In the early morning hours of June 30, Ricky E. Miller Sr. was shot while sitting inside his truck in Tucson. The 69-year-old later died from his injuries. Pima County prosecutors quickly got to work building a case against the suspect, Julio Cesar Aguirre, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico.

But two weeks later, that case is at risk of never being heard. Just days after his arrest by local law enforcement, federal officials abruptly transported Aguirre out of the county and have since refused to return him for trial. County prosecutors are warning it could negatively impact the state’s case against Aguirre, and are concerned the Trump administration may deport him.

The case is one in a growing number that highlights the impact of the federal government’s mass deportation campaign on local justice systems. At the same time that the Trump administration brags about expelling the “worst of the worst” — despite crystal clear evidence to the contrary — prosecutors and judges across the country have been forced to shelve cases and drop charges against people accused of violent crimes after they or key witnesses were deported.

In Tucson, the Pima County Attorney’s Office filed a criminal complaint against Aguirre that detailed 14 charges, including first-degree murder and six counts of aggravated assault. The federal complaint, meanwhile, only accuses Aguirre of three felony charges: attempted carjacking, the use and discharge of a firearm during a violent crime, and alien possession of a firearm.

On Thursday, hours after federal prosecutors informed her office that they wouldn’t be facilitating Aguirre’s appearance at any hearings except for one initial appearance at state court, Pima County Attorney Laura Conover said she’s willing to sue the federal government to ensure the county’s prosecution can actually happen.

Custody fight puts case in jeopardy

At an apartment complex in midtown Tucson, Aguirre was seen by witnesses threatening to shoot Miller if he didn’t turn over his keys. Aguirre, 42, shot Miller and then fled to a nearby home, where he once again attempted to intimidate the residents into giving him their car, according to the Tucson Police Department. Eventually, Aguirre was found hiding in a nearby storage shed and was taken to the hospital to treat injuries he obtained while fleeing.

While Aguirre recuperated, Pima County prosecutors began constructing their case. During the course of the investigation, the federal government revealed that Aguirre was in the country without documentation, had been arrested more than 10 times between 2007 and 2013 for “immigration-related crimes” and had been deported in 2013.

According to a timeline posted to social media by the Pima County Attorney’s Office, federal prosecutors agreed at a June 2 meeting that Aguirre would remain in the county’s custody to face a first-degree murder charge. Federal officials would be given access to Aguirre to pursue federal charges.

But that understanding was upended later that day, when federal officials instead took custody of Aguirre and transported him overnight from the hospital to a federal detention center in Florence, in neighboring Pinal County.

When Conover’s office reached out to request Aguirre be returned, federal officials appeared cooperative at first, but quickly began to delay sending him back. On Wednesday, the Pima County Attorney’s Office once again requested Aguirre’s return, saying a preliminary hearing to preserve the testimony of three victims in their 70s who were held at gunpoint was needed. On Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office denied that request.

In an emailed statement, Esther J. Winnie, the executive assistant U.S. attorney for Arizona, dismissed Conover’s description of events as false, but refused to offer another explanation.

“Our office has a significant federal interest in this matter,” she wrote. “The press release from the Pima County Attorney mischaracterizes the situation. However, we have no intent to engage in an exchange with the County Attorney via the media.”

In a virtual news conference on Thursday afternoon, Conover called the process “completely abnormal” and accused federal officials of exploiting the case for “political gain.” The Democrat, who has been fiercely critical of Trump, lambasted the decision to deny the county access to Aguirre as contrary to justice, flying in the face of what voters want and undermining the Trump administration’s purported commitment to eradicating crime.

“This new federal administration said that they were going to go after aliens with a criminal background. That people who had caused harm in our community should be removed immediately and have no authority to be here,” she said. “That was something that voters got behind and agreed to. Never did they tell us that we were going to deprive local residents of justice.”

But she said she wouldn’t be deterred and that her office is exploring what legal avenues are available to ensure Aguirre faces the 14 charges in Pima County. One of those options, she said, may be taking the fight to federal court.

“We want indeed to have a fair trial someday,” she said. “It seems like ‘someday’ is sort of the operative word right now.”

