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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn to Arizona, where voters on Election Day approved a sweeping ballot measure that would allow state and local law enforcement to arrest immigrants suspected of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border outside ports of entry, while empowering state judges to order deportations.
The new law, which creates a series of state crimes targeting immigrants, is modeled after a similar measure in Texas known as S.B. 4 that’s currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Only certain portions of Prop 314 are scheduled to go into effect later this month, while the most harmful parts of the new law won’t be enforced until the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of Texas’s S.B. 4. The measure has drawn comparisons to Arizona’s controversial S.B. 1070, the 2010 law that also gave local police authority to arrest immigrants suspected of being documented. S.B. 1070 was largely struck down by the Supreme Court.
While over 60% of Arizona’s voters backed the anti-immigrant measure, a separate historic initiative also passed by a landslide, enshrining the right to an abortion in Arizona’s Constitution. Donald Trump won the presidential race in Arizona, getting 52% of the vote, but Arizonans also elected Democrat Rubén Gallego, who beat the Republican Trump ally Kari Lake in a closely watched Senate race.
For more on all this, we go to Tucson, Arizona, where we’re joined by Alejandra Pablos, longtime reproductive and immigrant justice community organizer, targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for her pro-choice activism and faced deportation proceedings for over a decade.
We welcome you back, Alejandra, to Democracy Now! So, if you can explain what’s going on in Arizona right now, votes for the anti-immigrant bill and for the pro-abortion bill, votes for the Democrat Gallego and for Trump?
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: Thank you, Amy. Thank you, Democracy Now!, for having me back. It’s a pleasure. Thank you to all our friends and organizers who are resisting every day.
It’s a lot that you’re bringing up. It’s chaotic, I know. Just to be in my body every day, it’s super, super traumatic. As someone who’s been fighting detention, deportation, have been sharing my story of having abortions, of being incarcerated, I definitely feel the chills. I’ve been under technological surveillance, retaliation. I’ve been doxxed. I cannot say that I don’t feel the chills.
But I also know that we’ve been here before. I also know that for a long time we’ve been moving to the right, people say to the center, on immigration. But really, voters voted for this because they called it a border security issue. And that’s not really what it was. It is a racial profiling, right? It is a way to distort criminal charges already and use them for immigration. It is a way to use our state resources to already scare and make our people more desperate.
What we want is a stable economy, an economy that has dignity and prosperity for all of us working people, migrant people, racialized people. And I think there’s just a lot of confusion, a lot of rhetoric, because, again, we are — all of us are not having our basic needs met.
I think in a moment where Gallego wins, beats Kari Lake, but Trump wins, it is chaotic. There’s a lot of nuance to that, right? People are not going to vote for a woman, either, so the misogyny is just, like, right in front of our face.
I am so glad that, you know, Prop 139, the ballot measure for abortion access, passed. But still it is not enough. It is another state-based Roe v. Wade, which we know is going to be attacked still.
And it’s really unfortunate to be right now in this moment, having to organize with familias, having to organize rapid response networks, committee — defenses of committee working with people on the ground, trying to inform folks on their rights and what they could do to protect each other, because for a long time we’ve been doing that. You know, a lot of us cannot trust the police. We see the harms of police and ICE collaboration.
And I think the administration right now can do so much more to protect me and other people, activists who have been speaking out. You know, last time when Trump came into his presidency, he immediately deported and targeted Maru for her activism — right? — [inaudible] La Resistencia, shut down Northwest Detention Center. And we don’t know who they’re going to be targeting immediately, right? Myself with my deportation case, I’m still in limbo. And I know the administration right now can do more. They can close cases. They can, you know, stop using technological tech to give it to ICE to start targeting and deporting us.
So, there’s just so much right now that we need to talk about. And unfortunately, the Democratic Party didn’t do enough to be the opposite of Trump — right? — show us an opposite to division that Trump is giving us. So —
AMY GOODMAN: And yet Gallego won.
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: — yeah, everybody, pray for us.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, Alejandra, Rubén Gallego won. He’ll be the first Latino senator representing Arizona.
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: Yeah, and I want to be careful that, you know, not just being Latino represents us. I love that Rubén Gallego is now my new target and our new target. We expect Rubén Gallego to do a lot to protect people in Arizona and to fight for people. And we will be holding him accountable, absolutely.
AMY GOODMAN: So, then, explain Prop 314, that did get voted for, how it’s divided in two parts. Part of it goes into effect soon, and the other part the Supreme Court has to weigh in.
