Immigrant rights advocates rally at the Arizona state Capitol on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, to protest a Tucson Democrat’s decision to back a border security funding bill. Rep. Kevin Volk, who represents a historically GOP district in southern Arizona, justified his vote for the bill, which critics have said would turn police officers into ICE agents, as fulfilling the mandate his constituents sent him to the legislature with. Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
Progressive groups that helped a moderate Democrat win a state House seat in a Republican district castigated the freshman lawmaker as “racist” for backing a bill to give money to local police to enforce immigration law and said they may work to defeat him in 2026 if he continues to support the measure.
Rep. Kevin Volk, D-Tucson, is a former teacher who narrowly captured a seat in the Arizona House of Representatives last year after mounting a campaign that opposed the “extreme” and “divisive” policies of the GOP-majority legislature.
Since the legislative session began last month, he has sought to establish himself as a moderate, and on Feb. 24, he broke party ranks by joining Republicans to approve a proposal that critics say would transform police officers into border patrol agents.
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What’s in the bill?
House Bill 2606 earmarks $50 million to fund law enforcement officers who work in drug interdiction, against human trafficking or who “deter and apprehend” people accused of crossing the state’s southern border illegally. The money would also be used to reimburse cities, counties and towns for the costs of prosecuting and detaining people accused of drug trafficking, human smuggling or immigrating without authorization.
The costs of providing public defense against those charges for people who can’t afford a lawyer, however, could not be paid from the pool of cash, even though doing so is legally required.
GOP lawmakers say the bill provides the financial backing that law enforcement officials warned them would be necessary to enforce the mandates in Proposition 314. Titled the “Secure the Border Act,” the referral made it a state crime for migrants to cross the Arizona-Mexico border anywhere but at an official port of entry. After 63% of Arizonans in November voted to approve the referral, lawmakers returned to the legislature in January intent on providing the funding they had failed to secure initially — despite the fact that using taxpayer money from the state’s general fund to pay for a proposal that increases state spending violates the Arizona Constitution and will likely lead to a lawsuit that could nullify Prop. 314.
Critics fear AZ police will ‘turn into ICE agents’
Opponents of the proposal urged lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee on Feb. 24 to reject it, arguing that awarding law enforcement agencies money to take on immigration enforcement duties primes them for carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Although it has been sold by Republicans as limited to actions taken under the directives of Prop. 314, critics say it’s so broadly written as to greenlight any move to enforce federal immigration laws.
Crystal Padilla, a member of Unite Here Local 11, a pro-immigrant group that regularly mobilizes on behalf of Democratic candidates, said she fears paying police officers to get involved in immigration enforcement will result in the rampant racial profiling that occurred while SB1070, the state’s notorious “show me your papers” was still in effect. Padilla shared that, as a child living near Sierra Vista, a town just 15 miles north of Mexico, she witnessed her family members suffer repeated discrimination because of SB1070.
“Some of my earliest memories were being pulled over by Border Patrol over and over again,” she said. “My uncle is a citizen, and he was harassed by Border Patrol and local law enforcement just based on the color of his skin. He was even wrongfully imprisoned twice.”
Padilla warned that funding Arizona law enforcement agencies to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally would jeopardize the due process rights of thousands, no matter their citizenship status.
“HB2606 would spend 50 million taxpayer dollars to turn local police into ICE agents and result in the over-policing of communities of color and immigrants,” she said.
Volk joins GOP to fulfill voter mandates
In the end, 11 Republicans and Volk cast their votes in favor of the bill, saying it’s necessary to ensure that law enforcement officials have sufficient funding to meet the demands placed on them by the state and to keep Arizonans safe from crimes committed at the southern border. The remaining six Democrats on the panel voted against the bill.
Volk said his constituents were overwhelmingly in favor of Prop. 314, and that his vote acknowledged their mandate to strengthen border security. But he noted that he also believes in the need for comprehensive immigration reform, and called on the federal government to take action to preserve legal immigration.
“People want our border to be well managed, and they want a hardline for bad actors — especially dangerous criminals,” he said. “And the majority of us want an efficient, orderly process for legal immigration for those who are seeking a better life.”
The Tucson Democrat pointed out that the requirements in Prop. 314 for state police officers and Arizona judges to arrest and deport people convicted of unlawfully crossing the border have been enshrined in state law by voters, and police departments will need money to implement the initiative if it ever becomes enforceable. Currently, the provision governing Arizona’s involvement in immigration adjudication is frozen until the U.S. Supreme Court deems a near-identical law in Texas constitutional, or overturns its 2012 ruling against Arizona’s SB1070, which concluded that the enforcement of immigration laws is under the sole purview of the federal government.
This bill is a way to get much needed resources to supplement public safety.
– Rep. Kevin Volk, D-Tucson
Like Republicans on the panel, Volk defended the bill against concerns it will result in discrimination by saying the funding is intended only for law enforcement decisions prompted by Prop. 314’s mandates. And, Volk claimed, the voter-approved law sufficiently addresses the situations under which police officers can arrest a person they suspect of having crossed the border without authorization.
