Jimmy Magahern January 2, 2025
Supported by a majority of Latinos and many Democrats, Arizona’s Proposition 314 exemplifies our complicated political moment.
By Jimmy Magahern | Photography by Daisy Zavala Magaña
Gerry Navarro suspects he lost more than a few votes in his unsuccessful bid for Santa Cruz County Supervisor in November due to his unwavering support for Donald Trump.
In Santa Cruz, an Arizona county on the U.S.-Mexico border where 78 percent of the residents are Mexican Americans and where voters favored Joe Biden over Trump by more than two-to-one in 2020, Trump’s persistent rhetoric that undocumented immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” didn’t go down well. And as the Republican candidate, Navarro took some heat.
“I had people down here calling me a Nazi,” says the 71-year-old United States Marine Corps vet and former Coolidge police officer, who served as a border liaison officer in Nogales, Arizona, from 1984 to 2010. He’s now retired and lives in Rio Rico, a small unincorporated community just north of Nogales.
“I mean, I’m Hispanic, and I’m the Nazi? Really? The Democrats prefer the illegals to us as citizens, and we pay the bill. That’s not right.”
While his years as a border officer made him empathetic to impoverished Mexicans desperate to enter the U.S. (on the campaign trail, he told a story of waving an elderly woman on crutches past customs), Navarro takes a nuanced line on border security. “I’m not against immigration,” he clarifies. “I’m against illegal immigration.”
Santa Cruz County again rejected Trump in 2024, but by a smaller margin: Close to 59 percent of the votes went to Kamala Harris, with slightly more than 40 going to Trump. Clearly, Navarro was not alone as a Latino voter who strongly identified with conservative positions and values.
Nor was the phenomenon limited to Santa Cruz County, or to Trump. Across Arizona, the November election saw traditional voting blocs split in new and unexpected ways, across a variety of candidates and issues.
Perhaps most emblematic of the schizoid 2024 election: the resounding passage of Arizona’s Proposition 314, aka the Immigration and Border Law Enforcement Measure, which will “allow for state and local police to arrest noncitizens who cross the border unlawfully” and “allow for state judges to order deportations” if passed into law.
Though characterized by opponents as extremist right-wing legislation, Prop. 314 was approved by nearly 63 percent of voters, meaning that it enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support, with many Democrats voting for its passage – and, not insignificantly, 53 percent of Latino voters.
Why did the measure garner so much support, particularly among the population activists saw as its target?
It may be that those voters don’t see themselves in the crosshairs.
“You come here legally, the right way, I don’t have a problem,” Navarro says. “My wife of 51 years, she came here legally because I married her. I’m an American citizen and I brought her with me and she’s now a citizen. That’s the way you do it. You do it legally. But I don’t want no criminals here.”
Francisco Pedraza, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Politics and Global Studies who now heads its Center for Latina/os and American Politics Research center, believes it was a last-minute provision tacked onto the bill that helped expand its appeal among Latino voters.
After the wording about allowing state and local authorities to make arrests and order deportations for unlawful border crossings, along with a rather innocuous phrase about requiring the use of the E-Verify program to determine the immigration status of individuals before their enrollment in a financial aid or public welfare program, the authors added this: “and make the sale of fentanyl a Class 2 felony if a person knowingly sells fentanyl resulting in the death of another person.”
The added phrasing drew on U.S. Customs and Border Protection data that shows illicit fentanyl smuggling is increasing, and that most of the fentanyl seized by the border patrol is coming across the southern border – a fact that was loudly amplified by the Trump campaign to demonize immigrants, even though the same data also shows that more than 90 percent of the fentanyl seized is smuggled by U.S. citizens crossing through legal ports of entry.
“There were a lot of things in the wording of Prop. 314, but the inclusion of the word ‘fentanyl’ helped it get over the finish line,” Pedraza maintains. “I think other states are going to be paying attention to that.”
According the Pedraza, the fentanyl provision may have stimulated the “othering” effect already in place between Hispanic U.S. citizens and their undocumented counterparts.
As proof, Pedraza’s department, together with ASU’s Hispanic Research Center, conducted a survey shortly before the election that asked a mix of registered voters their thoughts on the entire ballot, including the propositions. The study then broke down the respondents by race.
It found that on Prop. 314, when shown the complete wording of the measure – including the phrase on fentanyl – 53 percent of Latinos either strongly or somewhat supported it, reflecting the final votes. But when those surveyed were shown the proposition’s wording with that phrase omitted, only 43 percent supported it.
For non-Hispanic whites, it didn’t much matter: 63 percent supported the wording containing fentanyl; 61 percent without.
“So, why is that consequential?” Pedraza asks. “Well, if you’re from the Latino community, you might have some reticence in supporting heavy-handed immigration enforcement. But if the proposition is saying we are specifically targeting these particular kinds of offenders, folks who are selling drugs that would lead to somebody dying, then it’s harder to say no to. You’re kind of greasing the amount of public support you’re likely to marshal.