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: Yeah, I mean, this is a copycat of what’s happening in Texas, in Texas, S.B. 4, right? Those really punitive measures, I think, are still being reviewed at the Supreme Court, but we also know who and what the Supreme Court is made of, and it’s not a friend of ours. We’ve been seeing the Supreme Court also moving more to the right, taking away our rights. So, we see that it is going to pass. And like you’re saying, there will be already, as soon as the end of November, many of these parts of the Prop 314 actually going into effect, which is attacking benefits, right?
Really, again, the fear has already been inflicted now, whether this passes, some of it doesn’t, you know? The fear is already there. And also, the conflict between even families — right? — that sometimes we see people voting for Trump. That means you’re voting against us, right? So, I’m, myself, trying to give everyone a little bit more grace because of how desperate and how our communities right now all want safety and an economy that is really for the people and not for the rich and for Trump’s friends.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Alejandra, explain your own situation as a pro-abortion activist. You’ve felt targeted and were detained.
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: Yeah. I think, again, people who are speaking out are the first to feel the chills. I’ve been doxxed by, you know, local vigilantes and local just activists who want to see me deported, who want to see me be separated from my family. So, me speaking out, and I think right now even though it is a risk, but what we will not do is go back into the shadows. What we will not do is stop loving on one another. And we’re going to continue to organize.
I think right now, again, the important demands are that the administration right now can start closing cases. I, myself, and many other people are just waiting on paperwork, have tried to reopen their cases to terminate so we do not go into deportation proceedings under yet another administration that’s super violent against immigration. And so, I think, again, doing more right now is what’s important. The most vulnerable folks, like trans folks, that need to be having their cases terminated so we do not feel those attacks yet again.
AMY GOODMAN: And you’re talking about the federal government.
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: So we need to protect activists right now.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re talking about federal government, President Biden, weighing in at this point, before President Trump takes office? If you can talk about the demands of the community and the organizing? Because we’re not talking about future militarization of the border, though it certainly will be more; it’s currently, where you are in Tucson, Arizona, seriously militarized.
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: Absolutely. You know, I’m also a coordinator with the Dignity Not Detention Coalition in California. And we just actually took a — we went to all the different detention centers in California. There are still seven, although there were 16, and people organizing there have shut them down. But we also traveled to Whiskey 8, which is an open-air detention center. And our colleagues there have been supporting people and making sure that those people have what they need.
And it is getting really, really hostile at the border, right? They’re going to continue building that wall. They’re going to continue to have people just outside, pushing people outside of the ports of entry to ask for asylum, right? That’s what’s already happening, and that’s what they’re threatening to do more of.
So, we’re really seeing that, again, the most impacted people are coming from — where we’re denying migration is as African countries, South and Central America and Southeast Asian. And we really need to, again, show up for those folks and really be ready to welcome folks. It’s really unfortunate that also in Tucson we’re talking about not supporting people that are coming, not supporting refugees. The sentiment of, like, “close the door behind me,” that’s our job right now to fight and to talk about all of us need our basic necessities met.
And also, it’s really irresponsible that we don’t talk about what the U.S. government and policies have been doing to cause people to migrate. A lot of people have been coming because, again, we have intervened and we have really criminalized and created police and more prisons in other countries. And we have to really understand, like, we can’t be forcing people out, when literally this could be a safe haven for a lot of people and we’re reuniting with our family members.
And like it was said previously, we’re going to be separated from our families. There are going to be children that are U.S. citizens that are going to be also impacted. I think the workers are going to be impacted the most, as well. In Tucson, Arizona, we’re working with the Southside Workers. Derechos Humanos is organizing familias — right? — to just even share information.
We want to be able to also spend the holidays with our families, but instead we have to organize forums. We have to start writing — you know, protecting our property and writing papers for notary to protect. Like, it’s a lot of things we have to do, and we don’t want to do that. That’s really unfortunate that Trump is going to continue this rhetoric and continue to put us on high crisis alert.
AMY GOODMAN: Alejandra —
ALEJANDRA PABLOS: Super traumatic. My 3-year-old — my 3-year-old nephew said, “What? Trump? Trump is going to be mean to people.” Three-year-old kids are knowing what the trauma is like, you know? And, like, that’s what we’re going to grow up, little bodies being traumatized by racism.
AMY GOODMAN: Alejandra Pablos, I want to thank you for being with us, reproductive justice community organizer and storyteller based in Tucson, Arizona, targeted by ICE herself for her activism and faced deportation proceedings for over a decade.
Coming up, we look at Trump’s pick to head the EPA, former New York Congressmember Lee Zeldin, long opposed environmental regulations. They’re also talking about moving the EPA out of Washington. People say it’s not a relocation, it’s a decapitation. Stay with us.
