Hobbs blocks GOP bill requiring Arizona governments to help with Trump deportations

May 13, 2025 | 2:26 pm ET

By Jim Small

Hobbs blocks GOP bill requiring Arizona governments to help with Trump deportations

Image via Getty Images

Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed 35 bills on May 12, including a GOP-backed measure that would force every level of government in the Grand Canyon State to assist in President Donald Trump’s mass deportations.

The slew of vetoes Monday brings her total for the year to 124. That’s already 50 more than the 73 bills she vetoed in all of 2024, and Hobbs is swiftly closing in on the record 143 measures she rejected in 2023.

“When I assumed the role of Governor, I pledged to uphold both the U.S. Constitution and the Arizona Constitution, as did each of you,” Hobbs wrote in her veto letter for Senate Bill 1088, using language she’s used in vetoes of two other Republican immigration measures. “Arizonans, not Washington, D.C. politicians, must decide what’s best for Arizona.”

Hobbs went on to tout her working relationship with the federal government on border security, which she said has resulted in stopping fentanyl at ports of entry along the southern border, disrupting cartel operations in the state and keeping communities safe.

The bill she vetoed, SB1088, would have forced every level of government in Arizona — from the state down to cities and towns — and all of their contractors to “cooperate” with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The measure would have allowed any legislator to force the attorney general to investigate any governmental entity the lawmaker thought was violating the law, and it would have given every Arizonan the ability to go to court to demand a judge order a government to comply.

But the requirement that Arizona governments do what the federal government wants would only exist while Trump is president: It was designed to self-repeal at the end of 2028, just weeks before the next president takes office in January 2029.

Hobbs panned the proposal as a move focused more on performance than actually doing anything to make Arizonans safer.

“I will continue to work with the federal government on true border security, but we should not force state officials to take marching orders from Washington, DC,” she added. “My focus will always be on delivering real results for Arizonans.”

Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Republican from Queen Creek and the sponsor of SB1088, accused Hobbs of being a “radical leftist” who supports “open border” policies.

“There is no logical justification for Hobbs’ veto on this reasonable bill that helps align local and federal government officials with their critical law enforcement duties, but she remains committed to her radical ideology of open borders and appeasement for cartels,” he said in a written statement.

While she has said she is willing to work with Trump on border security matters, Hobbs has consistently rejected Republican legislation that would force Arizona governments to act as extensions of Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Earlier this month, Hobbs vetoed a similar bill that would have required all levels of government in Arizona to “enforce, administer and cooperate with” Trump’s mass deportation efforts — but only until Trump’s final day in office. That bill also would have forced the governor and AG to do the same.

And the governor has rejected the “Arizona ICE Act,” which would have opened the doors of schools to ICE agents and mandated that every law enforcement agency comply when ICE asks them to hold onto a prisoner, as well as a different bill to require county jails to share personal information on all inmates with ICE.

Here are all of the bills Hobbs vetoed on May 12: