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. 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. 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. 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. “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.