PHOENIX (CN) — Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed her first bill of the 2024 legislative session Monday, rejecting a Republican-backed measure that would have established illegal border crossing as a state crime.
Senate Bill 1231, sponsored by Janae Shamp, a Republican from Surprise, would have given local police authority to arrest any non-U.S. citizen who enters Arizona from anywhere but a lawful port of entry. That power is currently reserved for federal law enforcement.
“Right now, law enforcement can't do their jobs to protect our citizens from the overwhelming cases of human smuggling, child sex trafficking, rapes, murders, deadly fentanyl, high-speed chases, and other heinous acts carried out by the large numbers of criminals allowed to freely enter our country through the Arizona-Mexico border,” Shamp said after her bill passed the Arizona Senate on Feb. 22.
The bill also would have established illegal entry as a level one misdemeanor with the potential to be raised to a felony based on other factors. It passed through both the Arizona Senate and House on party-line votes.
Hobbs, a Democrat, denounced the bill last week along with two others she described as anti-immigration and anti-business. She doubled down Monday, using her veto stamp for the first time this year.
“This bill does not secure our border, will be harmful for communities and businesses in our state, and burdensome for law enforcement personnel and the state judicial system,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter Monday night. “Further, this bill presents significant constitutional concerns and would be certain to mire the state in costly and protracted litigation.”
Hobbs vetoed a record-breaking 143 bills last year, all from Republican lawmakers.
Shamp called Hobb’s veto a “slap in the face” to local law enforcement.
“Vetoing the Arizona Border Invasion Act is a prime example of the chaos Hobbs is unleashing in our state while perpetuating this open border crisis as Biden's accomplice,” she said in a press release. “Arizonans want and deserve safe communities. Our local, county, and state law enforcement officers are pleading for help, and they support this legislation to protect our citizens. Their blood, sweat, and tears shed while trying to keep our communities safe from the staggering number of border-related crimes hitting our state will not be in vain.”
Of the 2,284 people arrested for border crimes in Cochise County, one of the four Arizona counties bordering Mexico, only 154 were non-citizens, County Sheriff Mark Dannels told the Legislature in January. Across all border states, more than 90% of the fentanyl in the U.S. came from Mexico in the hands of U.S. citizens through legal ports of entry.
Still, Shamp and other Senate Republicans push narratives of white Americans being killed by immigrants.
Noah Schramm, border policy strategist for the ACLU of Arizona, lauded Hobbs’ decision.
“SB 1231 was a blatantly unconstitutional and extreme anti-immigrant measure that would have sent Arizona back to a time when racial profiling ran rampant, and the state’s reputation and economy took a brutal blow,” Schramm said in a press release. “Just like its predecessor, SB 1070, this bill would have illegally side-stepped protections guaranteed under federal law, led to even greater harassment of communities of color, and advanced a dishonest and dangerous narrative about immigrants in our state.”
Republican lawmakers in the House still have two mirror bills that would effect the same change to state law. The House passed both House Bill 2821, sponsored by Steve Montenegro of Goodyear, and HB 2748, sponsored by Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale, on Feb. 22. Neither bill has been considered in a Senate committee yet.
There’s no reason to expect Hobbs will treat those bills any different than the one she vetoed Monday.
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