By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services/Arizona Daily Sun
Rebuffed in prior attempts to regulate illegal immigration, state senators on Tuesday voted to give police new power to those who trespass on private property.
As approved on a 25-5 margin, SB1372 permits individuals to call law enforcement when someone is on their property. If the person does not leave, he or she can be arrested.
“It is not an immigration bill,” argued Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, who crafted the language. And Senate President Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, said the final language in the measure is simple “and ought not to be mischaracterized.”
But Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, pointed out that Griffin’s original version permitted the arrest of anyone who did not already have actual written permission to be on private property. More to the point, her legislation would have applied only within 100 miles of the border.
“We kind of have an idea of the intent,” Gallardo said. And he said the only reason Griffin changed the measure is that a Senate staff attorney concluded that it would be illegal to enact a law that applied only in one geographic area of the state, as she originally wanted.
And Griffin, in the floor debate about the need for the measure, made it clear she thinks there’s a particular problem in Southern Arizona. The examples Griffin cited were of a single woman living in Bowie and her own experiences in Hereford, both well within that 100-mile zone.
