Voters in Tucson to decide whether to designate their city as Arizona’s only sanctuary city.
Tucson will vote today on becoming a sanctuary city, a move that would buck statewide laws banning such policies and represent a rebuke of the federal government’s immigration policies by one of the largest communities in the borderland.
Proposition 205 would limit police from asking about immigration status at sensitive locations like courthouses and hospitals or using race or language as a pretext to ask people about their immigration status.
The measure would also restrict how local authorities work with federal officials.
Backers say this would merely put into city code many guidelines Tucson has already adopted as a selfproclaimed immigrant-welcoming city. And ultimately, supporters say, the measure would encourage better relationships between Tucsonans and local law enforcement by assuaging fears of undocumented residents that they might be detained or deported for reporting a crime.
“When undocumented crime victims and witnesses are afraid to testify because ICE may take them into custody, criminals win,” Pima County Democratic Party Chair Alison Jones wrote in a message to voters endorsing the measure. “Cities are safer when all residents, regardless of their immigration status, feel empowered to cooperate with police.”
But the measure faces opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike as critics argue that it would interrupt cooperation between local and federal officials on a range of issues and limit access to national databases routinely used by police.
“Tucson stands united in opposition to the cruel and illegal immigration policies of the current administration in Washington,” outgoing Democratic Mayor Jonathan Rothschild wrote. “But Proposition 205 would do irreparable harm to this community in ways that have nothing to do with immigration.”
Tucson’s city attorney wrote that the proposition would directly clash with the state’s infamous Senate Bill 1070, which requires police, while enforcing other laws, to inquire about immigration status if they suspect a person is in the country illegally. The law also says no city “may limit or restrict the enforcement of federal immigration laws to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”
Republican legislators have already threatened to push for new laws that would punish Tucson if it passes the measure.
After ballots were in the mail, state Rep. Jay Lawrence, R-Scottsdale, said he would sponsor legislation next session to bar cities, towns and counties from adopting policies that would prohibit certain types of immigration enforcement.
State Reps. Bret Roberts, R-Maricopa, and John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said they would back legislation to hold municipalities liable for harm or damage caused by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities under certain circumstances.
Still, the Arizona constitution limits legislators from changing or overriding a law passed by voters.
Tucson has a reputation as the more liberal of Arizona’s major cities.
In perhaps the most colorful moment of the campaign, a supporter of Proposition 205 quickly dubbed Green Shirt Guy became an internet sensation for his laughing response to opponents, who shouted and jeered a City Council meeting.
The city has a long history of activism supporting migrants, and was regarded as the birthplace of the modern-day sanctuary movement when residents aided thousands of migrants from Central America during the 1980s.
But proponents of Proposition 205 allege local government officials have been working to help the measure’s opponents. Backers of the measure sued the city, accusing its attorney of violating state law by circulating his legal critique, a move they said amounted to campaigning.
A state judge threw out the lawsuit last week, deciding that he did not have time to act on it before the election.
Polls in Tucson open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. Voters in the city will also choose a new mayor. Democrat Regina Romero, one of three candidates, could be the first Latina to ever hold the office.