Arizona voters will decide the fate of the Secure the Border Act this November. It would make it a state crime to cross the border illegally, giving local officers the power to enforce federal immigration law.
The controversial measure is modeled after Texas’ SB 4 — and hinges on that law’s fate in the courts.
Immigrant advocates have railed against it, saying it harkens back to Arizona’s divisive SB 1070, which was largely found unconstitutional and evoked outrage when it was passed more than a decade ago.
But, the political mood around immigration is very different today than it was then — and so is the reality at the border.
Earlier this summer, President Joe Biden issued an executive order severely restricting asylum requests at the border when numbers surge. Now, unless a migrant tells a border agent that they fear for their lives, they’re processed and deported.
Since, there has been a major drop in the number of people requesting asylum at the Southern border — 50% since June.
Sheriff David Rhodes says he doesn’t believe it’s entirely because of the president’s executive order. Rhodes is the sheriff of Yavapai County and president of the Arizona Sheriff’s Association. He told The Show he looks to Mexico to find out why the numbers have changed so dramatically.
Full conversation
DAVID RHODES: First of all, President Biden had been arguing for a few years that he did not have the authority, only Congress had the authority to act on these changes to the asylum process. And so suddenly he decides that he does have the authority of the act. So what we're not hearing, what we're not being told, and I think what the people of Arizona need to understand is that Mexico is playing a large hand in restricting the number of border crossers, which we've always needed them to do, but they're doing it now. So why is that leading up to the presidential election?
Well, this is a major topic leading into the presidential election. You're seeing both candidates take positions and you know, posturing towards immigration, border security.
So what assurances do we have that when that election is over, it's not gonna be back to business as usual. We still don't have the resources that we need to secure the border. We still don't have the resources that we need to fight fentanyl trafficking in our communities. We still don't have the resources that we need to fight human trafficking.
All these illicit economies that were fomented by these open border policies and you're seeing one stat which is the number of border crossers, illegal border crossers that's being bantered about, which is largely attributed to the government of Mexico.
LAUREN GILGER: Well, let me ask you. Yeah, let me ask you something about that real quickly. We should say, first of all, that President Biden's executive order on this is being challenged in court. But I mean, most of the people who have been coming across and causing these big spikes in numbers have been asylum seekers, people who are coming across and presenting themselves for asylum.
So does it not make sense that with this executive order severely restricting that when they cannot do that and they will be sent back, you're going to see those numbers drop.
RHODES: No, not necessarily because if you've just spent weeks or months traveling across the globe to get to the Southwest border and suddenly you are not going to be able to get your asylum hearing or your chances have been greatly diminished that just pushes people to the illegal ports of entry, the holes in the fence, the desert, the different places.
And I think that that's what people need to understand. So how is it that these people are being taken away from the border on the southern side? Who's doing that?
GILGER: All right. I want to talk about the Secure the Border Act with you. This is going to go to voters in November. It'll be on the ballot referred by the state Legislature. It would make it a state crime to cross into Arizona from Mexico anywhere other than a port of entry. So I want to understand how it is, that as the law enforcement here, you would approach a law like this. Should it be, you know, approved by voters?
There are questions about how this would be enforced. It sounds like someone, a deputy maybe would have to see someone crossing illicitly or not at a port of entry, right, in order to arrest that person under this law, is that how you understand it?
RHODES: That is how that is how I understand. That's how I believe the law is written. You need probable cause. It gives local law enforcement, the sheriff's deputies the ability to make that arrest and detention that they don't currently have right now. Now to have probable cause that somebody crossed the border illegally, you need to actually see them cross the border or technology that's on the border, needs to have detected them or there needs to be some tangible evidence, maybe they're out in the desert and they've been encountered by sheriff's deputies out in the desert and there's footprints that go back to a hole in the fence where they are nowhere near a legal port of entry.
This is not written to give local law enforcement the ability authority and nor does local law enforcement have the desire to go into communities away from the border and start looking for people that are in the country illegally. The opposition to this law is they didn't want, people did not want it to be weaponized against people in communities.
GILGER: Right, like racial profiling in that way? Yeah.
RHODES: And, and law enforcement, I can tell you there’s sheriffs that are 100% opposed to this law being used that way as well.
GILGER: So let me ask you about the logistics of that. Like, are you planning if this law passes to be, you know, patrolling the border, patrolling these desert regions in between ports of entry, is something you already do. Would you need to work in coordinating with federal authorities as you do that?
RHODES: Well, and I, I'm speaking on behalf of the border sheriffs. You have four border sheriffs and each sheriff would have to make their own decision as to, you know, how they were going to enforce the law. The law is written to be permissive. It doesn't require local law enforcement to enforce it. It says that they may enforce this law now.
Right now, there's no appropriations, funding resources dedicated to this and I myself and the rest of the Arizona Sheriff's Association were highly critical of the Legislature for failing to appropriate funding with this as part of the bill. So our position has been this: this is on the ballot now because, you know, we know that the people of Arizona, they want a voice in border security.
They are unhappy with the fact that, you know, the government has failed them in this way, the government has not come through, not secured the border, not protected the public, not appropriated the resources. So people want their own voice in it.
If the people of Arizona choose to pass this bill and write it into law than the Arizona Legislature and Governor Hobbs, the Arizona sheriffs submit to them that this is a mandate by the majority. And we expect the Legislature and the governor to appropriate the necessary resources to carry out the mandate of the majority.
GILGER: So it's about resources like as it stands, you could not carry this out with the resources your department has.
RHODES: Very, very limited.
GILGER: What would that require in terms of resources? What are you asking for from the governor in that scenario?
RHODES: Well, like I said, each sheriff on the border would have to make a decision as to what they were asking for. However, I can assure you that more sheriff's deputies would be at the top of the list and that everything that goes with more sheriff's deputies like vehicles like the ability to incarcerate. You would probably need to add the ability to prosecute. You would need to add public defenders. There would be courts that would need to be added.
There would be a lot of things that need to be added and look all this stuff was in the, the border bill that was not passed and the $17 billion that, you know, some of that was not going to good uses in my opinion or whatnot.
But this is due to the inaction of multiple presidents, multiple Congresses of both parties in power have failed on epic levels to do what needs to be done to get the border secured. And so the Secure The Border Act, I would not submit that. It's a silver bullet for the state of Arizona. I would say that the citizens of Arizona are just absolutely exasperated with the lack of federal action.
