The four Democrats on the Pima County Board of Supervisors are sending a message to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that masked officers won’t be welcome on county-owned land.
Technically, unmasked agents would also be persona non grata at county buildings, parks, libraries and parking garages under the two ordinances that supervisors voted to have county administration draft in the coming weeks.
The same four Democrats passed a non-binding resolution opposed to the planned ICE detention center in Marana, although the measure is largely symbolic.
Roughly two dozen people spoke in favor of the measures during call to the public, including several members of the Pima Resists ICE (PRICE) activist group.
Supervisor Steve Christy, the lone Republican on the board, fought against the three measures — offering substitute motions and frank criticism of his colleagues on the board. At one point, he urged members of law enforcement unions to break ties with local Democrats.
“They are not your friends,” he said of local Democrats, while urging law enforcement officers to vote against the four Democrats on the board in the next election in 2028.
That could be a violation of ARS 11-410 — which bars county officials from using government resources to urge people to vote for or against a political candidate.
The law, which is rarely enforced, carries a maximum fine of $5,000 per offense.
A new group, Pima Resists ICE (PRICE), came out in force to support Allen’s proposals. (Joe Ferguson).
The three measures were put on the agenda by Supervisor Jennifer Allen, the current chair of the board, who told the audience that people should feel comfortable in county-controlled spaces.
“We on the board work really hard to protect people," Allen said. "Places of the county should be safe ... from the terror we are seeing on our streets.”
Her measure to ban ICE from operating on county-controlled land largely mirrors a similar effort by the Tucson City Council — which directed City Attorney Roi Lusk to draft a nearly identical resolution.
The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota were top of mind for Supervisor Rex Scott when he supported the measure. He also blamed White House advisor Steven Miller and his 3,000 a day quota for immigration officials to detain individuals.
Christy countered with a substitute motion to lease a county-owned facility on Drexel Road that once housed asylum seekers to ICE to use as a detention center.
This motion went nowhere with his colleagues, and it is unclear whether Christy was aware the county has already announced it was going to repurpose the facility to house the Pima County Recorder and the elections department.
Christy suggested his colleagues were drafting a “blueprint for civil insurrection” and asked if the ordinance would require the Pima County Sheriff's Department to confront armed federal officials for violating the law.
He didn’t get a direct answer, but presumably PCSD would enforce the law.
Marisol Herrera was one of two dozen local residents who spoke at the call to the public portion of the meeting who supported the anti-ICE measures. (Joe Ferguson.)
Christy met the second item — which would bar law enforcement from wearing masks while carrying out official operations — with another substitute motion. He attempted to change the ordinance to ban the “doxxing" of law enforcement officers.
The names of local and state law enforcement are public in Arizona, routinely released as part of court and payroll records, not to mention they are often mentioned in government-sanctioned press releases and newsletters.
The third item on the agenda was a resolution by Allen to opposed the non-binding resolution opposed to the planned ICE detention center in Marana.
Although the measure is largely symbolic, the county apparently is looking into whether they have jurisdiction over the former jail under public nuisance laws.
Deputy County Attorney Sam Brown briefly mentioned his office was looking into the matter, but didn’t offer more information on Tuesday.
Both ordinances are expected to come back to the supervisors for final approval in four weeks.
Inspiring confidence: The Pima County Sheriff’s Department held a press conference to release some muddled new details in the apparent kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie, per the Arizona Daily Star’s Norma Coile. Investigators still don’t have a person of interest, or the make or model of the car they suspect she was driven away in, but they’re hoping to get warrants for home security cameras and use Flock license plates readers to figure out more, Sheriff Chris Nanos explained. Time is of the essence, however, as Guthrie could die within a day of not receiving required medicines, he said. And after telling NBC News that “we know she was harmed at the home” Nanos walked that back to the Star.
"If I said that, I misspoke or something," the sheriff told the Star after the press conference. "If NBC came back for confirmation now, I wouldn't give it … I'm not going to deny it. I'm not going to go there with you. I'm not going to speak to that. I'm not confirming or denying."
Gotta start somewhere: The House Commerce Committee passed Tucson Democratic Rep. Alma Hernandez’s bill to create a $5 million rental assistance program for Arizonans in financial emergencies, KJZZ’s Katherine Davis-Young reports. Only families with children would be eligible, and they could receive two months of assistance a year from the state’s Department of Economic Security, though there’s a $5,000 cap on it. Even if it becomes law, it would still need a line item in the budget for funding. Though Hernandez admitted the limited money is “a drop in the bucket” of the larger problem, the small size of the program has garnered a fair amount of GOP support.
Desert Barbie cosplay: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is coming to Nogales tomorrow, the Republic’s David Ulloa Jr reports. It’s not clear what she plans to do there.
Candidate fraud, not voter fraud: One-time, would-be constable Brent Thomas Tadashi Kusama was arraigned on Monday for felony election fraud charges for forging signatures on nomination petitions for his 2022 candidacy in Sierra Vista, the Herald-Review’s Terri Jo Neff reports. He faces nine felony charges and will head to a pretrial conference next month.
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Not hearing the complaints: Families of students who attend the Arizona School for the Deaf and Blind are suing in an attempt to stop its planned move out of its iconic Tucson campus and into the now-closed Copper Creek Elementary School, the Arizona Luminaria’s Shannon Connor reports. The families argue that ASDB didn’t give enough notice of the plan before deciding it, though the board still hasn’t formally approved the move — that’s supposed to happen at a meeting on Thursday.
Calling the decisions out of the Tucson-based Court of Appeals “schizophrenic,” former Pima County-turned-Yavapai County legislator Rep. Mark Finchem wants to dissolve the court altogether.
His Senate Bill 1283, if passed, would get rid of the Division Two Arizona Court of Appeals that covers Pima, Pinal, Cochise, Greenlee, Santa Cruz, Gila and Graham counties, per the Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers.
“I suppose the best way to describe what the appellate court seems to be doing is schizophrenic,” Finchem said.
Finchem’s bill would have a Phoenix-based Division One Court of Appeals handle all the state’s cases instead.
Sure, Mark, that’ll will speed up things in the famously speedy judicial system.