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Watch Alejandra Gomez, Executive Director of LUCHA, talk about the two biggest propositions on the November ballot and how they will impact Arizona voters and the state itself. With a live studio audience, "Arizona Horizon" host and managing editor Ted Simons will interview three political analysts about the impact of Proposition 314, Arizona's immigration measure, not only on the electorate but also the impact if it passes. Then "Horizonte" host Catherine Anaya will interview three political analysts about the impact the measure will have in driving voters to the polls and the impact if it passes.

Silvia Solis and David Ulloa Jr Arizona Republic Published 7:02 a.m. MT Oct. 13, 2024 Updated 7:03 a.m. MT Oct. 13, 2024 Dozens of community members packed the communal space of the Copper Courier office in central Phoenix for the Sept. 10 debate watch party hosted by LUCHA (Living United for Change in Arizona) and the local news organization. The room was filled with people of all ages and backgrounds enticed by the excitement of the presidential debate where for the first and seemingly only time Kamala Harris and Donald Trump would be face to face. The audience members resembled moviegoers at the opening premiere of a highly anticipated box office hit as they munched on snacks and watched the candidates answer key questions about issues impacting them and their loved ones. As Trump delivered a false statement regarding immigrants living in Ohio, the audience burst out into laughter. Outlandish statements, Greisa Martinez Rosas, the Executive Director of United We Dream, assured the crowd, but this was no laughing matter. “This is not a game,” she said to them. The comment was symbolic of the anti-immigrant rhetoric that, like in 2015, has again gained traction during this election cycle, and one that is impacting border states directly. That’s the case in Arizona, one of seven battleground states. On the Nov. 5 ballot, alongside contentious abortion and minimum wage measures, Arizona voters will find Proposition 314, a measure combining several failed Senate and House bills and one successful House resolution, that aims to place immigration law into state hands. The proposal would make crossing the border illegally a state crime, allow local judges to issue deportation orders and stiffen penalties against fentanyl smuggling. According to Arizona State Sen. Janae Shamp, a key architect of a vetoed bill that the measure is based on, Prop. 314 "directly deals with the act of illegally crossing into Arizona from Mexico anywhere other than a lawful port of entry, and law enforcement would need probable cause that a person committed the act in order to make an arrest," she told The Republic in an email. Crossings have dropped considerably, impacted by an executive order the Biden administration implemented in June limiting asylum cases and stricter immigration enforcement taking place in Mexico. Organizers like Martinez Rosas and Alexandra Gomez, executive director at Living United for Change in Arizona, also known as LUCHA, believe the proposition’s approval would bring back a time similar to when SB 1070, also known as the “show me your papers” law, was approved. That law was partially struck down by the Supreme Court in 2012, but the legislation’s effects long surpassed that ruling. Eyes filled with tears during an interview with La Voz/The Republic, Gomez recalled the signing of SB 1070 into law by then-Gov. Jan Brewer. She was with fellow organizers at the time, but she was also among everyday community members. That day, on April 23, 2010, she watched on as a youth pastor and “all of the young people” fell to their knees in prayer outside of the Capitol. It was a time during which being undocumented in Arizona was dangerous, as then-Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was notorious for targetting this community and detaining them for extended periods in his infamous Tent City. SB 1070 would enhance those efforts statewide and would continue separating families. Gomez was witness to that becoming a reality. “If somebody was wearing a silk t-shirt with the Virgin Mary, stop them and ask them for papers. If a car had too much fringe or like too many things hanging from it, stop them and ask them for papers. If you see somebody wearing botas, stop them and ask them for papers,” Gomez said of law enforcement officers. This period of deep despair and pain among the immigrant community fueled a generation of activists, she said. Every election cycle, their mission continues: civically and politically activate community members. This time around, however, they believe the stakes are higher as they knock on doors to avoid the resurgence of “SB 1070 2.0" that would impact immigrants and their families across the state, the majority of which are Latino — 61% of the state's 962,000 immigrant population, according to 2022 figured from the Migration Policy Institute. Like the changing demographics of Arizona, the organizing landscape has also evolved, with the same kids and teenagers who grew up together during immigration raids and SB 1070 making a name for themselves as community leaders and who continue to link arms in the face of anti-immigrant legislation. The way they fight back today is strategic, involving activating all members of the community, especially Latinos who make up over 33% of Arizona’s population. They have decades of crucial student movements — from nationwide hunger strikes and walkouts led by the Chicano Movement to the localized group of student activists who called on the State Legislature to allow undocumented students to pursue higher education at in-state rates — to thank for that. The Chicano Movement generation lays the groundwork for fights to come The participation of Mexicans in agricultural work, especially those in California and Arizona, was one of the most significant triggers in the development of the Chicano Movement, precipitating the mobilization of Latinos for generations to come in Arizona. With significant civil rights leaders, like labor rights activist César Chávez and Martin Luther King Jr., successful movements nationwide inspired young people in Arizona to organize and build one successful movement after another. “My sophomore year, in 1968, a group of students in my high school campus came to recruit young Mexican American (students),” said Danny Ortega, lawyer, activist, and Chicanos Por La Causa Sí Se Vota Action Fund board member, referring to the Mexican American Student Organization known as MASO, and its successor, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (M.E.Ch.A.), at Arizona State University. “It was people from ASU looking to recruit people to go to college, to go to the university. When I met them, that was the beginning of the end for me.” At the time, Latino students were encouraged to join vocational education programs almost exclusively, according to Ortega, which reduced the opportunities to raise questions about the inequities present in higher education. In this context, the student-led Chicano Movement emerged in Arizona. “It was a great time of social discussion and social interaction of the plight of our community, and in the 60s,” said Ronnie Lopez, late former Chicanos Por La Causa CEO, in a documentary celebrating the organization's 50th anniversary produced by Arizona PBS. “Quite frankly, it's what gave birth to the organization.” Chicanos Por La Causa, founded in Phoenix in 1969, aims to address social issues and discrimination against the Mexican-American community. Today, it is the largest Hispanic nonprofit organization in the country, with offices in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas. Years later, Arizona became the home of the notorious Tent City. Civil rights activist and head of the Chicanos Por La Causa Advocacy Team, Lydia Guzman said her father used to say, “'Lydia, you can’t just protest! You have to be at the table or you’re going to be on the menu. You have to be inside of the walls and you have to be at the table.'” She did a little of both, she said. Guzman recalled when a group of undocumented people were apprehended during the 1997 Chandler Roundup — a time when hundreds of undocumented immigrants were detained by Chandler police. Guzman said she got to work with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) and with the knowledge she gained organizing as a college student in California, started building coalitions. Guzman would go on to become the president of the Somos America coalition where she would meet future politicians and community leaders, such as former City Councilperson Carlos Garcia and Reyna Montoya, the founder and CEO of Aliento. The coalitions were a group of community organizations where Guzman said they came together in a metaphorical roundtable where no one was above one another and there was a free flow exchange of ideas. During the raids in the early 2000s, Guzman said she would mobilize different tiers of what she called “rapid response teams” which included a team of lawyers, a team of people with cameras and a team of activists. The synergy of all these factors gave rise to fights at the turn of the century that expanded exponentially with a base of student activists and organizers rooted in the heart of Phoenix. Undocumented and uneducated, students raise their voice Having attended schools in the Murphy Elementary School District, Issac School District and Phoenix Union High School District, Viri Hernandez, the executive director of Poder in Action has called west Phoenix her home since she was 1, but she knew she was born elsewhere. “I grew up knowing that I wasn’t from here, but I didn’t know what that meant and at that time no one really talked about being undocumented,” Hernandez said. So when Hernandez was in school, instead of saying she was born in Jojutla, Morelos, Mexico, she said she remembered lying during class introductions and said she was from Phoenix. She remembered being asked by her parents to never share where she was from, even though she didn’t understand why. At 16, Hernandez learned of the barriers people like her and her family faced due to their unauthorized status. On top of that, she learned of what Proposition 300 would do to undocumented students looking to pursue higher education. “It was hard. I found out I didn’t have papers. I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t have a job. So all this you’re finding out when everyone is making plans for their life and their future and you’re finding that you can’t really do any of those things,” Hernandez said. Prop. 300 was approved by Arizona voters in 2006, barring undocumented immigrants from receiving state benefits, such as in-state tuition and financial assistance and subsidized child care. Parts of the measure were repealed 16 years later in 2022 when voters approved Proposition 308, granting some undocumented students the ability to quality for in-state tuition. Cristian Avila with Poder Latinx arrived in Arizona with his family from his native Mexico when he was 9. Like Hernández, he grew up knowing that he was undocumented, always told to be careful with authorities. When Prop. 300 went to the ballot, Avila said his parents’ dream of paying for his and his two brothers’ academic careers became impossible, forcing them to finance nearly