Arizona went for Trump and Prop. 314 this year, but not everyone voted for both

Four years after losing in Arizona, President-elect Donald Trump won back the state this year, according to a race call by the Associated Press over the weekend. But not all those who elected Trump also voted for a GOP-backed immigration question on the ballot.

Proposition 314 allows local police to carry out immigration-related arrests and also introduces harsher penalties for fentanyl distribution that ends in death.

Jaime Chamberlain is a businessman in Nogales, Arizona - along the border with Mexico. He says he voted for Trump but not Prop. 314.

“I think it puts undue burden on local law enforcement, it doesn’t have funding for those arrests if they’re made, and it doesn’t give a mechanism of how they could apply back for any of the costs that are incurred to do that,” he said. “This time, there were a lot of people in the business community that were mindful of what had happened previously with SB 1070, so they didn’t want that to happen again.”

SB 1070 was a 2010 law that also gave local police immigration arrest authority and was mostly struck down by the Supreme Court. Chamberlain says cross-border relations took a major hit because of the law, and he believes the fact that Prop. 314 passed despite that history is a sign of how frustrated Arizonans are with border issues. He says he also would have voted for the measure, if it had only been about fentanyl.

“I really believe that we should have much stiffer penalties on distribution that ends in death,” he said. “That is something I wholeheartedly would have voted yes for.”