’t take place, or abuse of power from the police.”
Kavanagh said in the debate that Prop. 314 is more narrow than SB 1070.
“This is not (SB) 1070,” he said. “This bill simply says if a police officer has probable cause to believe that somebody’s crossing the border — and that’s a high standard, much higher than 1070’s suspicion — they can be arrested.”
Public safety undermined, opponents say
The Mexican government has said it they will not accept deportations from state or local governments, said Rafael Barceló, Mexican consul in Tucson. The five Mexican consulates in Arizona opposed HCR 2060, the legislation that put Prop. 314 on the ballot.
“We have been struggling for years now after SB 1070, with people not wanting to report a crime when they are victims or witness of a crime because they or someone in their family might have an undocumented status,” Barceló said.
Continued erosion of trust in local law enforcement not only harms undocumented individuals, but public safety as a whole, he said.
“For consulates, if that proposition is approved and passed into law, it would be very complicated to actually suggest someone who is undocumented to go to the police,” he said.
Prop. 314 would also require agencies that administer federal, state or local benefit programs to use a federal database to verify that ineligible noncitizens don’t get benefits, which opponents say could discourage undocumented people from seeking medical care. The measure doesn’t specify what constitutes a public benefit, Jaramillo said.
“I also worry about how the hospitals will enforce this bill, as well,” she said. “Are they going to have enough information about the bill to not turn people away, or are they likely to turn people away who are undocumented for fear they will be prosecuted with a felony?”
Another provision makes selling fentanyl that leads to a person’s death a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Most fentanyl is smuggled through official ports of entry, where customs officers can only scan a fraction of cross-border traffic. About 89% of those caught smuggling fentanyl are U.S. citizens, according to Libertarian think-tank Cato Institute.
The Josefina Ahumada Worker Center, formerly Southside Worker Center, has been one of the leaders of the local movement against Prop. 314, organizing a march and rally on Oct. 11 attended by more than 150 people. The center is a program of Southside Presbyterian Church and helps connect undocumented day laborers with work opportunities.
Manuel Ruiz, volunteer coordinator for the center, said the proposal has prompted fear among the undocumented community here, who have come not to do harm but to build a better life for their families, he said.
He said Prop. 314 will also affect people who look like migrants, whom he said could be subject to harassment based on their language or the color of their skin.
Compared to SB 1070, “it’s been talked about much less,” Ruiz said, speaking in Spanish. “We need to raise our voices and make ourselves heard. ... With these laws, we feel that we don’t have protection or human rights.”
Arizona is home to 273,000 undocumented immigrants, 72% of whom have lived here for at least 10 years, according to an analysis of 2019 data by the Migration Policy Institute. That number has decreased from a peak of about 560,000 in 2008, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics.
Local governments face costs
An analysis by the Grand Canyon Institute estimated the cost of implementing Prop. 314 at $325 million per year.
Republican Kavanagh called that estimate and others “worst-case, bogus scenarios” that assume all detained migrants will be prosecuted under the law. He says first-time offenders will have the option to voluntarily return to Mexico.
“Nobody is going to say ‘send me to an Arizona prison’ when they’re given the option of being driven to the border and going back across,” he said.
Immigrant advocates counter that many desperate people fleeing violence would choose detention over return to their country of origin.
Democratic Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said Prop. 314 provides no funding for what would be the “astronomical” cost of detaining undocumented migrants in already crowded local jail facilities.
“This has always been a federal government issue. ... We’re looking for solutions, I understand that,” Nanos said. “But that doesn’t mean we need to take our systems at the local level and make a bigger mess of them. I just don’t see this as practical.”
His Republican opponent, Lt. Heather Lappin, said during a September debate that Prop. 314 was a result of state legislators feeling “helpless” on border issues, and there’s been a lot of “fear-mongering” about its potential impacts, which she says will be minimal.
“It empowers the police ... to make those arrests,” she said. “But it’s just not gonna happen. It’s not realistic.”
The legislation also imposes felony penalties for immigrants working with false documents on their second offense.
“It’s completely unnecessary to criminalize migrants who work, who contribute to our Social Security system and who don’t benefit from that” system, Jaramillo said.
Immigrants contributed $69 billion to Arizona’s economy in 2021, according to the progressive Arizona Center for Economic Progress.
Some elected officials have been reluctant to speak out forcefully against Prop. 314, to avoid the appearance of opposing border security, said Isabel García, co-chair of Tucson’s Coalición de Derechos Humanos.
“Given the lack of understanding, it’s very easy for the Republicans to turn it around” and attack Democrats as soft on the border, she said.
García said proposals like Prop. 314 over-simplify the complex reasons for the global surge in forced migration, and ignore the role of U.S. policies and social issues, such as addiction and the proliferation of weapons that end up arming organized crime groups in Mexico, she said.
“What about the people fleeing the cartels in Mexico? Where do you think all the guns come from? The United States. And who has the demand for so many drugs? It’s the U.S.,” García said. “All of these issues are very simplified for people with this proposition. ‘Stop the bad things at the border.’ They don’t see that fentanyl has nothing to do with our immigrants, and yet it’s so convenient” to blame them.
