A judge rejected a lawsuit against a GOP Arizona ballot referral that would make it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border and empower local police officers to arrest them, clearing it to go before voters in November, the Arizona Mirror reports. Late Friday, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Minder threw out the legal challenge against the “Secure the Border Act” that sought to keep it off the ballot, writing that the act complies with the Arizona Constitution’s single subject rule. Arizona Republicans have repeatedly touted the “Secure the Border Act,” as a solution in an election year when the border has risen to the top of voter concerns for the first time in five years. Arizona ballot measures can only be challenged on their form before voters consider them in an election. A violation of the single-subject rule was among the few legal avenues to prevent the act from making it onto the ballot. Challenges based on the act’s content can’t be launched until after voters have had a say.
That includes a lawsuit over the act’s lack of allocated funding. The Arizona Constitution requires ballot proposals that are likely to incur state spending to make up for that cost. Despite law enforcement and government officials warning of just that during the act’s passage through the legislature, GOP lawmakers refused to account for it. Alejandra Gomez of a Latino advocacy group denounced the act as “stop and frisk on steroids” and said Minder’s ruling sets a “dangerous” precedent. She warned that if the act, titled Prop. 314, makes it onto the November ballot, "many Arizonans will be disproportionately targeted and subjected to suspicion and persecution. This discriminatory legislation will lead to over-policing in every community across our state ... Arizonans, even those hundreds of miles from the border, will be under the intense scrutiny of law enforcement. A routine traffic stop could quickly escalate into an inquiry about citizenship status and possible detainment based solely on the color of your skin and your last name.” Critics have compared the act to SB1070, Arizona’s notorious “show me your papers law” that led to rampant racial profiling after it empowered local police officers to question the citizenship status of Arizonans during routine traffic stops.
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