triple the cost of state tuition. At the time, Avila said he didn’t know there were so many undocumented people in the state. People didn't talk about that, he said, leading him to think there were only 100 or 200 undocumented people in Arizona. As he got involved in organizing, he learned just how much this legislation would hurt families like his. Avila became involved with Mi Familia Vota, an organization dedicated to building Latino political power. They weren't successful in preventing Prop. 300's passing, but the work lit a spark among his peers, and he wanted that to always be a part of him. Former La Voz Arizona reporter, Luis Avila, witnessed how these students became activated, pushing for access to in-state tuition and going a step further to join the fight in support of the DREAM Act, a failed federal legislation that has been introduced repeatedly since 2001 seeking to grant temporary stay and a path to residency to undocumented immigrants. The Arizona Dream Act Coalition was born in 2006 in response to both legislations. Avila, board member and founder of Instituto, a community organization dedicated to building political power in low-income and communities of color, said the Arizona State University pro-immigration movement started around 2005. Avila said it was the strategic leadership of older activists on campus who brought the students together into a real movement. With rising anti-immigrant tensions since the 90s, Avila said it was in 2010 when he saw the rise of the “trifecta” of what would be the three anti-immigrant state powers of Russel Pearce in the State Senate, Brewer and Arpaio. But there was a paralleled response from students that had been growing since 2001 that led to the rise of future community leaders like Hernandez and Gomez. Gomez, the daughter of immigrants and the product of a mixed-status home, said her family moved from California to Arizona after California passed Proposition 187 in 1994, which barred undocumented immigrants from accessing public benefits. At the time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids were also common in workplaces across the state. Gomez said her father, who was undocumented, sat them down and told her family that he would either be detained or deported if they stayed in California. At 10, Gomez and her family made another move and started over in the Grand Canyon state. Gomez became active soon after it passed due to the threat SB 1070 posed for her family. One day in 2008, when Gomez was at a First Friday event in downtown Phoenix, she heard someone yell, “‘Who wants to get rid of Sheriff Joe?!’ And in that moment, I b-lined it all the way over to them and it was (former Arizona State Sen.) Raquel Terán.” Her involvement ranged from protests to fasts and staging sit-ins at Arpaio’s and Brewer's offices. Before SB 1070 was passed, Gomez, Terán and other organizers held a three-day vigil outside of Brewer’s home and at the State Capitol. “That vigil that started for three days, the momentum kept growing. We saw seven people; we saw 50 people; and by the end... almost, probably 50,000 people had descended upon the Arizona State Capitol,” Gomez said. As the oldest of three children and the child who often helped her parents with translations and paperwork, Abril Gallardo, the Chief of Staff of Living United for Change in Arizona, felt the need to protect her family, who are from Hidalgo, Mexico, a Mexican state nearly 1,500 miles away from Phoenix, against the looming threat of deportation from SB 1070. In response, Gallardo said she joined LUCHA right out of high school through a know-your-rights meeting and got involved in the "Adios Arpaio" voter initiative to unseat him. Gallardo said she remembered the 2012 “Undocumented and Unafraid” protests that occurred outside of Trevor G. Browne High School where several undocumented students blocked traffic at a nearby intersection. In 2016, Arpario was voted out of office, achieving the goal of that campaign. One day when Gallardo was sitting in the Senate gallery, she said she felt herself reliving the same fear she felt in 2010 when she heard legislators using rhetoric such as “criminals” to describe undocumented people coming into the United States. That was during a Senate committee hearing this year of an immigration bill that was eventually vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs — the same language now being proposed in Prop. 314. The legislation has become a priority for her and her colleagues at LUCHA, Poder Latinx, CPLC and other Latino-led organizations. But their efforts do not stop there. Building movements that last beyond Nov. 5 Arizona’s political makeup has changed dramatically over the past few decades. In 2010, all heads of state government were Republicans. That year’s election gave Republicans a clear majority with 21 senators and 36 representatives, compared to 9 and 24 Democrats, respectively. Many of the high school students who were at the capitol in 2010 went on to become public servants, foundation leaders and community organizers. “It was a catalyst to a generation of leaders that were impatient for justice and not going to wait for it and were going to fight to have it,” Gomez said. Beyond immigration, this same group of leaders look to issues that are of key interest to the Latino electorate. According to a recent Pew Research Center survey, 85% of Latino voters selected the economy as a top issue in this year’s presidential election, followed by health care (71%), violent crime (62%), and gun policy (62%), with immigration lagging in fourth place with 59% of Latino voter interest. According to Lisa Magana, Associate Dean of Strategic Charter Initiatives and School of Transborder Studies professor at Arizona State University, “We are seeing more and more new American electorate, new folks targeted, women, young folks, newly naturalized folks, and groups you don’t usually think about,” she said. Immigration is an issue that is often used in politics, especially during election cycles, according to Magana, and as the electorate evolves, it would be a mistake to assume Latinos would vote in stereotypical ways or to view them as a monolith. “The Latino population is very heterogeneous, not a homogeneous community. Like the rest of the population, they have diverse political views,” said Irasema Coronado, director and professor of the School of Transborder Studies at ASU. In 2024, ahead of the November election, Republicans retain a majority in the state legislature, but the difference is marginal with only two Republican members outnumbering Democratic officials in each of the two legislative chambers. “I believe that the state is changing,” Coronado added, saying that it is in large part due to these community leaders. “The young people who saw their parents being deported, children who were born here, they see the injustices and see how SB 1070 impacted their families. They grew up, they registered to vote, and guess what? They got involved.” Guzman remembers community leaders such as Montoya from Aliento and democratic representatives like Anna Hernandez, Lorena Austin, and Cesar Aguilar, as young student activists and she said she remembers watching them grow into the leaders they are today. “We all get old,” Guzman said, her goal shifting to working on a pipeline of activists by serving as a mentor, supporter and a guide to the new generation of leaders and activists. While the same type of organizing is not being seen this time around, should Prop. 314 come to pass, she believes that work will once again take place. Students do not become activists because they want to. It's something a young person is forced into to protect their loved ones, she said. “There’s going to be unsettling that takes place in their homes. As their parents are talking about emergency plans, ‘mijo, if something happens to me, don’t forget that mi comadre down the street is going to be taking care of you guys,’” Guzman said, as families will likely prepare for the worst scenario: being deported. It's what she saw during SB 1070. As children and teenagers see this emergency preparation, the need to fight back will ignite, Guzman said. “Those are the ones that usually end up talking with their friends and before you know it, in that conversation is where you find things like student walkouts; where you find things like protests and marches,” she said, and that action will lead them to the organizers who came before them who will undoubtedly guide them into community leadership. At a joint press conference in early September with Activate 48 coalition partners Chispa AZ, Mi Familia Vota and Our Voice, Our Arizona, Gallardo announced that LUCHA would be joining the Together We Will campaign, an effort to knock on 1 million doors by Nov. 5 and educate voters on candidates and ballot initiatives. The debate watch party LUCHA hosted on Sept. 10 was another chance to educate potential voters about Prop. 314. Gomez urged folks present to look to local candidates and initiatives with as much enthusiasm as they did presidential the ticket, while Martinez Rosas reminded them to embrace the power of community organizing when seeking change in their neighborhoods. “The feeling of collective care, of connecting and supporting each other... those are the three things that I think are going to bring us closer to the country and the world that we want to live in,” Martinez Rosas said. “You can have the most brilliant political strategy, you can have the most brilliant political people, but without the culture, the spirit and the stories, it’s useless.” Read Original Article: https://subscribe.azcentral.com/restricted?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.azcentral.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fimmigration%2F2024%2F10%2F13%2Fhow-phoenix-activists-work-to-engage-latino-voters%2F73984543007%2F&gps-source=CPROADBLOCKDH&itm_source=roadblock&itm_medium=onsite&itm_campaign=premiumroadblock&gca-cat=p&slug=restricted&redirect=true&offer=W-FV&gnt-eid=control

