GOP’s ‘Secure the Border’ plan will cost at least $325 million a year: report

A Republican-backed plan to convince voters to duplicate federal immigration enforcement by letting police officers arrest migrants and Arizona judges deport them could end up costing the state at least $325 million every year. 

GOP lawmakers in the state legislature, angry at Gov. Katie Hobbs’ refusal to approve their border policies, moved this week to send a series of rejected proposals to the November ballot in the hopes that voters will greenlight them instead. 

Dubbed the “Secure the Border Act,” the wide-ranging legislation package makes it a state crime to for migrants to cross the border anywhere but at a port of entry, criminalizes undocumented Arizonans who submit false information to apply for jobs or public benefits, and drastically enhances the prison sentences for people who’s sale of fentanyl later results in an overdose death.  

On Thursday, the Grand Canyon Institute, a non-partisan think tank, released a report estimating that the legislation has the potential to cost Arizona taxpayers at least $325 million every year it’s enforced — and possibly much more.

Supporters of the measure have defended it as necessary to safeguard public safety in the state and waved away concerns over expense, even as Arizona faces a budget deficit of $1.3 billion. 

At a May 8 news conference, Senate Warren Petersen, who co-sponsored an earlier version of the state crime proposal that was later vetoed by Hobbs, said the benefits outweighed any costs it could incur. At the time, no estimates of its potential price tag were available, and GOP lawmakers have yet to add any funding allocation to the proposal, but have been quick to guarantee the legislature can cover it. 

“We will always fund public safety, obviously,” Petersen said. “You know what the true costs are? The true costs are the law-breaking and the insane amount of people — we are going to save money by creating a deterrent.” 

On Thursday, House Speaker Ben Toma, the sponsor of the proposal’s underlying legislation and a key backer of the new version, struck a similar tone in response to the estimate.

“Democrats’ deliberate open-border policies have inflicted devastating, long-lasting harm to Arizona communities,” he said, in a written statement. “Illegal immigration costs American taxpayers untold billions. People have had enough and want something done. In November their voices will be heard.”

In a post on social media site X, formerly Twitter, Hobbs blasted the proposal as wrong for Arizona. 

“This job-killing ballot referral that attacks our communities will not keep our border secure. Instead, it will cost Arizona untold amounts of money and put a black eye on the state’s reputation,” she wrote.

Where does the estimate come from?

The border policy package is made up of several different provisions, each of which has its own associated costs. If voters approve the proposal, local and state officials will be forced to carry its mandates out — and a constitutional provision protecting voter-approved laws means legislators won’t be able to change them in the future. 

The most controversial part of the proposal is a bid to give Arizona police the power to enforce federal immigration law. Under it, migrants who cross the border anywhere except for a port of entry would face a misdemeanor charge, punishable with up to 6 months in jail. Repeat offenders would face longer sentences. That part of the proposal is modeled on a Texas law that is currently tied up in the courts. 

The Grand Canyon Institute relied on the costs incurred by the Texas law when it was briefly in effect to determine the potential costs in Arizona. The institute estimates that the Lone Star State allocated roughly $425 million on an annual basis to enforce the law. That amount paid for the deployment of 2,500 national guardsmen, special operations personnel and equipment, criminal justice and court administration costs and some health-related expenses. 

Because Arizona has a shorter border than Texas, and the rate of migrant encounters in the Arizona sectors are marginally lower than those in the Lone Star state, Grand Canyon Institute researchers estimate Arizona would only be on the hook for $185 million. 

Another part of the proposal Republicans want to send to the November ballot would make it a class 6 felony for undocumented Arizonans to submit false information or documentation to evade detection through E-Verify, an online federal database some businesses use to confirm the employment eligibility of potential hires. 

The Grand Canyon Institute projects this provision alone could force taxpayers to fork over $140 million every year so that local prosecutors can identify and convict people guilty of falsifying their information. But that steep price doesn’t mean crime rates will be reduced. In fact, GCI concluded, with county prosecutorial offices busy looking for non-violent undocumented offenders, criminal activity could worsen. 

Assuming the national rate “tentative nonconfirmation” of 1.1% is the same in Arizona, only about 9,000 Arizonans are possibly guilty of falsifying their documents. But the actual number of offenders is probably lower, and that’s because “tentative nonconfirmation” — when the E-Verify program can’t fully confirm someone’s employment eligibility — doesn’t automatically mean someone submitted falsified documents. In the end, reads the report, the mandate to find and prosecute undocumented offenders will draw resources away from local public safety efforts, as happened under Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The Republican focused his office on immigration sweeps, and accumulated case backlogs. 

“Placing 9,000 arrest warrants out, and dedicating law enforcement forces to this task risks what occurred under former Sheriff Arpaio, which led to a decline in focus on other criminal activity as well as exceeding budgets,” reads the Institute’s report, which also cited a 2008 report written by Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick when he was an executive at the Goldwater Institute. 

That concern is also shared by Arizona law enforcement officials. During a May 8 news conference, Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes, who has been a staunch supporter of the GOP legislation, said that he expected law enforcement agencies on the border would need to hire more personnel. And while the proposal doesn’t currently include any funding, he told lawmakers during a committee hearing on the legislation that, if voters direct law enforcement agencies to uphold it, he and others would need to return to the legislature to request an allocation. 

“If the majority of the voters approve this bill, anticipating that local law enforcement will become more involved in border security, border enforcement, then we’re going to be coming to all our elected leaders and asking you to honor the will of the voters and provide the resources necessary to enforce the bill that they passed,” he said.

Two other provisions in the proposal punish those convicted of selling fentanyl that was later linked to a death with a minimum of 9 and up 15 years in prison, and makes it a class 6 felony for undocumented Arizonans to apply for public benefits with falsified documents. The Grand Canyon Institute report has no specific costs associated with those parts of the proposal, but it does note that the rate at which Arizona receives federal benefits is so low that the rate of falsified documents submitted by undocumented Arizonans is likely “relatively small.” 

The report adds that, while it doesn’t make an estimate on what the impact of increasing sentences for fentanyl dealers would be, there are “far better tools to deal with fentanyl than this approach.”