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Republican lawmakers hoping to turbocharge President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign have successfully pushed through a proposal that would force every law enforcement agency in Arizona to cooperate with ICE agents — but it’s headed straight for Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen.
On Thursday, the GOP-controlled state House of Representatives gave the final approval to Senate Bill 1164, called the Arizona Immigration Cooperation and Enforcement Act, or Arizona ICE Act. It would vastly increase the degree to which sheriffs offices and police departments are involved in prompting deportation proceedings while also limiting how those same law enforcement agencies, state and city leaders and even school board officials decide to interact with federal immigration officials.
The proposal has been sharply criticized by civil rights organizations and Democratic lawmakers, who have warned it will lead to racial profiling. Opponents have also denounced it as a reincarnation of SB1070, the state’s notorious “show me your papers” law that was Arizona’s first foray into empowering local police officers to participate in federal immigration enforcement.
“This bill is SB1070 in a new outfit,” said Rep. Quantá Crews, D-Phoenix, before voting against the bill. “It forces local law enforcement to become immigration agents, doing the federal government’s job.”
Republicans, meanwhile, have defended the legislation as necessary to bolster the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ensure that people who are suspected of being in the country without authorization are quickly expelled.
“If you want to make sure that ICE does their job effectively, then the best way is to get the criminals who are locked up in our prisons, locked up in our jails — cooperate with ICE and get them out of here,” said Rep. Teresa Martinez, R-Casa Grande.
Many people in county jails have been arrested for and accused of committing crimes, but haven’t yet been convicted. In America, the accused are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
Aggressive immigration policies have become a hallmark of the current legislative session, as Republicans seek to capitalize on their increased majority in both legislative chambers, the recapture of the state for Trump and the passage of the Secure Border Act, which made it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border anywhere except an official port of entry.
But despite that perceived voter mandate, the vast majority of GOP-backed anti-immigrant bills are destined for Hobbs’ veto.
The Democrat has consistently rejected legislation aimed at increasing the state’s involvement with enforcing federal immigration laws and instead favors setting aside funding to address border security. And in an interview with the Arizona Mirror last month, Hobbs panned the Arizona ICE Act as bad public policy. Coordinating with law enforcement agencies on border security solutions, she said, is the best strategy to pursue, not pushing mandates.
“I don’t think we should tie their hands,” she said. “I don’t think the so-called Arizona ICE Act is the right answer, because it’s forcing law enforcement agencies to do something they can already do.”
Arizona’s answer to the Laken Riley Act
In January, Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law, the first bill of the Republican’s return to the White House and an opening salvo of his administration’s focus on criminalizing immigrants.
Named for the 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was murdered in 2024, it mandates the detention of undocumented people accused of non-violent crimes, including shoplifting. The man convicted of Riley’s murder was Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan immigrant who was previously arrested for traffic violations in New York and apprehended and cited for shoplifting in Atlanta.
Ibarra’s past brushes with law enforcement agencies have been seized on by GOP lawmakers across the country to call for increased cooperation between local police departments and ICE. And the focus of the debate has centered around compliance with ICE detainers, written requests from ICE agents to local law enforcement agencies asking them to hold onto an arrested person for an additional 48 hours to give federal immigration officers time to decide whether that person is eligible for deportation.
Also called ICE holds, detainers don’t have to be backed up by probable cause, and multiple courts have determined that detaining people beyond the time they’re supposed to be released, even when no criminal conviction has been made, is unconstitutional. Law enforcement agencies can decide whether to comply with or ignore detainers, and several cities across the country, wary of footing the bill for lawsuits, have enacted ordinances barring local police departments and sheriffs offices from keeping people in custody longer than necessary at the behest of ICE agents.
The Arizona ICE Act would mandate that every law enforcement agency in the state comply with ICE detainers, overruling even elected county sheriffs who might wish to ignore those requests in the interest of fostering trust with their local communities or avoiding accusations of violating due process. The legislation would also require local jails, the state Department of Corrections and sheriffs offices to house people under ICE detainers.
Along with changing how Arizona law enforcement agencies respond to ICE detainers, the measure would also open the door to increased cooperation with federal immigration authorities while preventing voters from having a say. Elected officials at every level of government, including state leaders and city councils, would be prohibited from passing policies that limit how much law enforcement agencies work with federal immigration entities.
The City of Phoenix, which is opposed to the proposal, has an ordinance still on the books from the first Trump administration that bars the conscription of city police to any federal deportation force. Even school boards would be prevented from approving guidance over when to let ICE agents on school grounds.
Cities and police departments that violate the Arizona ICE Act would face investigations and court challenges from the Arizona Attorney General. And lawmakers and Arizonans who feel that their local law enforcement agency isn’t properly complying with ICE detainers or suspect that a city is trying to restrict cooperation with federal immigration officials could prompt an investigation.
What’s next?
While the proposal is almost certainly headed for a veto, its sponsor, Senate President Warren Petersen, says he hopes that Hobbs will change her mind. Rejecting it, he said, would amount to failing Arizonans.
“It’s time for the Governor to put politics and partisan animosity towards President Trump aside,” Petersen said, in a written statement. “Our citizens deserve nothing less than all levels of government cooperating to uphold our laws and protect innocent men, women and children from the harms caused by the Biden Administration’s open border policies.”
Republicans have increasingly tried to corner Hobbs on border security, pointing to her vetoes to question her commitment to the state in advance of her 2026 reelection bid. And while the Democrat has in recent years shifted to the right on border policy — she was supportive of the Laken Riley Act, for instance — she has also been consistently opposed to legislation perceived by immigrant rights organizations as hostile.
Last year, when Hobbs shot down the legislative precursor to the Secure Border Act that was a priority for the majority party, top Republicans responded by packaging it into a ballot referral. Roughly 63% of Arizona voters cast their ballots in support of that referral. Given that success, Republicans may look to appeal to voters again in the 2026 election to make the Arizona ICE Act state law.
Kim Quintero, a spokeswoman for Petersen, said that he remains “optimistic” Hobbs will sign the proposal.
The only wrench in any plan to send the Arizona ICE Act to the ballot would be securing funding. The Arizona Constitution requires any ballot measure that increases costs to the state to identify a revenue source that isn’t the state’s general fund.
And the Arizona ICE Act is likely to incur lots of costs: a fiscal impact report by legislative budget analysts estimates it could raise expenses for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitations & Reentry, and local police departments and sheriffs offices across the state because of its provisions requiring housing and extended detainment of people with ICE detainers.
And the investigations and legal challenges launched by the state attorney general to enforce the act would also raise the legislation’s price tag.
The Secure Border Act, which also includes new costly mandates for law enforcement officials, is currently facing a lawsuit because lawmakers failed to account for how to pay for it.
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This post was originally authored and published by Gloria Rebecca Gomez from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
