Rhetoric over immigrants prompts new wave of legislation
1 hour ago • By Kendal Blust For the Arizona Daily Star
A series of immigration-related bills proposed in the Legislature have again spurred protests and threats by immigrant-rights groups to resume an Arizona boycott.
And Arizona is not alone. Amid the national rhetoric regarding immigrants, bills are cropping up across several states.
By the end of 2015, the number of enacted legislation dealing with immigration jumped by 26 percent with 216 laws, compared with 171 in 2014, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported.
Nationwide, terrorist attacks or violent crimes committed by immigrants have contributed to this type of legislation, said Ann Morse, the program director for the Immigration Policy Project at the National Conference of State Legislatures, which supports and analyzes state legislatures.
“But the laws often do not address the nuanced issues involved,” she said.
Some presidential hopefuls feed on these fears to strengthen their political platforms, said Isabel Garcia, a local attorney and human-rights activist with Coalición de Derechos Humanos.
“Republicans nationwide are emboldened to use the immigration issue to motivate their base of support,” said Roberto Reveles, founder and president of the coalition Somos America.
Some of the bills introduced this session would withhold money from “sanctuary cities,” require mandatory maximum sentencing for undocumented immigrants and bar state resources from being used to resettle refugees.
As the legislative session winds to a close, some bills are unlikely to pass, such as those penalizing sanctuary cities and restricting funds for refugees. But a few could still make their way to Gov. Doug Ducey. On March 30, Ducey signed the first of these measures into law: HB 2451, a bill that prevents some prisoners with deportation orders from being released to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement before completing their sentence.
A week later, Somos America announced that it would consider resuming the Boycott Arizona campaign that started six years ago in response to SB 1070, Arizona’s 2010 immigration-enforcement law.
“Our record shows that when we focus on a campaign, we are successful, as we were with the previous boycott,” Reveles said.
“The previous boycott ended up hurting the Arizona state economy, with multi-million dollars of losses, especially the hospitality industry.”
Back then, Arizona’s business community wrote to the Legislature asking it to leave immigration reform to the federal government, and eventually the Supreme Court struck down much of the law, though some provisions remain.
After the controversy surrounding SB 1070, the Legislature has largely avoided bills targeting Arizona’s unauthorized population. However, this session has seen an uptick.
Lawmakers proposing the bills say the laws have nothing to do with national trends, but are in response to the concerns of their constituents.
Republican state Sen. Steve Smith sponsored SB 1377, which would require undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes to serve mandatory sentences and make them ineligible for parole, probation or early release. It passed the Senate in February and is currently in the House.
He introduced the bill in response to the murder of 21-year-old Grant Ronnebeck by a convicted felon who was in the U.S. illegally but had been released on probation, he said.
Opponents say that increasing penalties for people based solely on their citizenship violates federal immigration law.
The bill is not targeting Mexican immigrants, Smith said, but people from any country who are in the U.S. illegally.
Before assuming the motivation is racism, he said, people should think about how this affects victims and their families. “It’s anti-illegal. Not anti-immigrant.”
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