Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0
By Gloria Rebecca Gomez | AZ Mirror
Gov. Katie Hobbs once again thwarted Republican efforts to facilitate mass deportations in Arizona, vetoing legislation that would have made it easier for federal immigration agents to arrest people while at the same time blocking elected officials from preventing discriminatory actions.
Late Friday, the Democrat wielded her veto stamp to reject nearly two dozen proposals, including Senate Bill 1610 and House Bill 2099, which sought to force county jails to share with ICE the personal information of people arrested for nonviolent crimes such as shoplifting and require Arizona’s governor, attorney general and every city and town to cooperate with the federal government on immigration enforcement actions — even if that meant violating the U.S. Constitution.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the GOP majority in the Arizona legislature has tried to boost his mass deportation campaign by seeking to preemptively block any opposition that might arise anywhere in the state. That tactic has met with disapproval from Hobbs, who has long advocated for local control and deferred to local governments and law enforcement agencies on how best to deal with border security issues.
