Bounty bill would pay cops $2.5K per deported immigrant

Arizona police departments would be incentivized to target people they believe are undocumented under a Republican bid to award them a $2,500 bounty for every arrest that ends in a deportation.

The move represents the GOP legislative majority’s latest foray into immigration policy, which has taken on a decidedly hostile tone in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election victory and his stated goal of deporting millions of immigrants.

And it goes far beyond what Republican lawmakers in Arizona have ever attempted, including the controversial SB1070 in 2010, the “show me your papers” law that spawned boycotts of Arizona and ultimately cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars of economic activity.

Sponsored by Sen. Jake Hoffman, the leader of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus who has built a reputation for hard-ball politics and controversial proposals, Senate Bill 1111 would set up an “Arizona Deportations Fund.” That fund would be used to disburse bounties of $2,500 to law enforcement agencies every time the arrest of an undocumented person leads to their removal from the country by federal officials.

Originally, the bill called for that money to be divided up among the arresting officers as compensation for their involvement in the deportation of unauthorized immigrants, but Hoffman modified it so that the money is sent instead to the police department or sheriff’s office they work for.

Immigrant rights advocates argue that the effect remains the same: Paying law enforcement agencies to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally essentially transforms Arizona’s police departments into bounty hunting agencies, incentivizing them to prioritize enforcing federal immigration laws over state laws.

Noah Schramm, the border policy strategist for the Arizona chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned lawmakers on the Senate Government Committee — which Hoffman chairs — that it would spell disaster for the constitutional rights of Arizonans, no matter their citizenship status.

“It will supercharge racial profiling across the state,” he said.

Lena Avalos, an organizer with Living United for Change in Arizona, a progressive pro-immigrant organization, denounced the bill as “hateful, racist legislation” and criticized GOP lawmakers for seeking to facilitate deportations instead of resolving pressing issues the state faces.

“Instead of focusing on lowering the cost of rent, keeping our schools open and making sure that Arizonans can keep their health care, we are here discussing different ways to spend taxpayer dollars on criminalizing communities of color,” she said, shortly before being cut off by Hoffman for what he said were comments that strayed from the bill’s intent.

The Republican framed his proposal as restoring lost funding sent abroad by undocumented Arizonans. The money for the $2,500 bounties would be raised from increasing taxes on foreign wire transfers, which immigrants often use to send remittances back to family in their countries of origin.

“We are losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year in economic activity to foreign nations,” he said. “Hundreds of millions of dollars are being sent out of our economy to the economy of foreign nations by those who are in this country illegally, who have broken our laws and are now exploiting the benefits of this great economy, the benefits of this great nation to prop up failing foreign governments.”

Billions of dollars in remittances are sent every year from the U.S. to other countries, including those in Latin America. In 2023, Mexico alone received more than $63 billion in remittances.

Anti-immigrant politicians have long aimed their ire at people who send money back to family members in their native countries. During his first presidency, Trump threatened to tax remittances to pay for the border wall, and long before that, in 2009, Oklahoma lawmakers approved a $5 tax on foreign wire transfers under $500 with collected revenues being sent to the state Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

Hoffman’s proposal far outstrips Oklahoma’s law, levying a $25 tax — on top of current foreign wire transfer fees — on every sum below $500 and an additional 5% of any amount exceeding that threshold. And while Arizonans with lawful status who file taxes would be able to recoup those fees during tax season, undocumented people — who don’t file income taxes — would essentially be forced to fund deportations.

Western Union, the most popular financial services firm for wire transfers, is opposed to the bill.

Democrats on the committee questioned the fairness of punishing migrants for using the money they earned. Sen. Flavio Bravo, D-Phoenix, pointed out that sometimes people travelling through the state stop to send remittances, and students at Arizona’s public universities who don’t file their taxes in the state might also wire money to their relatives in other countries.

Bravo added that there’s nothing wrong with seeking to help family members who live outside the U.S., and said he himself has sent remittances to his wife, who at the time hadn’t yet become a legal permanent resident and lived in Mexico.

“The American Dream isn’t just about preparing yourself for success, it’s also about bringing up your family with you, and if people have worked hard and earned this hard earned money, I don’t see anything wrong with them supporting loved ones abroad,” he said.

Hoffman also dismissed concerns that the bill would incentivize police officers to make racially biased arrests, saying that it doesn’t change how law enforcement agencies should carry out their duties and leaves in place current protocols that protect Arizonans’ due process rights.

