State House and Senate candidates in a west Phoenix legislative district sparred over immigration, rent control and education policies in a debate on Aug. 28.
The immigration debate carries extra weight in the races to represent Legislative District 26, where Hispanics make up 63% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey, and where immigration agents have been active since the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration began in 2025.
Democratic Rep. Cesar Aguilar
Democratic Rep. Cesar Aguilar said the issue is personal for him because his parents came to the United States illegally, but got amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, signed by President Ronald Reagan.
Arizona’s former Republican leaders like the late U.S. Sen. John McCain and former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake pushed for immigration reform, but today’s Republicans are on “the complete opposite side,” Aguilar said.
“They're anti-immigrants, and the Trump administration has only allowed white immigrants into the United States while pushing out all the other immigrants,” Aguilar said.
The Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission sponsored the debate among House candidates and a separate one for Senate candidates.
Aguilar is running for a third term in the House with fellow Democrat Quantá Crews, who has held office since 2023. They’re running against Republicans Frank Roberts, who works in real estate and provides housing to low-income families through the City of Phoenix, and Jonathan McKenna, who runs an addiction recovery business. Green Party candidate Hector Gomez is also running, but declined to attend the debate.
Voters will choose two when they go to the polls Nov. 3. Early ballots go out Oct. 7.
Democratic Sen. Flavio Bravo is running for his third term at the Capitol against Republican Jim Bishop, a junior high school math teacher.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2-to-1 in the district, which includes the communities of Maryvale, Alhambra, Encanto and Estrella and a small portion of Glendale.
Legislative District 26
McKenna took offense at Aguilar’s claim that Trump is only letting in white immigrants and deporting all others.
“Cesar, you're pro immigration, but then you make a comment that you're pro immigration except for white people,” McKenna said. “You're choosing based on race who you want coming in and out of the country. That's not okay.”
Aguilar said he made no statements about picking and choosing.
“I was only saying what the Trump administration is doing,” Aguilar said.
Roberts and McKenna, the Republicans, both said they would favor local police helping federal agents enforce immigration laws.
“They've come to the country illegally,” Roberts said. “They've broken the law.”
Republican House candidate Frank Roberts
Roberts said Trump has not deported as many people as former Democratic President Barack Obama administration (Obama was known as the “Deporter in Chief” by immigrant rights activists), but the media has fixated on Trump’s actions.
He said he’s been told he’s a racist for supporting deportation.
“No, I'm a realist. I see the issues. I see the problems, and I have no problem with deporting people back to the country that they came from,” Roberts said.
Republican House candidate Jonathan McKenna
McKenna viewed the issue through an affordability lens.
“You can't claim to care about housing, wages, and opportunity for young Americans and the citizens of LD26, while ignoring the economic stresses caused by illegal immigration,” McKenna said.
Crews said she would not support Phoenix police helping ICE because federal agents have killed U.S. citizens and used children as bait to arrest people suspected of being in the country illegally.
Democratic Rep. Quantá Crews
She said she’s a descendant of slaves — human trafficking victims who were brought here to work — and said the U.S. allows other immigrants to come to work as long as it benefits the country.
Aguilar and Bravo said ICE has sown fear in the district with its tactics and trying to deport people who have followed the law.
“I don't operate on fear,” Bishop said. “If they're refugees, and they're here legally and everything's in order, there's nothing to fear.”
When the debate turned to rent control, the Republicans said cities shouldn’t intervene in setting rental rates. Roberts and McKenna said they would not vote to repeal a state law that bans cities from imposing caps on rent.
Roberts said he’s a landlord and all costs have risen with demand, but rent control will put landlords out of business.
There is an answer, he said.
“We need to put more money into these programs to help the people,” Roberts said. “We need to have Section 8 housing (federal assistance) be more accessible to people.”
McKenna said rent control is overreach.
“They could mitigate corporations buying residential neighborhoods and turning them into rental traps and outpricing working class families,” McKenna said.
Aguilar and Crews favor rent control.
“I think that the government should step in and do something because people are being unhoused because of greed, and it's unacceptable,” Crews said.
Bravo and Bishop debated public school funding and agreed that the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which provides public money for students to attend private schools, should have an earnings cap for participants.
Republican Senate candidate Jim Bishop
“When government does a public good, you want to do it based on need,” Bishop said.
The Legislature expanded the program in 2022 to allow all students to participate. It grew from a few thousand to more than 100,000 and is expected to cost more than $1 billion next year.
Bravo, who attended a private school, said it is unthinkable that parents who are already sending their kids to a private school would then need money from the state.
Democratic Sen. Flavio Bravo
“I know lobbyists at the Capitol who laugh and they say that's the most broken policy, but as long as the Legislature and the Republican majority haven't fixed it, they're going to keep taking advantage of it,” Bravo said.