PHOENIX, September 11 — The Arizona Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld Proposition 314, the 2024 ballot measure known as the “Secure the Border Act,” rejecting a lawsuit that argued the law violates the Arizona Constitution because it failed to identify a funding source for its costs. A three-judge appellate panel ruled unanimously that the measure does not directly require the state to spend money, because local law enforcement agencies may bear many of the costs.
Vice Chief Judge David Weinzweig wrote that the law’s transport provision authorizes “state or local law enforcement” to transport a defendant, meaning a local agency may perform that function and incur the cost, not the state. The custody provision, he added, makes the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry act only when a county or local law enforcement agency lacks capacity to hold a person.
The funding question at the center of the case
The measure, approved by 63% of Arizona voters two years ago, lets state officials, including local police officers and state judges, exercise federal immigration enforcement authority. Its most controversial provision, which took effect this summer, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to cross Arizona’s border anywhere but at an official port of entry, punishable by up to 6 months in jail.
In April 2025, Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, filed suit arguing the measure conflicts with Arizona Constitution rules on how ballot measures are written and what the judicial branch’s role is. The group’s main argument was that Prop. 314 fails to set aside a funding source despite likely costs, including housing people convicted of crossing the border without permission, verifying immigration status of public benefits applicants through the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, and transporting immigrants to a port of entry or into federal custody.
LUCHA attorneys said the database charges monthly and per-inquiry fees. The panel noted those fees were waived for state, local and tribal agencies in April after President Donald Trump took office.
LUCHA decries the ruling
LUCHA decried the ruling as out of touch. “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,” said Alejandra Gomez, LUCHA’s executive director. The group said it is looking into whether to ask the Arizona Supreme Court to take up the matter.
What this signals strategically is that the funding-source challenge — the legal mechanism opponents chose to try to unwind a voter-approved border enforcement measure — has now failed at the appellate level. The broader stakes turn on whether the Arizona Supreme Court accepts the case, and whether the transport and custody provisions continue to shift costs onto county and local agencies that never wrote the law in the first place.
