Arizona voters approved Proposition 314 this week. The legislation makes crossing the border between ports of entry a state crime and grants local police immigration-related arrest authority.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said the measure is causing unease in the county seat of Nogales, which is 95% Hispanic.
“This is not a “invasion,” as some of the talk puts it.” “This is just how my community has naturally been built over time,” he said.
“That could lead to tension between us and the local community, and people might be afraid to call the police if they need help because of a crime or a break-in.”
In Hathaway’s small county, there are 30 times as many federal officers as local officers.
He also said that his 40-officer department does not have enough people, jail space, training, or money to enforce Proposition 314 because it needs a lot more of all of these things. It is not even allowed to happen, he says.
“The text of the law actually says that this law does not go into effect until the courts rule on Senate Bill 4 in Texas, which is a similar law,” he said.
SB 4 has been put on hold for months while an appeals court figures out if the law is unconstitutional. People have said that both laws are like Arizona’s notorious SB 1070, which was mostly thrown out by the Supreme Court more than ten years ago.
Hathaway thinks that if he asks his deputies to make those arrests, they could be sued for racial profiling.
He says there are still a lot of questions about how it would work, and people in Nogales’ bi-national community have already told him that families who have lived there for generations could be targeted.
“In my community, which is mostly Hispanic, people are afraid that everyone will be targeted, no matter what their status is. How would this be enforced?” “Would there be more training?” he asked.
“From my point of view, you would need the Arizona attorney general to issue a legal opinion that all Arizona police departments could follow.” And the county attorney in my area.
