“It’s tough to propose new illegal immigration bills in Arizona,” one state senator told the New York Times this week, “because we’ve pretty much done them all.” Unexhausted by the effort, the Arizona legislature is putting forward a new bill aimed at immigrants in the country illegally, with provisions to crack down on so-called “sanctuary cities” and change the way some immigrants are sentenced for crimes. Specifically, the fill calls for unauthorized immigrants to receive the maximum sentence for any crime they are convicted of, stripping judges of discretion in those cases."
And the people suffer. And the people have a long history of suffering.
-Angela
Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona Shifts Focus From Immigration Debate
PHOENIX
— When Doug Ducey ran for governor of this border state, he accused
President Obama of “dithering far too long” on immigration and vowed to
“fight back” against illegal border crossers, pledging to use every
resource at his command: “fencing, satellites, guardsmen, more police
and prosecutors.”
Now
in his second year as the governor of Arizona — a state at the
forefront of immigration and border issues, with a growing Latino
population — Mr. Ducey, a Republican, has done none of that. He has
avoided pressures from his party’s presidential candidates even after
one of them, Donald J. Trump, twice visited the state to promote the “big” and “beautiful” wall he said he would build to keep illegal immigrants away if he was elected.
“I
want this state to be known for what it is, the land of opportunity,”
Mr. Ducey said in an interview. “So our main focus is our economy and
our education system.”
But
he may soon have to wade into the divisive immigration debate, which is
again coloring Arizona’s legislative session and bringing angry crowds
of protesters to the Capitol’s lawn and hearing rooms.
One
bill would punish communities that offer sanctuary to unauthorized
immigrants facing deportation; those communities’ share of state
revenues would be withheld. Another measure would require judges to
sentence undocumented immigrants to the fullest possible term in prison
for whatever crime they committed. A Senate committee approved both on
Feb. 3 in party-line votes.
A
third bill, which would impose citizenship and legal residency
requirements for municipal identification cards, cleared three Senate
committees in three weeks with blanket support from Republican
lawmakers, underscoring their priorities here in an election year.
“It’s
tough to propose new illegal immigration bills in Arizona, because
we’ve pretty much done them all,” said State Senator John Kavanagh, a
retired Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officer who
found a second calling as a leading conservative in Arizona.
Already,
the state has one of the nation’s toughest stances on illegal
immigration. It has battled in state and federal courts to deny driver’s
licenses and in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who were
granted deferred deportation by Mr. Obama. It is home to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, who made a name for himself as an unapologetic pursuer of unauthorized migrants. And it ushered in a harsh new wave of immigration enforcement
when it gave the police broad powers to question anyone suspected of
being in the country illegally — passing the “show me your papers” law
in 2010.
Mr.
Kavanagh was among the crucial supporters of the measure, which Mr.
Ducey’s predecessor, Jan Brewer, approved. The legislation divided a
state already scarred by years of targeted enforcement against Latinos,
who make up one-third of the population.
The
municipal identification bill, which Mr. Kavanagh also sponsored, “is
primarily to protect the integrity of government ID cards,” he said,
“but it does have an impact on illegal immigration, because it prevents
illegal immigrants from getting one of those cards.”
Mr.
Ducey has not said a word about this or the other immigration bills.
But people on both sides of the immigration debate are eagerly awaiting
any action he might take on the measures. They could serve as a litmus
test for his positions on the subject, which, as governor, he has deftly
avoided articulating.
If the bills hit Mr. Ducey’s desk, “will he sign them?” asked State Senator Martín J. Quezada,
a Democratic leader in the Republican-controlled Legislature, whose
district includes the Maryvale section of Phoenix, where three in four
residents are Latino. “Remember, just because he can, it doesn’t mean
that he should.”
Mr. Ducey is “focused on the priorities he laid out in his State of the State address”
on Jan. 11, said his spokesman, Daniel Scarpinato. They include
overhauling Arizona’s beleaguered foster care system and opening a
corrections center to offer intensive drug treatment and other services
to certain inmates in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous.
He
also proposed spending $31.5 million to send 200 state troopers after
drug smugglers along the border, the only border-related program he has
championed so far. The scope of the effort is a far cry from the $800
million that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, also a Republican, secured from
his state’s Legislature last year to extend indefinitely the deployment
of National Guard troops and air and ground surveillance along the Rio
Grande Valley, which has faced questions over its cost and results.
“Our
goal, because of limited resources, was going after what was most
hurtful, and that was why we went after the drug cartels,” Mr. Ducey
said in the interview, drawing a distinction between his and Mr.
Abbott’s approaches.
And while Mr. Abbott explained his plan as necessary to counter the federal government’s “apathetic response to border security,”
Mr. Ducey characterized his plan for state troopers to target drug
smugglers as “adding state muscle” to the 4,000 federal Border Patrol
agents in Arizona.
“Where
there’s an opportunity to work together to get results for the citizens
of the state of Arizona, to increase public safety,” he said, “I think
that’s my responsibility as governor to take advantage.”
Mr.
Ducey had the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, R. Gil
Kerlikowske, an Obama appointee, by his side when he announced the
border program from the State Capitol in November. That was a clear
departure from Ms. Brewer, who is still well remembered for wagging a
finger at Mr. Obama on an airport tarmac.
In
an interview, Ms. Brewer said her successor should use his bully pulpit
to “tell the federal government to secure our border, then we can deal
with all the other problems that are upon us as a country.”
He has been handing out olive branches instead.
When
Mr. Ducey met Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson early last year,
he said by way of introduction, “This is a new administration, and I’d
like a fresh start.” In June, Mr. Ducey led a trade mission to Mexico
City, the first Arizona governor to do so in a decade, then traveled to
Sonora, Mexico, three months later to attend the inauguration of his
counterpart across the border.
Immigration advocates have been cautiously watching from the sidelines, unsure what to make of him just yet.
“At
least he isn’t using the hate speech we heard so often from Governor
Brewer,” said Viridiana González, who leads a coalition of community
groups opposing Mr. Kavanagh’s bill, after a protest of the legislation
last month.
State
Representative Bruce Wheeler, a Democrat from Tucson who is assistant
minority whip, said in an interview, “I don’t know if what we’re
witnessing is a change in substance or a change of style, but I’m
willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Mr.
Ducey made no mention of illegal immigrants as he outlined his border
proposal, which he carefully framed around the heavy toll heroin
addiction has exacted in Arizona.
“This is not Arizona’s problem,” Mr. Ducey said. “This is America’s problem.”
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