Conover noted that the charges initiated by federal prosecutors aren’t sufficient to ensure justice for everyone involved. The federal complaint doesn’t include a homicide charge. And Aguirre pointed a gun at several people that day who are covered in the criminal complaint under aggravated assault charges.

“We were trying to warn the feds that it needed to go in the direction of the state first and the federal government later, because once we had their criminal complaint in hand — the criminal complaint is about a carjacking with use of a firearm, and then it’s about possession of that firearm,” she said.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

On the same day that a white supremacy aligned university club encouraged students to report their classmates to ICE, hundreds of Arizona State University Sun Devils responded by marching in support of their undocumented classmates.

Crowds of students waving Mexican flags and posters with supportive messages, including “Education not deportation” and “Stand with ASU Dreamers,” surrounded a small gathering of College Republicans United at Hayden Library as they held up their own signs with information on how to tip off immigration officials about classmates suspected of being in the country illegally.

Loud shouts of “Down with deportation!”” and “No hate, no fear, everyone is welcome here!” resounded throughout the campus.

Earlier this week, College Republicans United announced on social media that it would staff a table at the university’s central building to provide information on how to file reports against classmates believed to be undocumented, including recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — people with temporary authorization who wouldn’t be subject to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.

The student organization has frequently courted scandal, inviting Jared Taylor, a white nationalist who espouses racist talking points to speak in 2022. The new event spurred immediate backlash from immigration advocates, who slammed the move as likely to encourage racial discrimination.

Reyna Montoya, the founder and CEO of Aliento, a local organization that serves DACA and other undocumented youth, criticized the event as a bid to instill fear in students without legal status who are simply trying to get an education, and called on protestors to respond with activism.

“They wanted to intimidate students,” she shouted through a bullhorn as march attendees took a short break. “They wanted to ensure that they don’t get their degrees, and the best way to fight back is with love, with compassion — and by getting an education!”

The group made several circuits around Hayden Library and the nearby Memorial Union, with the intent of letting Dreamer students who might be listening to their chants know that they “are not alone,” before settling in front of the union to hear speeches.

Ayla Moreno stumbled on the protest by accident and quickly joined it. She listened to the speeches with tears streaming down her face, and when she noticed some of her white classmates in the crowd, she ran up to them and thanked them for their participation.

Moreno said she’s struggled with all the anti-immigrant news in the past few weeks since Trump took office, and hearing about students who vocally advocated for helping deport Latino students at her school was especially painful. Her paternal grandparents immigrated to the country from Chihuahua, Mexico, many years ago, and she said they would be astonished by the vitriol.

“They never would have expected this to happen,” she said, still wiping away tears. “I didn’t think we’d go back in time like this.”

But, she added, she was reassured by the fact that so many showed up to the protest, and that pro-immigrant advocates outnumbered the few handful of representatives from College Republicans United.

“It’s clear that there are a lot more people here, than there are against us,” Moreno said.

Nineteen-year-old Sharik Luengas, wrapped up in a Colombian flag, said it “baffled” her that anyone would be willing to call ICE on their fellow classmates. She said the news angered her as the first generation child of immigrants, and spurred her to join the march.

“Any chance I have to speak up for my family, I will,” she said.

Jesus Verdini also wore a flag to the protest, one that was half of the American flag and half of the Mexican flag, in acknowledgement of both his heritage and his U.S. citizenship. He said he was disappointed that ASU allowed the anti-immigrant event to go on, and that students just trying to get an education and help their families succeed had to deal with hostility just steps away from their classrooms. He added that he’s concerned about the risk of racial profiling, saying that there’s no way to know a person’s immigration status from just looking at them.

“You don’t know who is or isn’t an immigrant,” he said. “Immigrants are just normal people. And it’s so unjust and racist that people are allowed to discriminate against them like this.”

In a press release, ASU denounced the College Republicans United event, but said that it could not prevent it from taking place without violating free speech protections. One journalist reported that only four of the people at CRU’s event were students at ASU; they were joined by prominent white nationalist advocates.

“Encouraging ASU students to make indiscriminate complaints to law enforcement about fellow students is not in keeping with the principles which underlie our academic community,” reads the statement. “We are here to teach and learn — not to engage in self-aggrandizing conduct meant solely to generate as much media attention and controversy as possible. But we must also recognize that we live in a country that protects individual free speech, even speech that is hurtful.”

Just three years ago, the university was designated a Hispanic-serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education, in recognition of its high rate of Hispanic student enrollment and opening it up to new federal funding. For the fall 2021 semester, the university’s Hispanic student enrollment was over 30,200. And that number is only expected to keep growing after Arizona voters approved in-state tuition for Dreamers in 2022.

Aliento at ASU, the student-run chapter of the larger statewide organization, drafted a letter to ASU administration officials demanding that ICE officials be prohibited from stepping foot on campus without a judicial warrant, that school administrators ensure student clubs don’t violate guidelines and assurances that students won’t be targeted by their peers without consequences and that all students can fully participate in academic activities without fear of harassment. According to Emily Sotelo, the co-chair of Aliento at ASU, the letter has so far garnered more than 4,000 student signatures. All students, regardless of their legal status, Sotelo said at the march, deserve to seek an education without fear.

“Whether they’re Dreamers or they have DACA, and they’re pursuing an education and they want to be here, they have the right to be here just like everybody else,” she said.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

The far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus set a contentious tone for the start of the new legislative session, vowing to unseat the state’s three top Democrats in the next election and making clear that is the top priority for the group as lawmakers return to work.

“The single most important task that we will work on over the coming two years that will produce the greatest positive benefit for the people of Arizona possible is our effort to fire Katie Hobbs, Kris Mayes and Adrian Fontes in the 2026 election,” Sen. Jake Hoffman, R-Queen Creek, the group’s chairman, said during a news conference highlighting its priorities on Monday morning.

The 2024 general election saw Arizona’s Republican majority expand its influence in both legislative chambers, gaining an extra seat in the state House of Representatives and two more in the Senate, despite an aggressive campaign from Democrats to topple the party from power. That success has emboldened conservatives who were bracing for an electoral sweep and inspired a bid to recapture the statewide seats lost three years ago.

Hoffman said Hobbs’ administration has been detrimental for Arizonans, singling out an executive order she issued in 2023 protecting the right of trans state employees to obtain gender-affirming surgeries and another move to pause new construction in the Valley — that would affect Queen Creek, which Hoffman represents — to help conserve groundwater. He criticized providing health care to transgender state employees as wasting taxpayer dollars.

The Freedom Caucus has been at the forefront of anti-LGBTQ legislation, with top members sponsoring legislation to criminalize drag shows and restrict the behavior of trans students.

Hoffman also lambasted the governor for her record-shattering vetoes of Republican bills, saying that the results of the 2024 election proved Arizona voters want the party’s proposals to be implemented.

“The 2024 election was the capstone of two hard-slinging years of political battle,” he said. “And it was the overwhelmingly positive electoral results that prove Republicans and the conservative agenda that we’ve pursued is winning.”

But while Republicans tout a mandate from Arizona voters, the reality may be more complex. Along with expanding the GOP’s legislative hold, voters also rejected Kari Lake, the party’s pick for U.S. Senate, and threw out seven of the eleven referrals Republican lawmakers sent to the ballot.

Hoffman waved away the fact that not all of the party’s requests were approved by voters, saying that the approval of two main goals — passing a border security measure and defeating the threat of ranked choice voting — constitutes a mandate.

Proposition 314, the GOP’s Secure the Border Act, which includes a provision that would give local police officers and state judges the power to arrest and deport migrants, won more than 60% of the vote.

The failure of Proposition 140, the Make Elections Fair AZ Act, which sought to overhaul the state’s primary elections and could have led to ranked-choice voting in some instances, is also counted as a win for the conservative agenda by Republican lawmakers, who campaigned against the proposal.

