TUCSON—Braving triple-digit temperatures Friday, over 120 people rallied and marched in Tucson against racist ballot propositions and the increase in racist anti-immigrant media attacks by ultra-right Republicans during the 2024 election campaign.
Marchers walked from the Josefina Ahumada Workers’ Center to a rally at Armory Park and from there to El Presidio Park for another rally with Tucson Mayor Regina Romero. Action sponsors included the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Arizona’s Jobs with Justice Coalition, Tucson’s Stop the Hate Collective, and other local groups.
Arizona’s racist anti-immigrant Proposition 314 is garnering broad opposition across the state. The proposition, named “Secure the Border Act” by Arizona’s GOP-controlled legislature, was placed on the ballot to encourage a turnout of far-right racist voters who they hope will also vote for Trump and other MAGA candidates.
It is also intended to instill fear in immigrant and border communities, promote racial profiling, and enable racist over-policing of particular communities.
Prop 314 is just another version of the draconian racist “Show me your papers” SB 1070, which was passed by the legislature in 2010 in defiance of mass opposition inside the state and calls to boycott Arizona from across the country. Most of SB 1070 was eventually struck down as unconstitutional by state and federal courts, but now the Republicans are at it again.
If passed, Prop 314 will allow local police to arrest people they suspect of crossing the border “illegally” between ports of entry if these people cannot prove citizenship or legal residency. “Anybody suspected” usually means anybody brown or Black, including Arizona’s large Mexican American population and Indigenous Americans whose families have lived here for thousands of years.
The proposition has no provision regulating how the cops can determine who can be stopped and asked for documents.
It has been criticized by Arizona’s two Catholic bishops, faith leaders of many denominations, the Arizona Education Association, AFL-CIO, Democratic elected officials, and law enforcement officials from border communities.
Speaking at the Tucson rally, organizer Isabel Garcia pointed out that “it’s our government’s anti-human policies of supporting wars, economic sanctions, and climate change that drives people to immigrate.”
Arizona Jobs with Justice leader Steven Valencia encouraged an organized fight to defeat Prop 314 and emphasized that working people who may not have the right to vote still have the power of the labor movement.
Other speakers stressed the danger Prop 314 poses for the U.S. economy, which needs an increase in labor supply and not destabilizing roundups of workers.
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