Published By: Cronkite News
Author: Sahara Sajjadi
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WASHINGTON – Arizona’s migrant communities have much on the line in the 2024 elections, with former President Donald Trump vowing mass deportations, and the end of both DACA protections and automatic citizenship for children born to non-Americans.

With no right to vote, some people in the country without legal status are finding ways to make their voices heard through grassroots activism – encouraging others to support sympathetic candidates.

“Not being able to vote puts you at a huge disadvantage. But we decided to organize our family, friends and people in the community that have the power of voting. We give them some information, and we share stories on how these decisions impact our daily life,” said Karina Ruiz, executive director at the Arizona Dream Act Coalition.

The group promotes civic engagement among Latinos and mixed-status families.

Arizona was home to 250,000 of roughly 11 million people living in the country illegally in 2022, according to a July 22 report from the Pew Research Center. That’s about 3.5% of the state’s total population, which is slightly above the national average.

​The state has been at the center of immigration debates during a tumultuous campaign, with Trump and other Republicans accusing the Biden administration of allowing millions of people into the country illegally through inviting policies and weak border security.

Ruiz is a beneficiary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program created by former President Barack Obama to shield migrants brought into the country illegally as children from deportation.

Still unable to vote after 11 years with DACA status, Ruiz said policies such as Arizona’s SB 1070 – enacted in 2010 and dismantled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 – continue to strike fear. The law allowed local police to enforce federal immigration law, demand proof of citizenship and arrest anyone suspected of being undocumented.

It was the nation’s toughest anti-immigrant law at the time. It terrorized Latinos. A 2014 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that fears of deportation under SB 1070 deterred migrants from seeking medical treatment, including prenatal care.

Ruiz stopped driving out of fear she would be pulled over, separated from her son and deported. U.S. citizens also feared what would happen if they were ever detained without a drivers license or other identification.

A similar measure is on the November ballot in Arizona, known as Proposition 314.

Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed an effort to effectively resurrect SB 1070 earlier this year. The GOP-controlled Legislature then adopted the ballot measure, which bypasses the governor.

Proposition 314 would make it a state crime to enter the United States illegally. The measure would also impose broader immigration checks for people seeking jobs and strengthen the penalty for fentanyl sales that lead to a fatality.

The Arizona Dream Act Coalition has been at the frontlines trying to persuade voters to kill the proposal.

The organization calls would-be voters. It goes door-to-door speaking with Latino voters and mixed-status families and helps people register to vote. It shares information on ballot measures relevant to DACA and people without documentation, and points voters to sources to learn more.

“It is going to create racial profiling that is not going to solve any issues. We want people to know that they’re at risk of being stopped by police just because they’re listening to Mexican music,” said Ruiz.
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“Family separation is a gloomy cloud that is always over our heads,” she said.
Ruiz crossed the Southern border illegally with her parents in 1999. She was 15. At the time, student protests against rising tuition rates were sweeping through Mexico and led to the closure of schools.

The family reached Tucson, originally intending to stay for a year. They decided not to return to Mexico after seeing increased militarization at the border that would have made it harder to get back into the United States without permission.

DACA status in 2013 brought relief, though her parents still faced the prospect of deportation.
Her father had been robbed repeatedly and held at gunpoint while collecting recyclable materials in their community to sell, she said. Neighbors witnessed the third robbery and reported it to the police – potentially making him eligible for a U visa, a type granted to crime victims.

Ruiz’s mother had hoped to receive legal status through her husband’s application. But the visa process often takes years, and by law an annual cap of 10,000 issued per year. He died of COVID-19 in 2020 before the visa came through, and his wife found herself hopeless and in limbo, their daughter said.

Today, Ruiz worries about what a Trump presidency would mean for her mom and people like her, and for DACA recipients like herself – commonly referred to as “Dreamers” – though she is “confident that Arizonans are going to say no to this initiative (Proposition 314).”
Trump tried to kill DACA when he was president and he promises more rigid immigration policies in a second term.

Milagros Heredia, a 22-year-old Dreamer who attends Grand Canyon University, was a baby when her mother brought her to the U.S. from Mexico for medical care. At 8 months, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Uninsured, the family struggled to afford treatment.

“The only choices were almost dying in Mexico with my health condition or trying to survive here in the United States,” Heredia said.

The Make a Wish program and other nonprofits provided help. The family got assistance for most of Heredia’s treatments, but not all.

Specialists gave her a 15% chance of survival and told the family that even if she did, the tumor would pose lifelong learning issues that likely would preclude college. After years of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, her brain tumor is under control.

As it turned out, she did struggle with higher education – not because of her medical issues but because of her undocumented status.

Without a Social Security number, she couldn’t apply for scholarships.

The financial obstacles brought her to Aliento, an Arizona-based organization that provides resources to people in the country illegally. Aliento helped her attain a full ride scholarship at Grand Canyon University, where she is studying biology and aspires to become an oncologist.
Today, Heredia volunteers with the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, a charity group, as an interpreter for newly arrived migrants seeking medical care. She credits nonprofits for saving her life, and wants to give back by helping others get what she needed most as a child – affordable healthcare.
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As a Dreamer, she is unable to vote. Instead, she goes door-to-door in Phoenix, Tempe and Goodyear with the Arizona Students’ Association to encourage voters to stand with pro-immigrant candidates and candidates fighting to lower the cost of higher education. In August, the group will begin a get out the vote push.