And while friction with Hobbs’ administration is inevitable — Hoffman heads the Senate committee that oversees her nominations for agency directors and which he said on Monday it will continue to weed out “radical partisans and puppets for the far left special interests who are controlling Katie Hobbs’ political agenda” — it’s unclear whether the caucus will work in step with the Republican majority, either. Hoffman said his caucus will seek to support the party’s goals, but its main focus is to ensure the “most conservative agenda” wins out.

“Sometimes we work in tandem, sometimes we have to pull them along,” he said.

Even with an expanded majority, the GOP’s hold on the legislature remains slim and the party can’t afford to lose votes without Democratic backing, which is rarely in supply with the two often at loggerheads. In the past, the Freedom Caucus has capitalized on that political reality to leverage its policy priorities, complicating negotiations over transportation taxes, threatening to hold public education funding hostage and even influencing procedural legislative rules.

For now, however, the group’s goals align with the Republican majority’s plan. Hoffman said the caucus will push for the implementation of the Secure the Border Act, support the federal deportation efforts of the incoming Trump administration, and propose ways to speed up and increase the security of the state’s election systems, which conservative politicians believe, without proof, to be vulnerable.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

Arizona’s Democratic U.S. senators and Gov. Katie Hobbs are joining Republicans in backing legislation that would require federal officials to jail immigrants, including asylum seekers and DACA recipients, for non-violent crimes like shoplifting — even before they’ve been proven guilty.

Under the Laken Riley Act, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would be forced to detain people without citizenship status who are accused of, charged with or convicted of burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting.

The legislation is named after the Georgia nursing student who was killed in February 2024 by Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra. Republicans have seized on Riley’s murder to advocate for harsh immigration policies, and have touted the act as a preventative measure. In 2023, Ibarra and his brother received citations for shoplifting.

Immigrant rights organizations and Democratic leaders in Congress have sounded the alarm over the proposal, which they say unfairly targets people who have yet to be convicted of any wrongdoing and includes no exceptions for immigrants like DACA recipients, who have been granted a legal shield from deportation.

While the legislation failed to make it out of the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate last year, the political future of the bill is far brighter this year, evidenced by its swift movement through the U.S. House of Representatives this week. Republicans now hold slim majorities in both chambers. But Democrats, aiming to strengthen their border security bonafides to voters, have also thrown their support behind the bill. And for the bill to succeed in the upper chamber, it needs the votes of at least eight Democrats.

On Wednesday, both of the Grand Canyon State’s Democratic U.S. senators, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, issued statements saying they will vote to pass the Laken Riley Act when it goes up for debate on Friday. Gallego, whose mother is an immigrant from Colombia, has recently sought to sharpen his stance on immigration after a political career marked by staunch immigrant rights advocacy, promising to work with the incoming Trump administration despite threats of mass deportation. In a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter, he characterized the bill as a safeguard against future crimes.

“Arizonans know better than most the real consequences of today’s border crisis,” he wrote. “We must give law enforcement the means to take action to prevent tragedies like what occurred to Laken Riley.”

Along with vowing to support the passage of the bill later this week, Gallego also registered as a co-sponsor, emphasizing his approval of it. But this isn’t the first time he’s voted to back the bill. While serving as a U.S. Representative last year and in the middle of a campaign for U.S. Senate, Gallego cast his vote for the failed iteration of the Laken Riley Act.

Shortly after the freshman senator announced his support, Kelly’s spokesperson told Politico he, too, would vote to advance the bill, and added that he would continue “working with Republicans and Democrats on it and other solutions to secure the border and fix our broken immigration system”.

Just hours later, Hobbs weighed in on social media, lauding Gallego’s move.

“Thank you Senator Gallego for representing Arizona well and cosponsoring this legislation,” she wrote in a post on X. “The Laken Riley Act is an important step forward that will help keep our communities safe and secure our border.”

The praise was a stark departure from Hobbs’ time in office, where she has swiftly rejected hostile proposals from Arizona Republicans and advocated instead for increased funding for border communities and law enforcement agencies. The Democrat has also repeatedly reiterated her support for the state’s DACA and Dreamer populations, repeatedly meeting with them to hear their concerns and proposing a scholarship fund for undocumented college students in her freshman year.

