By Caitlin Sievers | News from the States | Gov & PoliticsPeople packed into an Arizona Senate Committee room on Friday, waiting hours to protest a Republican plan to station federal immigration officers at Arizona polling places in November.
But those protestors were disappointed when the measure was suddenly spiked at the end of the six-hour meeting because its sponsor was ill, according to Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee Chairwoman Wendy Rogers.
The failure to hear the bill in the committee on Friday likely kills the specific piece of legislation, though the idea is likely to be resurrected. Friday was the deadline for legislative committees to consider legislation in its chamber of origin. But there are parliamentary moves that allow proposals that failed to be revived.
The news that Senate Bill1570 wouldn’t be heard came after numerous members of the protest group, organized by Living United for Change in Arizona, were denied entry to the Senate with little explanation in a move that LUCHA said was blatantly racist.
The proposal that the protestors targeted would force all 15 Arizona counties to enter into agreements with federal immigration enforcement agencies to post agents at all polling places and ballot drop boxes “during all hours in which voting is conducted or ballots are deposited” during the midterm election in November.
This comes weeks after President Donald Trump called for elections to be nationalized, something that he doesn’t have the legal authority to do.
In a statement, LUCHA described the bill — sponsored by Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican and leader of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus — as “an extreme proposal that would inject fear, voter suppression, and racial profiling into Arizona’s elections.”
Hoffman could bring back the proposal through a “strike everything” amendment to another bill.
Sen. Catherine Miranda, D-Laveen, said during a LUCHA press conference at the Capitol Friday morning that numerous proposals from Republican legislators this year send a clear anti-immigrant message. Those include Senate Bill 1474, which would allow the legislature to retaliate against sanctuary cities, and Senate Bill 1051, which would require hospitals to inquire about a patient’s citizenship status.
“The immigrant community remains a political target,” Miranda said.
Hoffman’s proposal comes after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were empowered by the U.S. Supreme Court to racially profile people. That was followed by a weekslong immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis that was marked by ICE agents demanding nonwhite people they encountered — even those simply walking down the street in their neighborhood — provide proof they are citizens.
Vivian Serafin, a member of LUCHA, told the Arizona Mirror after Friday’s hearing that she believes Rogers intentionally kept protestors waiting all day and out of the loop about the status of SB1570.
“They waited until the very last second to tell us that they were not hearing it today, and they waited for it to be the very last bill,” she said.
The hearing for SB1570 had already been pushed back from Wednesday, and Serafin said that the bill’s opponents were told it would be heard early in the Friday hearing, which began at 8 a.m. Instead, they found out that SB1570 wouldn’t be heard just before the hearing concluded, around 2 p.m.
“We packed that room with community members, and they do not want us to be there to show our opposition, because they have their minds made up,” Serafin said. “We are not going to stop fighting. They want us to stop fighting. They want us to stop showing up. They want to tire us out.”
The people who were barred from entering the Senate building on Friday were handed sheets of office paper with two sentences printed on them that said they couldn’t enter because of their “disorderly behavior in the Senate building” and their violation of a state law that bans people from interrupting legislative meetings.
“You are formally trespassed from the Senate building for the duration of this Legislative Session,” the papers read. “If you attempt to enter during this period you will be subject to arrest.”
None of the papers had protestors’ names written on them, and they weren’t signed, leaving the recipients to wonder who the notices came from, what specific behavior led to them and how security guards were deciding who got a trespass notice and who was allowed inside.
LUCHA said it was clear that race was a deciding factor in who was banned from the Senate building.
“They are being threatened with arrest without a clear explanation, without due process, and without any information about how to appeal the ban,” LUCHA’s Executive Director Alejandra Gomez said in a statement. “All of the community members receiving these notices report that officials did not even know their names. At the same time, white individuals have been allowed to enter freely, while Brown community members are singled out and removed.”
Senate GOP spokeswoman Kim Quintero told the Mirror in an email that the people given the notices were identified through videos of previous committee hearings. She claimed that they were informed that they violated the law, and that they refused to comply.
“These actions were not directed at any organization or viewpoint,” Quintero said. “They were based solely on documented conduct that violated established law and rules that apply equally to everyone in the Capitol.”
Serafin told the Mirror that those denied access to the Senate had earlier this week walked out of a Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee hearing for Senate Bill 1635 after one of their members was silenced.
That bill aims to make it a crime for people to warn others of the location of federal immigration officers. During the hearing, Rogers repeatedly banged her gavel in an attempt to stop a speaker from loudly criticising SB1635 and its backers. Protesters stood up in support of the speaker and began chanting “No justice, no peace. No ICE on our streets,” before being told by security to leave the building.
Serafin said that she and other immigration advocates are preparing for a revival of Hoffman’s bill to put ICE agents at polling places.
“What I am certain about is that they want to intimidate people at the polls, and they want to try their best to control the election this November, and they’re going to do that however they are able to,” she said. “However this does end up coming back, we will for sure be back here to show our opposition.”