State Senate President Warren Petersen speaking with the media outside the Arizona House of Representatives at the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona. January 13, 2025.
An Arizona Senate committee Monday advanced a bill that would compel local law enforcement to support federal immigration authorities.
The Republican-backed “Arizona ICE Act” would also allow state-shared revenues to be withheld from cities and towns that restrict law enforcement cooperation with immigration agencies. And it would require county sheriffs to comply with immigration detainer requests.
Senate President Warren Petersen said in order for law enforcement to honor an immigration detainer, they will hold someone for up to 48 hours after they were supposed to be released.
“If you have somebody who's committed a state crime that you will honor an ICE detainer," he said during a committee hearing. "What we don't want is for somebody to be released. We have seen this in other states where people have been released back into the community knowing that they had just committed a crime and they were not here legally.”
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has already said his department will not hold someone in a county jail for immigration purposes, above and beyond the crime that led to their arrest.
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