Christian Slater, a spokesman for Hobbs, said that her support for DACA recipients and Dreamers remains unwavering, and dismissed concerns that the Laken Riley Act is anti-immigrant and hostile to both groups.

“(Hobbs has) made clear that she stands with DACA recipients and Dreamers. It’s something that she reiterates time and again,” Slater said, adding: “There’s a difference between Dreamers and people who are committing crimes.”

The trio weren’t the only elected officials to voice their support of the Laken Riley Act. In the lower chamber, Arizona’s six Republican U.S. Representatives voted to pass the bill on Tuesday. Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton joined them. Only newcomer Rep. Yassamin Ansari, a Democrat representing a majority Hispanic and Democratic congressional district, voted in opposition. Tucson Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva, who is battling cancer, was absent.

Immigrant advocacy rights groups across the country and in Arizona have sharply criticized the legislation. The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Congress earlier this week urging House members to vote down the act, writing that it does nothing to keep Americans safe and will only cost taxpayers money and lead to unfair arrests. And the federal government already has the power to detain any noncitizens during deportation proceedings, wrote Mike Zamore, the organization’s national director.

Instead, the legislation threatens to overburden local public safety efforts and result in unfair arrests, according to Sarah Mehta, ACLU’s senior border policy counsel.

“Mandating mass detention will make us less safe, sapping resources and diverting taxpayer money away from addressing public safety needs,” she said in a written statement. “Detaining a mother who admits to shoplifting diapers for her baby, or elderly individuals who admit to nonviolent theft when they were teenagers, is wasteful, cruel, and unnecessary.”

Noah Schramm, the border policy strategist for the Arizona branch of the ACLU, pointed out that the legislation dangerously bolsters nativist sentiment against immigrants, many of whom have lived in the state for decades.

“This bill contains dangerous changes to the law that will hurt long-time residents by requiring the government to detain people who have not been convicted or even charged with a crime, potentially sweeping thousands of people into mandatory detention,” he said in an emailed statement. “Stripping long-time residents of critical protections because of an arrest or criminal charge will not improve public safety but will accelerate the vilification of non-citizens, including long-time residents.”

Local immigrant and Latino advocacy groups expressed particular concern over the bill’s potential to loop in people who have not yet been convicted of any wrongdoing.

Joseph Garcia, the executive director of Chicanos Por La Causa Action Fund, a nonprofit organization that works to advance Latino success in Arizona in areas such as education, voting and economic well-being, said he fears the Laken Riley Act might jeopardize the constitutional guarantee of due process.

“We remain steadfast in the belief of American values, which include due process as part of a fair justice system.”

“Due process is one of those things, growing up in this country, that’s always been a north star – something that doesn’t exist everywhere else,” echoed José Patiño, a DACA recipient and the vice president of education for Aliento. “All human beings have due process, whether they’re U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, everywhere between undocumented and with legal status.”

Patiño said that Aliento, which advocates on behalf of Dreamers and DACA recipients in Arizona, has reached out to Gallego and Kelly to discuss how the legislation could devastate those groups.

“We believe Dreamers, DACA recipients and undocumented youth are as American as everybody else, except we don’t have the paperwork that says we’re American citizens,” Patiño said. “We’re not being treated like everybody else and I understand that some don’t believe that we belong in this country but we do.”

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.

Bryan Blehm, a Scottsdale divorce attorney who represented failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in her bid to overturn her 2022 defeat and lied to the state Supreme Court on her behalf, has been suspended from practicing law in Arizona for two months.

On Friday, an Arizona Supreme Court panel ruled that Blehm’s law license will be suspended for 60 days, beginning in a month. Once that term has ended and his license has been reinstated, Blehm will be placed on probation for one year and he will be required to complete five additional hours of continuing legal education in the area of ethics or professional responsibility.

The Arizona State Bar launched the disciplinary case against Blehm and sought a suspension of six months and one day as punishment for Blehm’s role in lying to the Arizona Supreme Court. In an appeal of Lake’s dismissed attempt to nullify her election loss, Blehm and Washington, D.C., employment attorney Kurt Olsen falsely stated that it was “undisputed fact” that 35,000 illegal ballots were included in Maricopa County’s final vote count.

