Just two days after Phoenix Sky Harbor airport became overrun by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sauntering around aimlessly, the Phoenix City Council appears poised to pass an ordinance to bar ICE from using city property for enforcement or staging their operations.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and other councilmembers harshly criticized ICE’s deployment at Sky Harbor.
“The Trump administration would rather provoke than work to keep America safe. With this latest dim idea, it now wants those without proper training to secure our airports,” Gallego sounded off on Twitter. “TSA officers are well-trained on the specialized needs of airport security, and leaving this important job to amateurs creates a risk we should not tolerate at American airports.”
But the regulatory measure on today’s agenda won’t apply to Sky Harbor International Airport (which is owned by the city), officials told us. On its website, the airport noted that federal agencies have access to its property since Sky Harbor is a public-use airport.
Still, soft efforts to get ICE away from the airport are underway. Gallego’s spokesperson, Todd Zubatkin, told us that Sky Harbor’s operational leaders have “made the offer to the federal government to do everything that ICE is now doing,” though the details of that offer haven’t been made public yet.
Based on reporting by Phoenix New Times’ Morgan Fischer, perhaps the airport is offering to make more employees just stand around looking confused.
So if the city can’t kick ICE out of airports, what would the proposal before the council today — called the “Community Transparency Initiative” — actually do? And how does it differ from both the Tucson ordinance and Flagstaff’s recent administrative directive on the use of city property?
The proposed Phoenix measure would require city-owned property to be used “only for authorized City purposes.” It also specifically outlines a few non-authorized uses, including “using City property as a staging area, processing location, or operations base for civil law enforcement actions.”
Those types of activities all seem specifically aimed at ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies.
A map of city-owned property.
But City Manager Ed Zuercher would get the final say: The proposed measure allows the city’s top unelected official to approve any such activities. Another key asterisk is that the city won’t and can’t deny agencies from exercising judicial warrants.
The proposal would also require more training for city workers on understanding the difference between judicial warrants and administrative orders from ICE or other federal law enforcement agencies.
We reached out to several Phoenix councilmembers with questions about the proposed ordinance, but none responded. While Gallego’s office responded to an inquiry about the airport, it did not answer questions about the draft of the measure.
The whole proposal seems to closely mirror one that the Tucson City Council passed unanimously earlier this month, which also gives the city manager the responsibility to approve law enforcement requests for enforcement on the city’s property. And just like Tucson’s ordinance, the one in Phoenix would also require city departments to create plans for signage that outline the ban on non-authorized uses.
Up north, the Flagstaff City Council declined to consider a citizen’s petition that would have barred ICE from using city property, much to the dismay of a cadre of fired-up citizens.
However, City Manager Joanne Keene penned a directive asserting her authority over the approval of governmental or nonprofit uses of city property. Effectively, it’s not all that different from Tucson’s measure, except that it doesn’t specifically call out civil law enforcement as an unauthorized use.
Keene and her staff portrayed the approach as more likely to avoid legal challenges from the Trump administration.
Several Flagstaff councilmembers who are harsh critics of ICE, like Austin Aslan, agreed.
“I have come to the conclusion, honestly, that a literal ban on a law enforcement agency would be legally untenable, and pursuing it could put Flagstaff into a legal buzz saw and jeopardize city funding across the board,” Aslan said.
The Phoenix City Council will discuss its proposal today, a few weeks after an angry group of citizens temporarily derailed a work session (where public comment is not typically solicited) over concerns that their elected officials weren’t listening to them. During that meeting, the council voted 7-2 to place the initiative on a future agenda — though many of the protesters complained the measure didn’t go far enough as an anti-ICE response.
While it’s possible that the council could face similar backlash today from concerned citizens about the proposal, social justice organizations are signaling a degree of satisfaction with the proposal.
Organized Power in Numbers — a nonprofit that’s focused on fundraising for families impacted by ICE enforcement — applauded many of the measures. But the organization also called for people to keep putting pressure on the city.
“The city of Phoenix can and must do more now and in the future to slow ICE down,” an OPIN spokesperson said on Instagram.
