Arizonans Approve Police Arrests of Illegal Entrants, Right to Abortion

Two controversial ballot initiatives concerning illegal immigration and abortion easily passed at the ballot box on Nov. 5 with broad support from voters.

Proposition 314, a statutory amendment referred by the Arizona Legislature, prohibits illegal immigrants from entering the state directly from a foreign country at any location other than a lawful port of entry.

The law effectively empowers Arizona law enforcement officers to arrest illegal immigrants. It also bars illegal immigrants from knowingly submitting false documents to apply for public benefits or a job and makes it a class 2 felony for an adult to knowingly sell fentanyl that later causes the death of another person.

The proposition needed only a simple majority to pass and coasted to victory with 63 percent of the vote. Its success comes as Arizona has effectively become ground zero for the nation’s border crisis.

In fiscal year 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector in Arizona reported more than 463,000 encounters with illegal immigrants—the highest total among all nine sectors.

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In a 62–38 vote, the state approved a citizen-led initiative to establish a constitutional right to abortion through fetal viability, and when a “health care professional” deems it necessary to protect the mother’s life or health.

Proposition 139 also bars the state from penalizing anyone who assists a woman in obtaining an abortion.

At present, abortion is legal in Arizona through 15 weeks of pregnancy, though the issue has been a matter of contention in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, which overturned the federal right to abortion.

The ruling gave way to a court battle in the state over the enforcement of a near-total abortion ban dating back to 1864. After the Arizona Supreme Court ruled in April that the law could be enforced, state lawmakers voted to repeal it.

Arizonans for Abortion Access, the group that put forward the new amendment, applauded voters’ decision to adopt it.

Opponents of the measure argued that the inclusion of an exception for the mother’s general “health” could be interpreted to authorize late-term abortions for virtually any reason. They also held that it would prohibit health and safety regulations to protect women and minors while removing licensed physicians from the equation.

By the morning of Nov. 6, a petition was already circulating online asking Arizona state senators to either repeal the amendment or enact new legislation to “help decrease the actual number of abortions performed in our state.”