No evidence of that claim was provided and the two were later ordered to pay $2,000 in sanctions by the state supreme court.

Suspensions longer than six months require a lawyer seeking to resume practicing law to undergo an evidentiary hearing and make their case for reinstatement. In a May 21 hearing, attorneys for the Bar told Presiding Disciplinary Judge Margaret Downie that the suspension length was warranted because Blehm submitted blatantly false evidence to the court and has so far failed to show any remorse for doing so.

A day before his disciplinary hearing, Blehm claimed he was found “guilty without a trial,” in a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter, and on the day of the hearing he failed to show up.

In its 12-page order, the panel acknowledged that Blehm had violated ethical rules by submitting false statements and jeopardized the reputation of the entire legal process.

“Respondent’s misrepresentations needlessly expanded the proceedings in the Arizona Supreme Court. And any time an attorney attempts to mislead a judicial tribunal, it brings disrepute to and fosters mistrust of the legal profession,” reads the order.

But the panel ultimately concluded that approving a suspension longer than six months was unfair, given that Blehm has no previous ethical violations. And, the order notes, the false statements advanced by Blehm and Olsen were easily identified by the state supreme court, minimizing the harm they caused.

“Is a long-term suspension necessary here to protect the public, maintain the integrity of the profession in the eyes of the public, and deter (Blehm) and other attorneys from engaging in similar misconduct?” asked the panel. “This is (Blehm’s) first disciplinary offense, and the misrepresentations at issue were so blatantly obvious there was little chance the Arizona Supreme Court would be misled by them.”

The order noted, however, that future ethical misconduct from Blehm may be met with harsher punishments. Blehm will also be required to reimburse the State Bar’s legal costs.

Neither the State Bar nor Blehm responded to requests for comment.

Olsen, meanwhile, still faces two separate disciplinary hearings scheduled later this month for making false statements in a lawsuit concerning electronic tabulators and in Lake’s election challenges. But, because Olsen is licensed to practice law in Maryland and not Arizona, the highest punishment the State Bar can win in either case is a formal reprimand.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.

GOP lawmakers are continuing to advance anti-trans proposals under the guise of protecting women and minors despite the threat of a veto from Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

On Tuesday, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee gave the greenlight to two measures that LGBTQ advocates say only serve to erase trans Arizonans and villainize their health care needs.

Senate Bill 1628 would eliminate any mention of gender in state law, replacing it with a strict and inflexible definition of biological sex. Every person would be either female or male according to their assigned sex at birth, determined by their physical and reproductive characteristics. Named the “Arizona Women’s Bill of Rights”, it would allow the separation of sports teams, locker rooms, bathrooms and even domestic violence shelters and sexual assault crisis centers by biological sex, greenlighting discrimination against transgender Arizonans.

Jennifer Braceras, founder of the Washington-based Independent Women’s Law Center, applauded the bill. The center has filed numerous amicus briefs opposing inclusive policies in schools and supporting trans athlete bans in court, including Arizona’s. Braceras denied that the proposal takes away anyone’s rights, saying that it instead simply clarifies the terms of engagement for lawmakers considering the role of trans women in public life.

And, she said, it keeps ideology out of the courtroom.

“A powerful group of activists today seek to convince judges and unelected bureaucrats that men who identify as women have an unfettered right to access women’s spaces, no questions asked,” she said. “The Women’s Bill of Rights is a tool to stop this sort of interpretive overreach and judicial activism.”

But Hugo Polanco, a lobbyist for the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the bill cruel and discriminatory. He warned lawmakers on the panel that its provisions would only serve to put transgender people at risk of violence by preventing them from obtaining identity documents that reflect their lived reality. A 2015 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality found that nearly one-third of respondents who presented an identity document, like a drivers license, that didn’t match their perceived gender were harassed, denied services or experienced physical violence.

“This bill would force transgender people to live a lie and put them at risk of harm by disclosing the sex they were assigned at birth on documents like drivers’ licenses, marriage licenses, school records and burial paperwork,” Polanco said. “All of us, including transgender people, need accurate and consistent identity documents that reflect who we are. That’s what IDs are for.”