Stephanie Innes La Voz Cristina Quintanilla fue encarcelada cuando era adolescente, castigada por haber dado a luz a un niño muerto cuando tenía siete meses de embarazo, contó recientemente durante un evento de narración de historias en Phoenix. En ese momento, Quintanilla vivía en El Salvador, donde las mujeres son arrestadas y encarceladas rutinariamente por tener abortos espontáneos o dar a luz bebés muertos. El bebé habría sido el segundo hijo de Quintanilla, un hijo que ella deseaba. Ayúdanos a mejorar nuestra cobertura. Completa esta breve encuesta . Quintanilla fue una de las tres mujeres latinoamericanas que relataron historias dolorosas y a veces horribles sobre restricciones reproductivas como parte del evento Latinx Storytelling Tour, que tuvo su primera parada en Phoenix y tuvo eventos planeados en tres lugares más de Arizona: Somerton, Nogales y Tucson, antes de dirigirse a Florida. "Pasé del hospital directamente a la cárcel", relató Quintanilla en español a través de un traductor, recordando el nacimiento sin vida del 2004. "La prensa dijo que yo era una mujer que había matado a mi bebé". El objetivo del evento, que se celebró a unas semanas antes de las elecciones del 5 de noviembre, fue destacar las historias de aborto de mujeres latinoamericanas de países con severas restricciones al aborto y subrayar la importancia de luchar contra las leyes reproductivas opresivas, dijeron los organizadores. Campaña electoral por el aborto de Arizona presente Entre los organizadores del evento se encontraban el Centro Internacional para la Igualdad de la Mujer, así como Arizona for Abortion Access, la campaña de medidas electorales para la Proposición 139, que consagraría el derecho al aborto en la Constitución de Arizona. Una portavoz de la campaña contra la Proposición 139, llamada "It Goes Too Far" (Va Demasiado Lejos), dijo que las historias contadas por mujeres de países con prohibiciones extremas al aborto suenan trágicas, pero que esos escenarios no son indicativos de lo que está sucediendo en Arizona. "Las historias trágicas de otros estados y otros países no sucederían aquí", señaló la portavoz de It Goes Too Far, Cindy Dahlgren, cuando el Arizona Republic le contó sobre el evento. "Las mujeres de Arizona se están haciendo abortos y no se las está rechazando. Las mujeres están recibiendo tratamiento para abortos espontáneos y embarazos ectópicos". Los opositores a la Proposición 139 aseguran que una enmienda constitucional permitiría el aborto no regulado en el estado, y que eso a su vez representaría un riesgo de seguridad para las mujeres y niñas que buscan abortar. Dicen que la ley actual es suficiente, y no es una prohibición del aborto como han dicho los defensores. El aborto es legal en Arizona hasta las 15 semanas de gestación, sin excepciones por violación o incesto, aunque hay una excepción por emergencia médica. La ley define una emergencia médica como una condición que, según el "juicio clínico de buena fe" de un médico, complica la salud de una mujer haciendo que el aborto sea necesario para "evitar su muerte o para la cual un retraso creará un riesgo grave de deterioro sustancial e irreversible de una función corporal importante". La Proposición 139, si se aprueba, prohíbe las restricciones al aborto hasta la viabilidad fetal: Alrededor de las 23 o 24 semanas de embarazo y cuando un proveedor de atención médica determine que hay una probabilidad significativa de que un feto sobreviva fuera del útero. Después de la viabilidad, el gobierno no podría restringir los abortos que sean necesarios para proteger la vida o la salud física o mental de la madre. Una niña embarazada murió después de que se le negara atención oportuna contra el cáncer, dice su madre La lucha contra las restricciones al aborto en América Latina es un movimiento que a menudo se conoce como la Ola Verde, porque el verde significa salud, esperanza y vida. Si bien El Salvador todavía tiene una prohibición total del aborto, ha habido victorias más recientes en países como México, Argentina y Colombia, donde se han relajado las restricciones al aborto. "He visto de primera mano lo que es vivir bajo leyes restrictivas sobre el aborto. Ver lo que sucede en los Estados Unidos, con una gran población de latinos, me hace sentir como si estuviera en casa", señaló Paula Avila-Guillen, activista de derechos humanos que es directora ejecutiva del Centro para la Igualdad de la Mujer. Los eventos de narración de historias protagonizados por mujeres latinoamericanas como Quintanilla, idealmente, enviarán un mensaje de que "no podemos permitir que estas restricciones sean el status quo" (estado actual de las cosas), dijo Ávila-Guillén. "Si dejamos que pase demasiado tiempo, la gente se sentirá cómoda", explicó. "Este es un momento para contraatacar" El Centro de Derechos Reproductivos, una organización mundial de derechos humanos, dice que ha habido una tendencia abrumadora hacia la liberalización de las leyes sobre el aborto, con 60 países flexibilizando sus leyes en los últimos 30 años. Solo cuatro países han desautorizado el aborto durante las últimas tres décadas, dice la organización: Nicaragua, Polonia, El Salvador y Estados Unidos. La prohibición del aborto en El Salvador no tiene excepciones, al igual que en la República Dominicana, donde la hija de 16 años de Rosa Hernández, Rosaura "Esperancita" Almonte Hernández, vivía cuando quedó embarazada. Rosaura se enteró de que tenía leucemia en julio del 2012, cuando tenía siete semanas de embarazo, y por esa razón, dice su madre, no recibió el tratamiento inmediato que necesitaba, porque los médicos tuvieron que sopesar si el tratamiento dañaría a su bebé. A ellos sólo les importaba el embarazo, y no Rosaura, relató su madre. Rosaura murió al mes siguiente, cuando tenía 13 semanas de embarazo, al igual que su feto. La lucha en Arizona no es sólo por aprobar la Proposición 139, sino por lo que sucede después, dijeron los asistentes al evento de Phoenix. Por un lado, Medicaid en Arizona debería cubrir el aborto para que sea más accesible para todos los que lo necesitan, expuso Alejandra Gómez, directora ejecutiva de Living United For Change in Arizona (LUCHA por sus siglas en inglés), y también una de las narradoras del evento. Gómez también dijo que el trabajo para lograr la libertad reproductiva necesita bloquear las restricciones específicas a los proveedores de abortos, conocidas como leyes TRAP, que son requisitos onerosos, costosos y médicamente innecesarios que a menudo se imponen a los proveedores de abortos y a los centros de salud de la mujer con el fin de dificultarles su funcionamiento. Gómez, de 42 años, tuvo un aborto durante la Gran Recesión cuando tenía 20 años, estaba en una relación poco saludable y cuando necesitaba ayudar a su familia porque su padre, un trabajador de la construcción, había perdido su trabajo. "Me encontré frente a la realidad de 'no voy a poder cuidar a un niño, cuidar a mi familia y cuidarme a mí misma'", contó. "También sentí que simplemente no estaba lista". Green Wave liberó a mujeres encarceladas El movimiento por la libertad reproductiva no se trata de límites como la restricción de 15 semanas de Arizona, dijo Ávila-Guillén. Se trata de permitir que las familias y los médicos tomen decisiones sobre cuándo tener un aborto, no los legisladores, apuntó. El impulso por la libertad reproductiva en Arizona tiene una energía emocionante que le recuerda a Ávila-Guillén el movimiento latinoamericano por la libertad reproductiva, dijo a los reunidos en Phoenix. En cuatro años, la Ola Verde en América Latina cambió las leyes en Argentina, Colombia y México y pudo liberar a más de 65 mujeres que estaban encarceladas por abortos espontáneos y muertes fetales en El Salvador, según Ávila-Guillén. El movimiento fue fundamental para poner fin a la prohibición de la anticoncepción de emergencia en Honduras, dijo. "Creo que ese es el mensaje aquí", afirmó. "Solo tenemos que contraatacar". La reportera de The Republic, Stacey Barchenger, contribuyó con este artículo. Traducción Alfredo García Leer Artículo Original: https://www.azcentral.com/story/noticias/2024/10/11/mujeres-latinoamerica-relatan-historias-prohibicion-de-aborto/75623565007/

By: Manuelita Beck Posted 7:45 PM, Oct 10, 2024 Nearly all Latino voters in Arizona plan to vote in November, according to a new poll that also challenges narratives about this key bloc that's being heavily courted by both parties. More than 90% of Latino voters in Arizona are either absolutely or fairly certain they will vote according to a poll released Thursday by Living United for Change in Arizona in partnership with Data For Social Good. LUCHA Executive Director Alexandra Gomez said it’s a mistake to believe Latino voters only care about immigration. “We’re not voting based on a single issue,” she said. “Latino voters care about affordable housing, health care, economy and the future of our democracy.” The poll also upends common assumptions about Latino voters. According to the poll, 86.7% were born in the United States, and most have been in the country for generations. Of the U.S. born Latino voters, only 13% are first generation Americans, with 30% being second generation and 23% third generation. And 34% are fourth generation or higher. LUCHA, a progressive group, also said the poll refutes speculation that Latino voters are trending conservative. According to the poll, 46.4% of Arizona Latino voters are Democrats, with 19.2% identifying as Republicans and 28% as independents. But many respondents – 39.5% – described themselves as moderate. That’s more than the 36% who said they were very or somewhat liberal and 24.5% who said somewhat or very conservative. The survey highlights the challenges both parties face in trying to attract Latino voters. Despite nearly half identifying as Democrats, only 21.8% of respondents said the party really cares about the Latino community in Arizona. That’s compared 45.2% who said Democrats only care “somewhat” – and 33% who said the Democratic Party doesn’t care. Meanwhile, most – 59.5% – said the Republican Party doesn’t care about the state’s Latino community, with only 9.7% saying the GOP really cares and 30.8% saying Republicans somewhat care. The poll surveyed 1,028 registered Latino voters from April to May. The margin of error is +/-3 percentage points. Gomez said Democrats should not take Latino voters for granted, pointing to the growing number of middle-of-the-road voters who don’t feel connected to either party. “(Republicans) are actively investing to win over a middle section of this emerging electorate,” she said. “The GOP is making targeted efforts while Democrats are leaving many of voters on the table.” Several Latino voters who talked with ABC15 about the presidential election have made it clear that they are not happy with either party. Rosalinda Montoya, owner of a Phoenix hair salon, said she is still not sure who she will vote for. “Yes, I will be voting this year but to be honest, I'm very disappointed with, disappointed with both candidates,” she said. She said the election is a hot topic at her salon, with her customers discussing pocketbook issues and how the outcome could affect the economy. Montoya, who has owned her salon for two decades, said it feels like candidates don’t follow through on their campaign promises. Candidates “are always promising,” and voters go to the polls hoping to see those changes but are later disappointed, she said. Montoya said she likes Republican economic policies and thinks the border needs to be secured. But she also doesn’t like the party’s rhetoric on immigrants and said she feels like Democrats value the contributions of immigrants. "I’m still debating who’s going to get my vote,” she said. Read Original Article: https://www.abc15.com/news/political/elections/poll-more-than-90-of-arizona-latino-voters-plan-to-vote