But even without the law on the books, police departments across the state have been found guilty of detaining people based on their ethnicity. A 2011 investigation from the U.S. Department of Justice found that officers with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department stopped Latino Arizonans nine times more often than non-Latino drivers in some parts of the county. And just last year, after a three-year investigation, the DOJ concluded in a 126-page report that Phoenix Police Department officers engaged in rampant discrimination against Black, Hispanic and Native American people, and routinely violated people’s civil and constitutional rights.

Some law enforcement groups have spoken out against the bill. The Arizona Police Association, which is the state’s largest law enforcement advocacy organization and is made up of more than 12,000 law enforcement officers, is opposed tocreating a bounty system for cops. Joe Clure, the group’s executive director, said it doesn’t support the “monetizing” of arrest decisions under any circumstances.

Currently, there appear to be no similar laws or state-funded policies on the books that reward police departments for how many arrests are made of a particular group. Bart Graves, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said no bounty program exists for the agency that is dependent on an officer or agency’s everyday actions. Richie Taylor, a spokesman for the Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, said the office does award some bonuses for law enforcement agencies, but those are based on retention and performance outcomes. He added that Mayes is opposed to the bill, which she derided as a political “stunt.”

The Senate Government Committee, which is controlled by Republicans, passed SB1111 along party lines. Democrats on the panel denounced the bill as an attack on immigrants and sharply criticized Republicans for advancing discriminatory legislation.

Sen. Lauren Kuby, a freshman Democrat from Tempe, said it was an “ugly” and “hateful” bill. Her voice shook as she shared the story of meeting with a 17-year-old student in her district from a mixed status family.

“She and her family have their bags packed, ready to leave if they need to leave and escape the country, escape persecution, escape this terror that is being visited upon them,” Kuby recounted. “She told me that, when she’s in school, she worries when she gets a phone call from her mother that it’s not her mom just seeing what her plans are for the day. She’s worried it’s going to be a message from her mother that her grandfather’s been taken, or that her sister’s been deported.”

Republicans, meanwhile, dismissed concerns about the bill’s impact on the state’s immigrant communities. Sen. Wendy Rogers, who regularly traffics in hard-line anti-immigrant rhetoric and spoke at a white nationalist conference in 2022, called for taking the “emotionalism” out of the conversation. She said the bill doesn’t stop people from sending remittances home, it merely raises the fees to do so.

Rogers, a Republican from Flagstaff, also used nativist terms to characterize undocumented immigrants as an “invasion.”

Hoffman, too, invoked invasion terminology and alluded to the racist Great Replacement theory — which has spawned violencein America and around the globe — accusing Democrats of supporting undocumented people with the intent of ousting Republicans from power.

“There is an effort afoot in this nation to take it over through invasion,” he said. “Democratic politicians want illegal aliens to vote, they want illegal aliens to be counted in our census so that the district lines can be drawn in favor of Democratic politicians.”

Anti-immigrant politicians have long framed unauthorized immigration as an invasion to push draconian policies. But the terminology isn’t just wielded in statehouses: it has also been widely adopted by nativist movements and white supremacist terrorists, like the El Paso shooter who targeted Mexicans at a Walmart in 2019.

The bill next goes before the full state Senate for consideration, where it is expected to be supported by the Republicans that hold a majority in the chamber. If that happens, and if the state House of Representatives — which Republicans also control — also passes it, SB1111 would almost certainly meet a swift veto from Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has already panned it.

The Democrat has been a strong advocate for increasing funding for communities and law enforcement agencies along the border instead of taking a hostile approach. And while she has previously voiced support for anti-immigrant proposals at the federal level, she has been dismissive of state-led policy changes that immigrant rights groups oppose. Christian Slater, Hobbs’ spokesman, said she’s prepared to reject it if it lands on her desk.

“There’s no way in hell the Governor signs a tax hike into law, especially one that puts a bounty on the heads of innocent people who have worked hard, paid taxes and lived in their communities for decades,” he said. “Arizonans want border security, they don’t want to turn hard working law enforcement officers into bounty hunters.”

And while Republicans, including Hoffman, have criticized Hobbs as weak on border security and unwilling to work with them on the issue despite acknowledging it as critical, Slater said Hobbs is simply not going to cave to “political messaging games.”

“She’s going to work with anybody in order to deliver real border security, and that includes President Trump,” Slater said. “She’s also going to stand up and tell people when they’re getting it wrong.”