Sen. Eva Burch, D-Mesa, denounced the measure and criticized the persistently hostile rhetoric from GOP lawmakers, saying she was worried about the effect on transgender Arizonans.

“This effort to erase trans people and try to force them to fit into boxes that they don’t fit into is totally unacceptable to me,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “I’m not afraid of trans people, I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to them if we keep treating them like this.”

The Republican-majority legislature is well into its third year in a row of proposing anti-trans measures. In 2022, under Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, lawmakers succeeded in passing a trans athlete ban barring trans girls from joining sports teams consistent with their gender identity and a prohibition on gender-affirming surgery for minors. And last year, despite Hobbs’ warning that discriminatory bills would meet her veto stamp, Republicans sought to criminalize drag queens and restrict how welcoming schools could be for trans students.

The abundance of anti-trans legislation in Arizona’s statehouse reflects a hostile political movement across the country. In 2023, nearly 500 anti-LGBTQ bills were proposed across the country, double those introduced the previous year. And this year is shaping up to be just as bad as last year, much to the consternation of LGBTQ advocacy groups, who point to research that shows discriminatory legislation and talking points negatively impact the mental health of LGBTQ youth — a population that is already at a disproportionately high risk of contemplating suicide or suffering from depression.

The proposal was approved by a vote of 4-3, with only Democrats opposed, and goes next before the full Senate for consideration.

Also approved by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday was Senate Bill 1511, which requires hospitals, insurance companies and doctors to provide and pay for detransitioning services if they offer gender-affirming care.

The stories of people who regret receiving gender-transitioning procedures have been increasingly spotlighted by Republican politicians who oppose gender-affirming health care. The care, which has the backing of every major medical organization, supports the identities of trans people through social acceptance, such as using a person’s preferred pronouns, or medical care that includes puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgical procedures that help align a person’s physical body with their gender identity.

Detransitioning, however, is an extremely rare and often temporary occurrence. Out of nearly 28,000 respondents who participated in the 2015 survey from the National Center for Transgender Equality, only 8% reported having detransitioned at some point. The vast majority later transitioned again and cited external pressures, such as family disapproval, as the reason for detransitioning.

Health care for people who detransition is virtually the same as gender-affirming care. It, too, seeks to support the gender identities of patients. Like gender-affirming care, it may also include the use of preferred pronouns and gender-affirming procedures, like chest reconstruction surgery.

Chloe Cole, a frequent supporter of anti-trans proposals in legislatures across the country, spoke in favor of the effort to protect access to detransition care. The 19-year-old California native transitioned in her teens and received a double mastectomy at 15. Protecting people in Arizona who regret their transition is critical, she said, especially as the number of people who identify as transgender has increased in recent years.

“An exponential growth amongst those entering the transition pipeline will inevitably be reflected in those who desist and detransition,” Cole said. “All who, we should expect, will require lifelong medicalization.”

Claims that the transgender population is increasing don’t account for refined data collection strategies, which previously didn’t exist, and higher than ever social acceptance. Younger generations are likelier than their older counterparts to identify as LGBTQ, with 28% of Gen Z adults identifying as LGBTQ compared to just 16% of Millenials and 7% of Baby Boomers.

Sen. Justine Wadsack, R-Tucson, voted to pass the proposal, sounding the alarm over the danger that she claimed young children with non-traditional gender expression, like tomboys, face.

“Had I grown up today the way I did in the ‘70s, catching fireflies in jars and pulling the tails off lizards and watching them float around in the sink…If I had been a tomboy in this day and age, they would have changed my gender,” she said. “It’s just the way it is. Protect the tomboys.”

In reality, transitioning is a multi-step and multi-year process involving parents, doctors and therapists who rely on the patient’s repeated and persistent assertions that they are transgender.

The proposal to guarantee detransition services in Arizona was approved by the committee by a vote of 5-2, with Sen. Theresa Hatathlie, D-Tuba City, the lone Democrat in favor. Hatathlie didn’t explain her vote.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.