“From the perspective of Latinos, I think there is a real willingness to understand that in the broader debate around immigration, there needs to be a balance struck between policy that reforms access to opportunities to adjust your status, and policy that addresses what we are going to do about individuals that enter the U.S. without authorization or that are working without authorization,” Pedraza says.
“That’s the tough question. But certainly, the easy question is, ‘What do we do about individuals that are unauthorized and doing bad things?’ Human trafficking, dealing drugs, committing violent crimes. Whether you’re Hispanic or not, there’s not much of a debate there.”
The proposition faces some high hurdles before it can become law. Arizona’s measure includes a provision that it cannot take effect until a similar law, such as Texas’s SB 4, has been operational for 60 consecutive days without legal interference. SB 4, however, remains stalled in court, pending review of its constitutionality. If Texas’s law is struck down, it would likely prevent Arizona’s Prop. 314 from becoming enforceable.
If and when it does become law, several civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, have vowed to challenge it in court.
There’s also the matter of the price tag on enforcement. The Arizona Department of Public Safety projected enforcement could cost state and local police $41 million annually, and detentions in Arizona could cost between $224 to $447 million, according to an analysis by The Arizona Center for Economic Progress – costs it says would shift to taxpayers.
“There’s no actual funding mechanism for this, so our hope is that in itself will keep the proposition from being implemented,” says César Fierros, communications director for Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), the Phoenix-based community group that has been fighting similar anti-immigration measures since the days of SB 1070, Arizona’s infamous “show me your papers” law, which the Supreme Court struck down in 2012, ruling its provisions were pre-empted by federal law.
On the question of why so many Latino voters supported the measure, Fierros also believes many underestimated how its passage could personally affect them. LUCHA canvassers knocked on more than 612,000 doors of Latino voters this election cycle, and Fierros says for many of them, the Democrats’ emphasis on social justice and identity issues took a backseat to the economy this time around.
“What our canvassers found in speaking to Latino voters was a similar attitude toward how a lot of them felt about Trump’s plan to implement ‘mass deportations’ of undocumented immigrants upon taking office,” he reports. “They say, ‘He’s not talking about me. He’s not going to deport my family.’ But a lot of Latinos are part of families that have a lot of mixed-status members. Our message to them is that he’s actually talking about all of us.”
Pedraza takes it a step further, citing how the threat of arrests and deportations will disrupt the economies of sectors that rely on the contributions of mixed-status laborers – restaurants, construction, hospitality and entertainment, for example.
“With the passage of 314, we’re going to be in a situation where immigration enforcement is not just going to matter to people with a ‘z’ in their last name,” he says. “Yes, the Gonzaleses and the Lopezes, they’re going to care about this. But there’s also going to be a lot of Browns, a lot of Smiths, and a lot of Campbells who’ll be affected, too.”
Behind the parsing and projections lies one inalienable fact: Many Americans are fed up with illegal immigration, and their frustrations are starting to bleed over into their feelings about general immigration. A July Gallup poll showed that 55 percent of Americans favored decreasing immigration to the U.S. – the highest figure since 2001, when 58 percent favored curbs.
Unlike SB 1070, which was never put before Arizona voters for approval (the act was approved in 2010 by the Arizona State Legislature and signed into law by then-Governor Jan Brewer), Prop. 314 now carries a public mandate that Pedraza fears may make it harder for judges to strike down.
“It made it. It got all the way to the ballot and voters said, ‘Yes,’” he says. “That makes it a different matter, because this is what the people wanted.”
PHOENIX reached out to the Arizona State Senator who spearheaded the proposition, Republican house majority leader Warren Petersen, but he declined to comment on the measure.
However, in an interview with FOX 10 News reporter Steve Nielsen on Election Day, Petersen indicated that while the prop still has some obstacles to overcome before becoming law, he doesn’t believe enacting it will be as important now that Trump won the presidency and is expected to strengthen immigration enforcement on the federal level.
“They’re going to now do their job, that means we’re not really gonna need to use the law at this time,” Petersen said, adding, “I think it’s kind of nice to have as a tool in case we get into a situation again.”
For Navarro, who had mixed feelings about Prop. 314 anyway, that’s just fine if the feds take over the work.
“I understand where people who voted for this are coming from,” he says. “They’re frustrated with our federal government, and I don’t blame them. But should the local law enforcement pay for it? Because think about it: You arrest these people, you put them in jail. Who’s feeding them? Who’s housing them? We are.
“The main purpose behind that proposition was to try and get some type of control over the immigration problem,” Navarro adds. “Now, hopefully, the federal government will do their job.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE: https://www.phoenixmag.com/2025/01/02/shifting-borders/
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