Posted Oct 6, 2024, 2:01 pm Cris Seda Chabrier Almost two-thirds of Arizona voters are in favor of Prop. 314 , according to a recent Noble Predictive Insights Poll. But experts and activists, including law enforcement, have come out strongly against the measure, calling it a reprise of the state's infamous SB 1070 law, most of which was found to be unconstitutional a decade ago. "Most people strongly back holding drug dealers responsible for the death of a person who consumes a drug containing fentanyl (77% support), and requiring employers to verify the immigration status of workers (75% support)," the poll found. There is less support for modifying how migrants obtain public benefits. Kavanaugh staunchly supported the proposition, arguing that it would only target people who cross the border outside the official points of entry to traffic fentanyl and people. “These are the worst of the worst. These are people who have criminal records,” the GOP senator said. “They can't go to the legal border crossing where they would be interviewed and given status to enter. Instead, these people sneak in between our borders.” Many migrants, including families with small children, are fleeing cartel and police violence in Mexico, Central America and other countries. They are desperate, and often choose to seek asylum by entering the U.S. outside of regular border crossing points to surrender themselves to Border Patrol. The measure does not distinguish between them and smugglers. Fentanyl is mostly smuggled by people who cross through official ports of entry, and most smugglers are U.S. citizens, law enforcement data shows. Ortiz came out strongly against Prop. 314 due to these factors. "Prop. 314 will implement New York-style stop and frisk policy across the entire state of Arizona, turning every local law enforcement officer and civil servant into a federal immigration agent without giving them any funding or training to do the job. We could see churches and businesses raided, we could see children detained in cages. Prop. 314 is SB1070, the “show me your papers law,” on steroids.” she said. “Prop. 314 is nothing more than a cheap political distraction from what we actually need to do on the federal level. I'm not falling for it,” said the Democrat. “And neither is the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Arizona Education Association, faith leaders, civic and law enforcement, leaders from border communities, who are all joined in opposition to Prop. 314,” Ortiz said during the debate.  What does Prop. 314 say? Dubbed the "Immigration and Border Law Enforcement Measure," it would make crossing the border anywhere apart from the official ports of entry a state crime. If convicted for the first time, it would be a misdemeanor, but for those previously convicted, it would become a felony. A second provision would criminalize undocumented people who submit false documents when applying for public benefits or for jobs that require the E-Verify system. It would also make selling fentanyl a felony if it results in someone’s death. Law enforcement officers, such as local police, could then arrest people who can’t prove citizenship or legal residency status in the United States, and it would allow state courts to issue deportation orders. That provision is unconstitutional, critics say, as immigration is solely the legal province of the federal government. Currently, only the federal government has the power to regulate immigration, but some local law enforcement already assist Border Patrol in Arizona. Is Prop. 314 even constitutional? Constitutionality, along with economic and human rights concerns, was one of the reasons  why Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed HCR 2060, known as the Arizona Border Invasion Act. After the Democrat's veto, the Republican-controlled Legislature replaced it with a ballot measure. A referendum sent to voters cannot be vetoed by the governor. It was modeled on Texas’ SB 4, which was passed by the state’s legislature in 2023, but has been caught up in multiple court challenges brought by the federal government and civil rights organizations. The legal reasoning behind SB 4 and Prop. 314 rests upon Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution which says that states “may engage in war” without the consent of Congress if subject to military invasion or in “imminent danger” of it. Proponents, such as former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich , a Republican, argue that criminal cartel violence and unauthorized border crossings constitute an invasion. But, the federal government is not buying the argument. “SB 4 is clearly unconstitutional,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta in a press release that accompanied the federal government’s lawsuit against the Texas’ law, filed this past February. “Under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution and longstanding Supreme Court precedent, states cannot adopt immigration laws that interfere with the framework enacted by Congress.” The lawsuit makes this abundantly clear. Texas's "efforts, through SB 4, intrude on the federal government’s exclusive authority to regulate the entry and removal of noncitizens, frustrate the United States’ immigration operations and proceedings, and interfere with U.S. foreign relations. SB 4 is invalid and must be enjoined,” the Department of Justice said in the filing. The federal government’s argument also rests upon the Supreme Court decision — Arizona v. United States in 2012 — that struck down much of Arizona’s SB 1070 law. For its part, the Mexican government has stated that they will not collaborate with state law enforcement on deportations. “The coordination that the government of Mexico carries out is with the federal authorities,” said Rafael Barceló, Mexican consul in Tucson. All five Mexican consulates in Arizona came out against Prop. 314. Key differences between SB 4 and Prop. 314 SB 4 prohibits arrests in places of religious worship, schools, healthcare facilities and facilities that provide forensic medical examinations to sexual assault survivors. Prop. 314 has no such exceptions. And since Prop. 314 is a ballot referendum and not a state law, it cannot be significantly amended by lawmakers. A measure repealing it would need to be placed on the ballot for voting in a following election cycle. Potential for racial profiling For many experts and activists, Prop. 314 is a throwback to SB 1070, which, among other provisions, allowed state police to detain anyone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant.  “If we go back to what SB1070 was in Arizona, it was the law that said you could be questioned on your citizenship when you're pulled over. This is SB1070 on steroids.” said Lena Avalos, senior policy advisor for Living United for Change in Arizona, a Latino activist organization. “You can be questioned on your citizenship no matter where you are, right? The traffic stop isn't the probable cause,” Avalos continued. “What you look like, the language you speak, how you dress is the reason for being stopped.” “The motivations behind this proposition are clear: to instill fear, promote racial profiling, and enable the unchecked over-policing of Arizona’s neighborhoods, said LUCHA’s executive director Alejandra Gomez in a press release. Indeed, in Prop. 314 there is no provision regulating when someone can be stopped and asked for documentation. The E-Verify and fentanyl parts of the measure both apply to anyone residing in the state without authorization. Pima County Republican sheriff candidate Heather Lappin disagrees that the measure could lead to racial profiling. “It requires a law enforcement officer to have probable cause, which means they would have to have seen somebody crossing the border in an area other than the port of entry,” she said and added that in the city of Tucson, there is no way to know where someone has crossed. Scant support from law enforcement Lappin said that she would not have enough deputies to enforce Prop. 314. “We don't have the staffing for that. We just don't have the bodies to go man the border," she said. Tucson Police Department Chief Chad Kasmar echoed Lappin. “We don't have the capacity or desire to be any kind of arm of the federal immigration departments,” he said in a radio interview with Bill Buckmaster and Tucson Sentinel journalist Paul Ingram. Kasmar added that TPD already collaborates with Border Patrol and instead called for more technology to be placed at the border to intercept fentanyl smuggling. Democratic candidate and incumbent Sheriff Chris Nanos also rejected the measure during a debate this past June, saying it does not assign funding for already short-staffed deputies, and that the border is a federal issue. "I'm praying and hoping that our citizenry knows better and will vote the right way and say, no, to this stupid bill," Nanos said to cheers and applause from the crowd at the event. His predecessor, former Republican Sheriff Mark Napier, has called the measure an " ill-conceived political stunt " that "arguably contributes to the problem by degrading rational approaches to address the issues through the posing of a politically driven solution that is entirely without clear merit." Enforcement would cost millions in state dollars Prop. 314 would cost millions to enforce, officials said. “The (Department of Public Safety) estimates their annual costs under the proposition at $3.8 million. DPS further extrapolated their experience to an overall state and local total apprehension cost of $41 million,” stated a recent report from the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, which is responsible for fiscal policy analysis in the Republican-controlled Arizona legislature. Costs for incarceration could balloon to $178 million. Additional unknown administrative costs could be incurred by the added workload for public attorneys and defenders. K-12 education spending could also be cut since the funding is portioned by school enrollment. Arizona public schools admit children regardless of immigration status. The progressive Arizona Center for Economic Progress has even grimmer numbers. “We estimate the cost alone for detaining people under Prop 314 for three to six months in Arizona to be $224 million to $447 million,” said ACEP in a recent analysis that estimates 27,000 border apprehensions at $92 per day detainment cost. Local jails overwhelmed by an influx of detainees could become less safe for inmates and staff. Pima County’s jail is particularly deadly. An investigation by the Tucson Sentinel found that inmates died at nearly four times the national average between January 2020 and February 2022. "Are we to assume that the state, county, and local law enforcement agencies have sufficient human resources to establish outposts of some kind in the vast areas of the border between the ports of entry? They do not. When did you last hear a law enforcement leader complain about having too many personnel?," former Sheriff Napier wrote . "Assume for the sake of a flawed argument that law enforcement could engage in robust enforcement of the new law, what about the other strains on the already overburden criminal justice system? Do we have the resources to incarcerate and adjudicate a considerable number of new violations? Most likely not," the Republican wrote. Less safety for Latino communities Opponents said that SB 1070 resulted in a decline in public safety for Latino communities, since people became afraid to report crimes in fear that they or someone they loved would be identified as undocumented and deported. Prop. 314 could revive these fears because local law enforcement, instead of federal authorities, could order deportations. “People who live in migrant families in Arizona have for a long time, derived from that legislation, been afraid to report a crime when they are victims or when they are witnesses,” said Barceló, the Mexican consul. Latino families often have mixed immigration status in which some members are citizens or permanent residents, while others are undocumented. “It makes many neighborhoods and many parts of the city more unsafe because of this distrust,” said Barceló. Bad business for Arizona “They should call it the anti-business policy,” said Monica Villalobos, president of the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “It’s bad for the hospitality industry, it's bad for tourism and then closer to home, it's bad for construction and agriculture. All of the different industries are affected because it is a domino effect. There is a workforce shortage in Arizona, and if we take, say, one industry like construction and we have less workers in that area, now you're impacting the ability to build homes, which means you're now creating more homelessness,” she said.  “So it's a slippery slope when you cut back on the workforce.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce classifies Arizona’s worker shortage as “severe”: there are approximately 71 workers for every 100 jobs. Villalobos also specifically said that the added bureaucracy of the E-Verify system could raise costs for minority-owned small businesses. AZHCC is not the only business chamber of commerce against Prop. 314. Rob Elias, president of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, agreed with Villalobos: "By opposing Prop. 314, we advocate for an Arizona where everyone can thrive and contribute, ensuring a prosperous future for all,” said Elias in a text message. In its Voter Guide , the Tucson Metro Chamber urged people to vote no on Prop. 314 due to the “potential negative effects on local resources, the business environment, and the community by making local law enforcement do the job of the federal government.” Additionally, measures like Prop. 314 and SB 4 have the potential to affect trade with Mexico which is the United States’ biggest trade partner, with total two-way goods trade at $807 billion. What about fentanyl? Prop. 314 penalizes the illegal sale of fentanyl after a death occurs. There is no evidence that enforcing a law that penalizes the sale of fentanyl after it has been trafficked from Mexico to the United States would prevent smuggling at the border. Plus, as stated before, most fentanyl comes into the United States through official border crossings, carried by people legally authorized to cross, usually U.S. citizens. There is no evidence that higher penalties would affect fentanyl demand and distribution. Who else is against it? Workers at the Josefina Ahumada Worker’s Center in Tucson worry the law will criminalize them, lead to racial profiling and prevent them from having jobs, even if the person is authorized to be in Arizona as U.S. citizens, permanent residents or asylum seekers. “To be worried that the police haven't grabbed you, that is a physical and mental wear and tear,” said José Fuentes, a Venezuelan man who recently migrated to Arizona through a legal port of entry. “People commit suicide because they came here with a desire to help their family,” and can’t do so due to criminalization, said Fuentes. The Catholic Bishops of Arizona and the Arizona Association of Education have also issued statements opposing the bill.

Gloria Rebecca Gomez Sat, October 5, 2024 at 7:09 AM MST Claudia Kline, an organizer for Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona, speaks to a group of canvassers before they set out to knock on doors in 106-degree weather on Sept. 26, 2024, in Phoenix. The organization is part of a coalition that vowed to knock on 3 million doors by November. (Gloria Rebecca Gomez/Arizona Mirror) As former President Donald Trump  worked to scuttle a bipartisan border deal  in Congress because it threatened to derail his campaign’s focus on immigration, Republicans in Arizona  unveiled a plan to empower local officials to jail and deport migrants , decrying the federal government’s lack of solutions. “Arizona is in a crisis,” state Senate President Warren Petersen said in late January. “This is directly due to the negligent inaction of the Biden administration.”. What followed were months of GOP lawmakers in Arizona making use of Trump’s border security rhetoric, employing xenophobic language to cast immigrants and asylum-seekers as criminals. But there was strident opposition to the plan, too, from many Latino and immigrant Arizonans who traveled to the state Capitol to protest the legislation. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris offer starkly different plans for the future of the 11 million people who live in the United States without legal status. Harris, in a bid to stave off accusations that she’s soft on the border, has sought to establish a firm security stance. To that end, she has vowed to bring back and sign the torpedoed bipartisan border deal. On the campaign trail, Trump has taken a far more hawkish approach, promising mass deportations. He has offered few details, other than that he would be willing to involve the U.S. National Guard. President Joe Biden, Trump and other recent presidents  have deployed  the National Guard or military troops to support Border Patrol actions, but not in direct law enforcement roles. Immigration has consistently ranked high among voter concerns nationwide, following heightened political rhetoric and a record-breaking number of unlawful border crossings in late 2023. Those numbers have since plummeted to a  three-year low , but the U.S. border with Mexico remains a key talking point for Republican politicians. But immigration is a far more complex topic than border security alone, and strategists may be miscalculating by failing to consider some key voters and their nuanced perspectives,  recent polling shows . Growing populations of new and first-generation citizens in the swing states — with the power to sway elections — are transforming demographics and voter concerns. In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed the legislation that would have allowed local law enforcement to usurp federal authority on immigration, but Republicans repackaged it as a ballot initiative called the “Secure the Border Act.” In a state that Biden won by  fewer than 11,000 votes four years ago , and where political strategists anticipate high voter turnout, the ballot measure serves as a test of whether the GOP’s immigration position will drive people to the polls in a swing state. While many Republicans  hope the immigration issue boosts their chances in down-ballot races , progressive organizations are working to mobilize voters in opposition through canvassing and voter registration drives. Living United for Change in Arizona was established in the aftermath of the state’s controversial “show me your papers” law — SB 1070 — passed 14 years ago by Republican lawmakers. LUCHA Chief of Staff Abril Gallardo derided this year’s Secure the Border Act as the latest iteration of that law. “Arizonans are sick of Republicans trying to bring back the SB 1070 era of separating families, mass deportations and children in detention centers,” she said. “We’re here to say, ‘Not on our watch.’ ” The ballot measure has been widely criticized as greenlighting discrimination. Among other provisions, it would make it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border anywhere except a legal port of entry and punish first-time offenders with six months in jail. Local police officers would be authorized to carry out arrests based on suspicion of illegal entry, and Arizona judges would be empowered to issue orders of deportation, undermining  court rulings  that have concluded that enforcing immigration law is the sole purview of the federal government. Gallardo said that LUCHA is focused on engaging with voters to ensure the proposal fails. The organization is part of a coalition of advocacy groups committed to knocking on more than 3 million doors before November. “They can try to ignore us, but come Election Day and beyond, they will hear us, they will see us, and they will feel the strength of our movement,” she said. An August UnidosUS and BSP Research  survey  asked Latino voters in Arizona about their top priorities on several issues related to immigration policy. The results show strong support for protecting longtime residents from deportation and offering them a path to citizenship — along with cracking down on human smugglers and drug traffickers. Policies centered on building a wall or mass deportation ranked near the bottom. In recent years, Latino voters in the state have helped reject virulently anti-immigrant candidates.   Latino voting strength In 2020, Latinos made up about 20% of the state’s electorate, and they largely favored  Biden over Trump. Then, two years later, a record-breaking number of Latinos  voted  in an election that saw Democrats win  statewide offices . Today, 1 in 4 Arizona voters is Latino, and a new  poll from Univision  estimates that more than 600,000 will cast their ballots in the state’s November election. The Grand Canyon State is far from the only swing state with both impactful Latino and new-citizen voting blocs. Still, campaigns might be ignoring these voters. The UnidosUS poll showed  51% of Latino voters in Georgia  hadn’t been contacted by either party or any campaign, even though 56% say they’re sure they’ll vote. “This is, I think, a wake-up call for both parties to reach out into the Latino community,” said BSP senior analyst Stephen Nuño-Perez in a  Georgia Recorder story . “There’s still not a lot of education out there on why Latinos should be voting for one party or the other.” The numbers hovered right around there in other swing states. In Pennsylvania, that was true for  50%  of the people polled. In North Carolina, it was  49% . In Nevada,  53% . In each case, a higher percentage said they plan to vote. Influence grows in dairy country The number of Latino voters in Wisconsin is a fraction of the electorate that lives in states closer to the U.S.-Mexico border but no less impactful. There are roughly 180,000 eligible Latino voters  who call  the Badger State home. Biden carried Wisconsin in 2020 by a margin of just 25,000 votes, less than 1 percentage point. Christine Neumann-Ortiz is the executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a civil and workers rights organization that advocates on behalf of immigrants. She said that over time, the Latino vote has become increasingly sought after by politicians looking to gain office. “If you don’t get it, you don’t win it,” she said. Neumann-Ortiz said that the rise of the Latino electorate has translated into political power. The group has been a longtime backer of driver’s licenses for Wisconsinites without full citizenship status, and occupational licenses for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a federal policy that grants temporary work permits and protection from deportation to people who arrived in the country as minors. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allow people without citizenship status to obtain driver’s licenses. And just 12 give DACA recipients the opportunity to obtain medical or legal licenses. Legislation in Wisconsin to open up access to either license was blocked by the GOP legislative majority, though the movement behind the proposals drew support from top officials, including Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who backed  driver’s licenses for all as a policy priority  last year. Influential lobbying organizations, such as the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and the Dairy Business Association, both of which lean conservative, also threw their weight behind the push for universal driver’s licenses. Neumann-Ortiz attributes that support to the fact that immigrants make up a large part of the state’s dairy and agricultural industries. And in rural areas where dairy operations and farms are located, public transportation is sparse. United Migrant Opportunity Services, a Milwaukee-based farmworker advocacy organization, estimates that as much as  40% of the state’s dairy  workers are immigrants. Other estimates indicate they contribute  80% of the labor on dairy farms . Despite being over 1,000 miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration and border security are key issues for Wisconsinites, and their positions appear mixed. In a  September survey  from Marquette University’s Law School, 49% said they agreed with deporting all immigrants who have lived in the country for years, have jobs and no criminal record, while 51% opposed it.   Newly minted citizens stand to break new electoral ground Laila Martin Garcia moved to the United States with her husband and infant son eight years ago. November will be the first time she casts her ballot for a U.S. presidential candidate since she became a naturalized citizen two years ago in Pennsylvania, and she’s elated. “The main reason for me to become a citizen was to vote,” she said. “You know, this is home. This is where my husband is, where my son is being raised, and I wanted to make sure that I was using my voice in any way possible.” Despite being over 1,000 miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration and border security are key issues for Wisconsinites, and their positions appear mixed. In a  September survey  from Marquette University’s Law School, 49% said they agreed with deporting all immigrants who have lived in the country for years, have jobs and no criminal record, while 51% opposed it.   Newly minted citizens stand to break new electoral ground Laila Martin Garcia moved to the United States with her husband and infant son eight years ago. November will be the first time she casts her ballot for a U.S. presidential candidate since she became a naturalized citizen two years ago in Pennsylvania, and she’s elated. “The main reason for me to become a citizen was to vote,” she said. “You know, this is home. This is where my husband is, where my son is being raised, and I wanted to make sure that I was using my voice in any way possible.” Read Full Article Here: https://www.yahoo.com/news/changing-demographics-political-calculus-anti-140931779.html?guccounter=1

In Arizona and other states, the activists are accusing Latino advocacy groups of registering undocumented immigrants. Canvassers are growing concerned about safety. By Jack Healy, Oct. 4, 2024 Updated 3:23 p.m. ET One sweltering morning in Phoenix, four workers from a Latino nonprofit stood with clipboards outside a motor-vehicle office to do the grunt work of democracy: persuading reluctant Americans to register to vote.  While most people took a voter application or moved on, Vlad Stepanov, a conservative video blogger, stopped when he saw the canvassers. To Mr. Stepanov, 33, the sight of them in matching “Poder Latinx” T-shirts, meaning Latinx Power, in a heavily Latino neighborhood of Phoenix was suspicious.  As his mother quietly filmed, he strode up to the canvassers. Were they registering noncitizens to vote? Who was funding them?  The canvassers insisted they were following Arizona laws and registering only citizens. “When you get your ID, we can help you register,” one told him.  “But that doesn’t prove I’m a citizen,” Mr. Stepanov responded. It was another contentious day in the trenches of a bitterly fought election. As the ground game intensifies ahead of many state voter-registration deadlines in early October, suspicions of election fraud have turned the normally ho-hum work of registering voters into tense confrontations.  Despite the many debunked falsehoods about widespread voting by noncitizens, liberal Latino advocacy groups say they are being trailed by conservative activists with cameras and accused of registering undocumented immigrants.  The conservative activists are recording them, tactics that have also targeted migrant shelters, Democratic politicians, abortion clinics and student protesters. They say they are just trying to expose flaws in the voter-registration process.  Voter-registration groups said that their canvassers had not reported any physical violence, and that their registration campaigns were undeterred. But some said they were increasingly concerned about safety and intimidation. Some tell canvassers to scrub their public social media profiles and avoid posting photos showing their location in real time. These days, many canvassers go out bracing for an argument about stolen elections.  “We see a lot of intimidation on the front lines,” said Hector Sanchez Barba, executive director of Mi Familia en Acción, a Latino nonprofit working in eight states, including the battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.  “My canvassers have been filmed, they’ve been yelled at,” Mr. Sanchez Barba said. “They’re just coming after us.”  Scenes similar to the one in Phoenix have popped up in other states, including Florida, Georgia and Texas. National voting-rights groups said it was unclear how often the confrontations were occurring, but said a drumbeat of anti-immigrant rhetoric and claims about noncitizen voting had intensified as the election drew closer.  “This is a political stunt designed to inflame,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonpartisan group.  Multiple reviews have found voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare. The Brennan Center for Justice found that suspected — not confirmed — cases of noncitizen voting accounted for one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of votes cast in 2016.  It is a state and federal crime for noncitizens to register or vote, and prosecutors have pursued criminal charges in the relatively few documented cases where they have.  In Palm Beach, Fla., workers from Mi Familia en Acción say they have been confronted multiple times as they stand at a table handing out voter-registration applications.  In one encounter captured on video in early July, two women were working to register new voters, children playing beside them, when a man carrying a camera approached to ask why they were there.  “You work for an NGO that is paid for by Soros-backed Democrats,” he said, referring to the financier and Democratic donor to nonprofit groups who is a perennial boogeyman for conservatives and antisemitic conspiracy theorists.  A county worker stepped in to tell the man that Mi Familia’s workers had the right to be there. But the unidentified man had none of it.  “They’re trying to do it with registering illegal voters,” he said.  Another afternoon this summer, Jeff Buongiorno, a Republican candidate for the elections supervisor in Palm Beach County, showed up to confront a different pair of registration workers from Mi Familia en Acción.  In a video of the encounter, Mr. Buongiorno and a woman accompanying him pepper the Mi Familia worker with questions. Are they citizens? Yes, she replies. Why are their T-shirts blue? The worker responds that they are a nonpartisan group.  He presses the workers about why they do not ask for identifications. (The rules vary by state, but in many places voters registering online, by mail or using forms are asked to provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number, which are checked by election officials.)  “I’m not a crazy, radical guy,” he said in an interview. “We didn’t want to rough them up or throw them out.” Mr. Buongiorno said he had wanted to expose what he called vulnerabilities in voter-registration systems, and did not harass or threaten anybody.  “To me, that’s a big threat vector,” Mr. Buongiorno said in an interview. “There’s a threat of synthetic identities being pumped into the system, or noncitizens.”  In San Antonio, a self-described conservative “citizen journalist” pulled out his phone when he spotted a Spanish-speaking woman with a clipboard who said she was helping people with voting and obtaining insurance. “They’re not citizens,” he told her. “They can’t vote.”  In the rapidly diversifying outskirts of Atlanta, three women with a local Latino advocacy group were surreptitiously filmed as they offered voter applications outside a butcher shop in the city of Cumming. A local conservative activist quickly spread the video around with the baseless caption: “ILLEGALS BEING RECRUITED TO REGISTER TO VOTE.”  “They were just sitting with the forms,” said Gigi Pedraza, executive director of the Latino Community Fund Georgia, who said she thought the scrutiny was ethnically motivated. “You cannot register anyone to vote who’s not a citizen.”  The conservative Heritage Foundation has sent teams with hidden cameras posing as voter-outreach workers groups into apartment complexes in Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia to ask the mostly Spanish-speaking immigrants there if they were citizens and registered to vote.  Some people, their faces blurred in shaky videos, told Heritage’s investigators that they were registered to vote, but not citizens. The group said its survey showed a widespread threat to the upcoming election. Extrapolating from its conversations at one apartment complex, it said that some 47,000 noncitizens in Georgia could be on the voter rolls, as well as thousands more across the country.  But Georgia officials later said they had found no evidence that any of the people filmed by Heritage at the apartments in Norcross were actually registered. Some of the residents later said they had misspoken and denied being registered.  Mike Howell, the executive director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, which made the videos, said the investigators said the videos were “somebody admitting on camera to a crime. It’s basically the best evidence that you can get.”  Latino nonprofit groups say the scrutiny has added new barriers to their efforts to register people in poorer communities who are often left out of the electoral process.  After the 2020 election, Florida and other states controlled by Republicans passed restrictions on voter registration drives and increased penalties and fines for groups that break the rules. Supporters of the stricter laws argue they are necessary to prevent fraud, forgery and other abuses by unscrupulous voter registration groups.  “I worry about the safety of our staff a lot given the violent rhetoric we’ve seen ramp up,” said Mike Burns, the campus vote director for the Fair Elections Center, a nonprofit voting-rights group that has roughly 400 “democracy fellows” helping to register and educate students at colleges this year.  The grass-roots nonprofit group Living United for Change in Arizona — or Lucha, Spanish for “fight” — now gives its canvassers “de-escalation training” in case someone confronts them.  “It’s top of mind for us,” said César Fierros, a spokesman for the group. “Canvassers are out there doing really hard work, and to be harassed and accosted by people believing these conspiracies — it’s just disappointing. They’re just doing their job.”  Outside the Phoenix D.M.V. in September, the interaction between the Poder Latinx workers and Mr. Stepanov lasted just a few minutes.  Mr. Stepanov walked away and the canvassers went back to offering voter forms.  But that night, Mr. Stepanov posted a video of the interaction on social media — calling it “Voter Fraud in Arizona Exposed.” It caught fire with right-wing influencers and garnered more than two million views. Mr. Stepanov said in an interview that he had sent his wife out the next day, and hoped to shadow canvassers throughout the election.  “I told them I was going to make them famous,” he said.  Read Original Article" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/04/us/arizona-nonprofit-voter-registration-recordings.html