A provision in the referral states that arrests can only occur if a law enforcement officer witnesses a person crossing the southern border anywhere but at an official port of entry, there was a video recording of the unauthorized crossing or under “other constitutionally sufficient indicia of probable cause.” Uncertainty about what the third option entails was the source of fierce opposition from Democrats when the measure was debated last year. They worried it could open the door to racial profiling, especially given that the referral includes an immunity clause shielding police officers from liability in lawsuits that may arise from decisions made while enforcing Prop. 314.
Volk acknowledged that “constitutionally sufficient indicia” is vague, but said the threat of costly lawsuits should prevent law enforcement agencies from violating the constitutional rights of Arizonans.
“We see that here in Maricopa County, where the bill is just passing $300 million in settlements,” he said, citing the ongoing legal and compliance costs associated with a federal judge’s order that the county’s sheriff’s department overhaul its policies after it was found to have engaged in rampant racial profiling under the leadership of Joe Arpaio.
“This bill is a way to get much needed resources to supplement public safety,” Volk concluded.
Pro-immigrant groups rally against Volk, other Dems who vote for GOP border policies
Hours after Volk voted to pass HB2606 — the second time he’s approved the bill since it was first introduced — dozens of pro-immigrant advocates and members of progressive organizations gathered outside the state Capitol to vow electoral retribution if he continues to back the bill.
It’s next slated to go before the full House of Representatives for consideration.
Cries of “Republicans say go away, we say no way!” and “Volk, Volk you can’t hide, we can see your racist side!” echoed between the two legislative buildings as protestors marched behind a large green banner denouncing Volk for siding with “AZ MAGA” politicians.
Xenia Orona, the executive director of the Fuerte Arts Movement, which helped design and paint the banner, criticized Volk for what she viewed as abandoning immigrants and Latino Arizonans.
“Kevin Volk sold out our communities by giving money to the poli-migra,” she yelled to loud jeering from the crowd, using the Mexican slang term for close cooperation between local police and ICE.
Orona, who has been an activist since the days of SB1070 and was among those who mobilized to recall its sponsor, Sen. Russell Pearce, said progressive groups canvassed on behalf of Volk, and his vote on Monday left them feeling betrayed.
“We helped him get into office and he sold us out,” she said.
Gina Mendez, the organizing director for Living United for Change in Arizona, lambasted the GOP majority for continuing to advance anti-immigrant proposals.
Emboldened by Trump’s vow to oversee a mass deportation campaign and the passage of Prop. 314, Republicans in Arizona have introduced nearly a dozen such bills, including a bid to force law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration officials and another to transform police departments and sheriff’s offices into bounty hunting agencies by awarding them $2,500 for each arrest that leads to a deportation.
Mendez called the bills an “attack” on working and minority Arizonans, and criticized Volk for backing one of them, leading the crowd in a “Vote out Volk!” chant.
She warned that any Democrat who crosses party lines to support discriminatory legislation would face repercussions from progressive groups that mobilize voters. LUCHA has long been involved in canvassing voters for Democratic candidates, and was part of a coalition last year that knocked on 1 million doors to encourage voters to back pro-reproductive rights candidates.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to have to do with him and any Democrat who uses our people to get votes and uses our people as a sacrifice to get bills in,” Mendez said, after the chants to vote Volk out died down.
We helped him get into office and he sold us out.
– Xenia Orona, Fuerte Arts Movement executive director
Raquel Terán, a former state senator and current director of Proyecto Progreso, said that allocating funding for border security initiatives necessarily reduces the amount of money that could be spent advancing initiatives that could help improve the lives of all Arizonans.
“The more resources that are given to implement immigration laws, the more is taken away from schools, from public services that are needed — it takes away from things that move Arizona forward,” she said.
Terán, an activist-turned-politician who went on to serve in both legislative chambers and was the head of the Arizona Democratic Party from 2021 through 2023, waved off the political reality that Volk faces in a heavily Republican district. The solution is not balancing votes, she said, but rather “sticking to Democratic values,” which includes standing with immigrant communities, not supporting proposals that could lead to racial profiling.
While Terán was critical of Volk’s choice to stand with Republicans on the issue, she said she’s optimistic that the bill will eventually meet Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen.
Hobbs has been vocally opposed to Trump’s mass deportation plans and proposals in Arizona that seek to ramp up the prosecution of undocumented Arizonans. And while the Democrat prefers addressing border security by increasing the funding for law enforcement agencies and communities along the border, even bills that Republicans have sought to frame as doing so have met her ire.
A spokesman for her office said that there was “no way in hell” she would sign a bill awarding law enforcement agencies $2,500 for every arrest that leads to a deportation that was touted by Republicans, in part, as aiming to financially enable law enforcement officials to keep communities safe.
Still, with the 2026 election looming and amid attacks that she’s soft on the border from Republicans, Hobbs has recently shifted to the right on immigration policy.
In January, she took to social media to applaud the passage of the Laken Riley Act in Congress. The new federal law, which prompted criticism from immigrant rights advocates, mandates the indefinite detention, without bail, of undocumented people who are accused of low-level crimes like shoplifting even before they’ve been convicted.
Hobbs’ praise raised alarms among immigrant advocates, who fear it’s a sign the Democrat might be willing to approve some hostile border security bills at the state level. A spokesman for her office didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the governor’s stance on the bill.
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