“Our lives are on the line. Keeping our families together is on the line,” Heredia said. With Trump trying to end natural born citizenship, she added, “This is a risk for everybody, not just undocumented youth.”

Arizona activists are battling policies at the state and national level that target the immigrant groups.

Project 2025, a 900-page blueprint for a second Trump term drafted by former Trump aides and advisors, promotes policies that migrants and their advocates abhor: family separation, mass deportations, an end to DACA, a military crackdown at the border and more.

“Even though it may seem like since you can’t vote, you’re blocked from participating in democracy, that’s not the case,” said Mario Montoya, a DACA recipient and a research analyst and coalition consultant at Aliento. “You can have these conversations, staying informed, mobilizing your community, and speaking out on things and issues that you want to change.”

Montoya said he can relate to the helplessness felt by people who see their lives in the balance in an upcoming election but can’t vote. Channeling that into mobilization takes away the sting, he said.

“I was once in those shoes of, ‘well, I can’t vote, I can’t really do anything. So what’s the point?’” he said. “What really helped me was … being able to share with my community members.”

Published By: The Lumberjack​
Author: Brisa Karow
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Editor’s note: This article contains mentions of rape and incest, which some readers may find disturbing to read about.

In the wake of the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a near-total ban on abortion on Tuesday, the Flagstaff Abortion Alliance (FAA) assembled a rally outside Flagstaff City Hall on Friday. 

The 160-year-old ban predated Arizona’s statehood, in a time when women did not have the right to vote, slavery was not yet abolished and the age of consent was 10 years old.

​The FAA encouraged people in the crowd to sign the Arizona Abortion Access Act (AAA) — a petition to amend the 1864 constitutional law and establish the right to an abortion and individual autonomy.

“We need to get people mad again, getting people to sign the petition,” Shapiro said. “We need to have an overwhelming number of petitions signed.”

The organizers look to secure double the number of signatures required — a total of 750,000 — to put abortion rights on the ballot. That way, it is “harder for the opposition to fight back,” Shapiro said. 

A judgment from the people
NAU PPGen President Zoya Page read off the names of the four justices who ruled in favor of reinstating the 1864 ban. The crowd erupted in booing and expletives after each name.

“Justice Bolick lives down the street from me back home,” Page said. “I went to school with his kids, and he came in for my career day at my elementary school. I looked up to him and trusted his best interest. 

“And now, he agreed to take away my rights to have autonomy over my own body, with no exceptions. This hurts a lot. My heart hurts.”

Justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn H. King — two of the judges who were for the ban — are up for retention come November, allowing citizens to vote on their return to office. The FAA encouraged everyone in attendance to exercise their right to vote and know who their lawmakers are.

​Page said the Supreme Court’s decision is not representative of Arizona voters. 

For Joan Arrow, a Flagstaff resident and NAU alum, the ruling does not reflect the state’s values.

“I think of all of the lives that are threatened, that are complicated, that are put into harm’s way,” Arrow said. “And that’s not my Arizona. My Arizona is one that rejects rulings like these.”

NAU professor of liberal studies Corina Roche-Baron looked to her family for a reason to protest. 

“We want to have a kid,” Roche-Baron said. “I want our children to have the same rights, if not better than, my mom had. I know and love people who have had abortions, it’s health care, and it’s really frustrating we have to protest.”

Her husband, Wesley, stood beside her with a sign that read: “Hot take: women shouldn’t die.”

Carolyn Kidd, who is running for the Flagstaff Unified School District Governing Board, said politics should be taken out of the home.

“This is a decision that I think should be made in the sacredness of the family, the woman, the man, the family, the church and their god and not government,” Kidd said.

Flagstaff business owner Pete Wolff expressed frustration with the ruling not allowing abortion exceptions.

“I think what Arizona legislature’s done is crazy,” Wolff said. “Can’t have a law from 1864. In today’s world, that’s just nuts … And you’ve got to allow cases for rape and incest.”

Sparse abortion care is not new to northern Arizona
Flagstaff has not provided regular abortion services since 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned. People seeking abortion care in northern Arizona have to travel for it — finding clinics in the valley willing to perform the service or out-of-state providers. 

Planned Parenthoods in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada still perform abortions and are likely to accommodate out-of-state patients. In California, clinics are prepared for an influx of out-of-state patients following the ban. 

The Guttmacher Institute, a sexual and reproductive health and rights research organization, provides a map of all United States abortion policies and access.

FAA co-founder Jasmine Viehe was another speaker at the rally. She works as the Flagstaff outreach clinical coordinator for Camelback Family Planning, an abortion care clinic in Phoenix. 

Photos taken by Sierra Schafer and Brisa Karow.

Published By: The State Press
​Author: Mia Osmonbekov

​On Monday, Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bipartisan housing bill that would have made it easier to build affordable housing by changing existing regulations that force developers to build large units on large lots. 

HB 2570, also known as the "Arizona Starter Homes Act," would prohibit municipalities from requiring homeowner associations. This would have made housing units more affordable by eliminating HOA fees. Arizona's average monthly HOA payment is $448, the second highest in the country. 

Published By: Rome News Tribune
Author: Kae Petrin
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Young adults living on or near college campuses in Arizona are disproportionately affected, and potentially disenfranchised, by the state's unique voting laws requiring documented proof of U.S. citizenship to vote in state and local elections, a Votebeat analysis found.

The laws have since 2013 been splitting the state's voters into two buckets: Those who have provided documented proof of citizenship, and those who haven't. Those who haven't are placed on a "federal-only" list, and are only permitted to vote in federal elections.