Both the organization and council candidate Ed Hermes — who’s running to replace Councilwoman Laura Pastor in District 4 as she terms out — called for the creation of a legal fund for families impacted by ICE detention and more restraints on police cooperation with ICE.
“Banning ICE from City property is a common sense first step,” Hermes said. “The City should continue to listen to the community and those most impacted by ICE's violent and inhumane tactics, and we should do more to protect our immigrant families.”
If Phoenix follows in the footsteps of Tucson and Flagstaff, it will become by far the largest Arizona city to put more restrictions on ICE operations — though it is still far from opposing the Trump administration’s agencies beyond these basic measures.
Define “emergency”: A candidate for clerk of the Cochise County Superior Court is suing to undo lawmakers’ decision to move the primary election up by two weeks, Capitol scribe Howie Fischer reports. Lawmakers pushed the change through an emergency clause that lets laws take effect immediately instead of after the usual 90-day window, and Eli Dalton-Webb argues they never explained what the emergency actually was (they never do, nor seemingly do they have to).
Any job will do: Republican Rep. David Marshall, who is running for Corporation Commission as part of the Freedom Caucus slate this year, is also trying to get himself appointed to replace Navajo County Recorder Timothy Jordan, who resigned last month after pleading guilty to felony disorderly conducts for pulling a gun on two 18-year-olds who he said were tailgating his truck, reporter Gary Grado flagged for us.
Smog sale: Gov. Katie Hobbs asked for federal approval to sell cheaper gas as prices spike after the U.S. and Israel’s attacks on Iran, while Republican lawmakers are advancing a plan to require those waiver requests during shortages, the Republic’s Helen Rummel reports. Environmentalists warn that using that cheaper, higher-polluting fuel during the ozone season could worsen air pollution. Meanwhile, the clean energy candidates for SRP, one of the nation’s largest public utilities, expect to be outspent 10-to-1 by the Turning Point-backed slate, per KTAR’s David Iversen.
Classroom cash clash: Republican senators want voters to force school districts of at least 7,500 students in Maricopa and Pima counties to spend 60% of their budgets on teacher pay, Fischer reports. The proposal now heads to the House, where Republican Rep. Matt Gress is advancing a version that applies to any district with at least 200 students. Democrats say the mandate ignores chronic underfunding, strips local control and overlooks essential non-teaching staff.
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Arizona’s deadly export: Arizona is now the leading source of guns traced from U.S. sales to Mexico. More than 60% of firearms seized there in 2024 that were linked the U.S. came from Arizona, the Guardian reports. Those weapons are helping fuel the Sinaloa cartel war, in which about 5,000 people are dead or missing. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes recently announced an indictment against a 20-person gun-trafficking ring her office says routed 334 firearms to Mexico.
Arizona’s future economic health depends on whether students know how to move from school into meaningful careers — and whether those opportunities are actually within reach.
When students can see those pathways clearly, Arizona can build the homegrown workforce that our growing economy needs to support high-wage, high-skill jobs. Programs that help students understand how the education they are receiving connects to real opportunities are vital to making that happen.
The Guarantee Your Future with Freeport initiative highlights how partnerships between education, industry, and communities make these career paths easier to see and easier to pursue.
By giving students and families information, resources, and exposure to high-demand careers, the program helps learners better understand what comes after high school and how to get there. Efforts like this show why aligning education and workforce systems matter. When students have the right tools and information, they can make smarter decisions about their futures — especially as factors like AI are rapidly changing the job market.
Recent coverage from 12News highlights how this partnership is helping Arizona students explore career pathways while supporting the state’s long-term workforce goals.
Jennifer Jennings, a Princeton professor who studies school vouchers, created a swipeable civic-engagement game that quizzes users on the kinds of things Arizona families can buy with voucher money.
The Tinder-style tool serves up real ESA purchases, and most of them — spoiler — are allowed.
We got a few wrong, including a foldable treadmill, a cornhole set and a chicken coop — all items we guessed would be a no, even though we should have known better.
The game feels rigged, but you have to respect the pettiness.
