“If for no other reason than LUCHA lacks standing.” With that, Judge David Weinzweig ended an attempt to wipe out Arizona’s Proposition 314. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the state Court of Appeals on Thursday, September 10, he said the advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona had no right to bring the case in the first place.
Proposition 314, approved by voters in 2024, lets police arrest people who cross the border anywhere other than a port of entry and charge them with a state crime. According to Capitol Media Services, the law is built less to jail border crossers than to persuade them to agree to deportation, in which case the charges are dropped.
Too early to sue
LUCHA sued in 2025. It said the law breaks federal and state constitutional protections, from possible discriminatory enforcement to a failure to provide a new source of revenue. Its members, the group argued, share the race, ethnicity or national origin of those entering from the southern border and are more vulnerable to misapplication than the public at large.
Weinzweig did not accept that a law that might be misapplied someday gives the group a claim today. “Declaratory relief should be based on an existing set of facts, not those which may or may not arise in the future,” he wrote.
He also rejected the argument that the arrest standards ignore constitutional requirements. The law gives officers three routes: their own observation, a recording, or “any other constitutionally sufficient indicia of probable cause.” The last is not defined in the measure, he said, but it matches what the Fourth Amendment already demands.
The funding argument
LUCHA fared no better on money. The Arizona Constitution says a ballot measure requiring spending of state revenues must provide a new source for the funds. The challengers pointed out that Prop. 314 requires the state Department of Corrections to transport people who agree to leave the country to the border.
Weinzweig read it differently. The duty to transport people falls on local law enforcement agencies, and the state pays only if a local agency lacks the capacity to hold someone. “This is a contingency, not a mandate,” he wrote.
LUCHA’s response
Alejandra Gomez, the group’s executive director, called the ruling appalling. “We are appalled that the Court of Appeals has allowed Proposition 314 to stand at a moment when immigrant communities are already being terrorized by an increasingly aggressive federal immigration enforcement apparatus,” she said. She argued the law gives Arizona another vehicle to target immigrant communities and pull state and local institutions deeper into enforcement. No decision has been made on seeking Arizona Supreme Court review.
It is the second court to turn away a challenge on these grounds. In July, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi threw out a suit brought by the Florence Immigrant Rights and Refugee Project, noting the organization had not shown anyone was actually affected by the law.