Several billboards will display messages welcoming immigrants in Ohio, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and Wisconsin to counter the Republican rhetoric that criminalizes them The use and abuse of the Republican campaign’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has generated scenes of verbal and physical violence in several U.S. states. To combat this, young migrants from the United We Dream organization have launched a campaign that will place more than 35 billboards in five states to welcome new arrivals. “Immigrants are welcome here!”; “Everyone is older in Texas, even our love for immigrants”; “Anti-immigrant hate has no place in Ohio”, and “In Wisconsin we keep families together” are some of the messages they display. “From Texas to Arizona to Ohio, our communities have seen a rise in violent anti-immigrant misinformation that has resulted in threats, violence, and policies that target anyone who is undocumented ,” said Anabel Mendoza, communications director for United We Dream, the largest migrant youth organization in the country. The posters will be visible in Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Wisconsin, and Ohio, in both English and Spanish. Other organizations participating in the initiative include the Arizona Center for Empowerment (ACE), Voces de la Frontera, and the Haitian Bridge Alliance. “Immigrant youth refuse to be bystanders when the lives of our communities are at stake. These signs are a bold and unapologetic statement of the humanity of immigrants and a reminder that we have the power to care for one another, protect and welcome immigrants, and reject this hate, regardless of our status,” Mendoza said. Anti-immigrant sentiment came to a head in the Ohio city of Springfield last month when more than 30 bomb threats were made at elementary schools and state and local government buildings, prompting lockdowns, the provision of extra police protection, and the installation of security cameras. The trigger was fake news spread by the Republican Party and its candidate, Donald Trump, who claimed during the September 10 presidential debate that Haitians in Springfield steal and eat the pets of American citizens. As crazy as such a claim may sound, it has resonated with many Trump supporters, who, believing the fallacy of the threat they pose, have terrorized the city’s migrants. Haitian residents of Springfield have said they feared for their safety as the hoax grew among the population. Mayor Rob Rue has received death threats. The Haitian Bridge Alliance, a pro-Haitian group, has filed a lawsuit against Trump and his running mate, J .D. Vance, for inducing chaos by spreading false information. Adding to the lie about the of eating pets is the fact that Haitians in Springfield are not undocumented, as Trump claimed. The 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants who have arrived in the city in recent years, in many cases after being recruited for local jobs, have been granted Temporary Protected Status to legally remain in the United States. But the growing hostility towards migrants is not limited to the Ohio city. Migrants in several other states have experienced harassment and violence. “Just like in Springfield, lies are also being used as a weapon against immigrants in Wisconsin to spread misinformation, justify voter suppression tactics, and incite racial discrimination and violence,” denounces Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera. Illegal immigration is one of the most-discussed issues in the electoral campaign and the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, has moved closer to the stance of Republicans, advocating a more restrictive policy against the arrival of migrants. President Joe Biden this week further tightened the asylum laws he approved in June. It was established then that the border would close when 2,500 people were being processed by the Department of Homeland Security on average per day over seven days. Washington lowered the figure even further Monday: there will now have to be fewer than 1,500 apprehensions on average per day for 28 consecutive days. And now the federal government will include all children in that figure, whereas previously it only included migrant children from Mexico. The measure reduced the number of illegal crossings by 59% and made July and August the months with the fewest detentions for trying to enter the United States since September 2020. Arizona is one of the most common crossing points for migrants. Harris visited the area last Friday, where she met with U.S. Border Patrol agents and promised to crack down on illegal crossings, in line with polls showing public support for increased border security. The newly launched campaign, however, seeks to empathize with migrants. “These billboards represent more than just words; they are a public statement that immigrants are welcome here and essential to Arizona today and to our collective future. Together, we will continue to exalt the truth, reject hate, and create a state where every individual, regardless of immigration status, can thrive,” says Cesar Fierros, Communications Director for the Arizona Center for Empowerment. Read Full Article: https://english.elpais.com/usa/elections/2024-10-03/young-people-launch-a-campaign-to-welcome-migrants-to-us-and-confront-hate-speech.html

The message Democrats put forward at their convention last week, a tougher line than in decades, reflects how deeply immigration remains a political vulnerability for the party. By Jazmine Ulloa and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, The New York Times When Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last week at her party’s convention in Chicago, she sought to strike a delicate balance on the issue of immigration, promising to approach enforcement and security at the nation’s southern border as the prosecutor she once was, without abandoning the country’s values. “I know we can live up to our proud heritage as a nation of immigrants and reform our broken immigration system,” she said on Thursday night. “We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border.” It was the kind of equilibrium on the issue that Democrats had striven for all week — a leveling between calls for more officers and judges at the country’s southern border and a system that treats people humanely, between promises to uphold the law and rebukes of the fear-mongering over “the other” that has permeated the national immigration debate. But the overall message on immigration from the Democratic Party in the past week, as it has been since Ms. Harris announced her candidacy last month, has been decidedly more hard-line than it has been in decades. The shift reflects just how much of a political vulnerability the issue remains for Ms. Harris and down-ballot Democratic candidates in November, as many voters have come to see the challenges at the southern border as a top concern , and a small but growing minority of Republicans and independents want to curb pathways into the country. The most common refrain from the stage in Chicago was a denunciation of former President Donald J. Trump and Republicans for tanking a bipartisan border security deal this year that, as former President Barack Obama said on Tuesday, was “written in part by one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress.” There were little to no condemnations of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies or pledges to reverse them. There were vague calls to expand legal pathways to citizenship but no mention of the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants who would stand to benefit from the move, many of whom have been working and building families in the United States for years. The immigrants known as Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children and who have become leaders in a national push for legal status, were absent from the podium. When Democrats were not seeking to neutralize the issue with remarks leaning into border security, they were downplaying it. The party relegated immigration toward the bottom of its platform’s priorities. Few panels, held by national Democrats or associated groups, centered on the issue. One of the most anticipated — billed as a discussion about the future of comprehensive immigration reform — drew fewer than two dozen attendees scattered in a drab ballroom across rows of empty chairs. Andrea Flores, a former Biden administration official turned critic of its immigration policies who moderated the session, said she had found it hard to tell the difference between Mr. Trump and Democrats on border policy. She cautioned that the lack of contrast was allowing Mr. Trump to exploit voter dissatisfaction. “You see support growing for mass deportations, you see support growing for ending asylum, you see support growing for his policies,” she said. Last month, Republicans made the border and immigration central to their national convention , with a line of speakers accusing migrants of taking jobs and stealing votes , and red-white-and-blue placards emblazoned with “Mass deportation now!” Before Ms. Harris took the lectern on Thursday, Mr. Trump stood at the border fence in Cochise County, Ariz., and falsely argued that she and fellow Democrats had “unleashed a plague of migrant crime .” Ms. Harris has yet to release her full immigration platform, though she is expected do so in the coming weeks. Her approach so far has sought to echo that of President Biden, who in recent months — as the bipartisan deal in Congress fell apart — took a tougher line at the southern border while promising to open pathways to citizenship for law-abiding undocumented immigrants long in the United States. In June, he signed one executive order denying most migrants the ability to gain asylum and another expanding legal protections for undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens. Onstage on Thursday, as she has in her campaign rallies, Ms. Harris pledged to sign the bipartisan bill. It would have expanded detentions, prohibited most migrants from gaining asylum when the number of crossings soared, provided funding for thousands of new Border Patrol agents and personnel, and invested in new technology to catch drug smugglers. In an interview, Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said his party’s support of the border security bill was “a significant shift on border security, on asylum, on the treatment of those who cross our border.” “It’s important that the Democratic Party continues to stand clearly on we’re willing to do this,” Mr. Coons said. Some Democrats and pollsters believe the stricter stance will help Ms. Harris in critical swing states like Arizona and Michigan, where immigration has been front and center for many independent voters. “She is a border state prosecutor, and I think Democrats will be wise to remind voters of that,” said Matt Bennett, the executive vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a centrist Democratic advocacy group. Other Democratic candidates have been assuming tough positions as they run in closely watched House and Senate races across the country. Michelle Vallejo, a Democrat running for a House seat in South Texas, drew criticism from progressives and immigrant rights groups for releasing an ad promising to support increases in border patrol officers and describing her region as “overwhelmed by the chaos at the border.” Representative Tom Suozzi of New York gave Democrats fresh hope that they could neutralize the issue of immigration after he flipped his seat from Republicans this year, despite their attempts to paint him as far left on the issue. In his race, Mr. Suozzi had called for temporarily shutting down the border and deporting migrants who assault the police. In a notable speaking slot in Chicago, he reserved his sharpest words for Republicans. “To be a nation of immigrants is hard sometimes, too — you have to work for it,” Mr. Suozzi said, adding, “We reject the divisiveness. We reject the dysfunction.” Four years ago, in 2020, Democrats largely skirted talking about policy proposals and instead focused their messaging on rolling back Trump-era policies. At the time, more Americans were taking more permissive views toward the issue, as they grappled to digest some of the Trump administration’s most extreme actions, including a travel ban from certain Muslim-majority nations and the separations of thousands of families at the United States’ southern border. Now, some Democrats worry that their party’s response is not substantive enough, and that it remains too focused on the 2,000-mile line dividing Mexico and the United States. Walking into the arena in Chicago last week, Alejandra Gomez, the executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona, a Latino voter mobilization group, said she wanted to hear more about helping laborers and undocumented immigrants who had long been working and paying taxes. “If we don’t define the message,” she said, “Republicans will define it for us.” Link to original article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/25/us/politics/harris-democrats-immigration.html

An Arizona Supreme Court ruling green lights the Nov. 5 vote on a proposal that would make it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border. By Katabella Roberts, The Epoch Times A proposal in Arizona that would make it a crime for migrants to cross the southern border illegally and allow local police to make arrests near the state’s border with Mexico will appear on the Nov. 5 ballot, the state’s Supreme Court ruled on Aug. 14. In issuing its ruling, the state’s highest court rejected a challenge from Latino groups who argued the proposal—known as Proposition 314 —violates a rule in the state constitution limiting ballot questions to a single subject. The court said it agreed with a previous lower court ruling on the matter that rejected that argument. In an order by Chief Justice Ann A. Scott Timmer, the state’s highest court concluded the measure satisfies the single-subject rule. “The Court unanimously agrees with the superior court that Appellants have not met their burden to overcome the strong presumption that HCR 2060 is constitutional,” the court wrote. The Arizona House of Representatives approved  Proposition 314, also known as HCR 2060, in June. If endorsed by voters, the proposition would make it a state crime to cross the Arizona–Mexico border from anywhere outside of an official port of entry and authorize Arizona state and local police to arrest those who cross the border illegally. The proposition would also allow state judges to order the deportation of those who violate the proposed law, returning them to their countries of origin. Additionally, it would make it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for knowingly selling fentanyl that leads to a person’s death, and require some government agencies to use a federal database to verify whether a noncitizen is eligible to receive benefits. In their lawsuit  challenging the proposition, opponents, including Living United for Change in Arizona, argued the proposal unconstitutionally encompassed more than a single subject, including immigration enforcement, the fentanyl crisis, and the regulation of public benefits. Allowing the measure to be on the ballot would effectively lead to the state’s single-subject requirement being meaningless, they argued. However, the state Supreme Court in its order said it is “not necessary that the components have a free-standing relationship to each other.” Opponents Condemn Court Ruling “HCR 2060’s subject is ’responses to harms relating to an unsecured border,‘ and all components of the proposed law are ’reasonably related’ to that subject,” the court wrote. “Having rejected Appellants’ arguments, HCR 2060 will appear on the ballot,” it concluded. Republicans have said Proposition 314 is needed to ensure existing laws are enforced, with lawmakers repeatedly condemning the federal government for failing to do enough to stem illegal border crossings. Democrats have countered that the measure is unconstitutional, discriminatory, and could lead to racial profiling. In passing Proposition 314 in June, the Arizona House of Representatives bypassed Gov. Katie Hobbs, who had vetoed a similar measure in early March. Living United for Change in Arizona condemned the ruling in a statement and said the Arizona Supreme Court has “once again revealed its true colors as a GOP-packed court.” The group’s executive director, Alejandra Gomez, said Prop 314 is “more than just a bad piece of legislation,” describing it as “a direct assault on Arizona’s communities.” Gomez said that Prop 314 is designed to create a separate immigration system to facilitate mass deportations. “If Prop 314 passes, every Arizonan, regardless of where they live, will be subjected to intense scrutiny, invasive stop-and-frisk tactics, and an unprecedented level of law enforcement investigation.” There were 83,536 illegal immigration encounters between ports of entry along the southwest border in June, according to data  released by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). According to the agency, that marks the lowest monthly total for the Border Patrol along the southwest border since January 2021. Link to original article: https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/proposal-to-allow-local-police-to-make-arrests-near-border-will-appear-on-ballot-in-arizona-5706095?welcomeuser=1

The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday said a Republican ballot referral that would make it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border and empower local police officers to arrest them can go before voters in November, rejecting a claim from opponents that the sweeping proposal violates a constitutional provision limiting ballot questions to a single subject. BY Jim Small, AZMirror Four Latino advocacy groups had sued, arguing that the referral violates the Arizona Constitution’s single-subject requirement because it changes disparate parts of state law. Dubbed the “Secure Border Act” by GOP authors, Proposition 314 would create a new felony offense for the sale of lethal fentanyl, punish undocumented Arizonans who submit false documentation to apply for jobs or public benefits and make crossing the southern border illegally a state crime punishable with prison time.  A trial court last month rejected the argument, and the state Supreme Court unanimously upheld that ruling on Tuesday. In a brief order, the high court said that there is a “strong presumption” that anything the legislature sends to the ballot is constitutional, and the plaintiffs failed to present enough evidence to overcome that.  Republican lawmakers had inserted language into the legislation declaring that the overarching purpose was to address “harms” originating at the southern border in an attempt to combat a legal challenge on the single-subject issue.  The opponents had argued that allowing the legislature to declare that its work was constitutional by including blanket language broadly linking disparate provisions would render the state’s single-subject requirement meaningless. The requirement is designed to prevent logrolling , or binding popular proposals to unpopular ones. They said that allowing GOP lawmakers to use broad themes to defend a piece of legislation that was once five separate bills undermines that.  One of the early iterations of a bill that was later inserted into the act was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, and two others were near-identical mirrors of that failed proposal. The remaining bills that inspired provisions in the act, including the portions having to do with the sale of lethal fentanyl and legal punishments for submitting false documentation, had previously stagnated in the legislature.  But the Supreme Court disagreed, saying that it is enough that the components of Prop. 314 are “reasonably related” to the subject of the border. “It is not necessary that the components have a free-standing relationship to each other,” Chief Justice Ann Scott Timmer wrote in the order . Alejandra Gomez, the executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said the ruling “threatens the fundamental freedoms and civil rights of all Arizonans” by allowing Prop. 314 to advance to the November ballot. She pledged that her organization would fight to defeat it at the ballot box and knock on more than 1 million doors before Election Day to “inform and mobilize voters.” “The motivations behind this proposition are clear: to instill fear, promote racial profiling, and enable the unchecked over-policing of Arizona’s neighborhoods,” she said in a written statement. “If Prop 314 passes, every Arizonan, regardless of where they live, will be subjected to intense scrutiny, invasive stop-and-frisk tactics, and an unprecedented level of law enforcement investigation.” Viri Hernandez, the strategy director for Poder In Action, another of the plaintiffs, said the ruling makes clear to Arizona law enforcement agencies that “continued racial profiling is acceptable” in the state. “And it reaffirms what communities of color have known for a long time — the justice system in Arizona was never built for our safety,” she said. “We will continue to fight for and protect our communities in the face of ongoing state violence.” If voters approve Prop. 314, the measure is likely to remain embroiled in litigation challenging its constitutionality . That’s because it will cost money to enforce, and Arizona voters in 2004 amended the state constitution to require that any ballot measure that increases state spending must not only provide money to pay for those costs, but that money can’t come out of the state’s general operating account. And Republicans didn’t allocate any funding to make the proposal’s requirements a reality, despite repeated warnings from law enforcement and state officials about the inevitable costs. Link to original article: https://azmirror.com/2024/08/14/prop-314-az-supreme-court-rejects-bid-to-block-secure-border-measure/

Por Dyana Villa, Univision Arizona