Highlights
- Arizona AG Kris Mayes ruled Pima County can legally bar ICE from county property without a judicial warrant, dismissing a GOP complaint filed in April.
- The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in February to require judicial warrants before federal immigration agents may enter county property.
- Mayes found Arizona's remnant SB1070 language prohibits restricting enforcement but does not require local governments to actively assist federal agents.
- Senate President Warren Petersen, who is challenging Mayes in November, called the ruling a threat to public safety.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes concluded in a 23-page opinion published Wednesday that Pima County can legally require federal immigration agents to present a judicial warrant before entering county property — and that a Republican legislative complaint challenging that policy has no legal basis.
The opinion, reported by the Arizona Mirror and corroborated by KJZZ and the Tucson Sentinel, turns on a straightforward reading of federal preemption law: because Congress has not ordered states or counties to participate in immigration enforcement, localities retain the right to decline.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in February to adopt a policy prohibiting federal immigration agents from stepping foot on county property without a judicial warrant. The policy directs county employees not to grant access without such a warrant and calls for barriers, including locked gates, around county properties likely to attract federal immigration enforcement activity.
Republican legislative leadership filed a complaint in April arguing the policy violates Arizona law, discriminates against federal immigration officials, and undermines federal authority. The complaint centered on surviving language from SB1070 — Arizona's "show me your papers" law — which bars counties, cities, and towns from adopting policies that limit immigration enforcement to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.
Mayes was unconvinced. She wrote that Arizona law prohibits restricting federal immigration enforcement but stops well short of ordering local governments to actively assist federal agents. She also addressed the warrant question directly: courts have ruled that administrative warrants, issued by the agency's own employees, do not carry the same legal weight as judicial warrants, and the Immigration and Nationality Act expressly allows inaction in response to administrative warrants.
Why does a judicial warrant matter here?
Administrative warrants — the type ICE typically carries during civil enforcement operations — are issued internally by the agency, not by a judge. Courts have consistently held they do not authorize entry into non-public areas without consent. A judicial warrant, by contrast, is issued by a court and carries Fourth Amendment authority. Mayes wrote that "like other law enforcement, federal immigration officials are bound by general Fourth Amendment principles," meaning that absent exigent circumstances, agents must obtain either a judicial warrant or voluntary consent to enter a non-public area.
Mayes also rejected the discrimination argument, writing that the policy places no affirmative restrictions on the federal government. "The Resolution, instead, dictates how County employees must respond to civil immigration enforcement activities on County property," she wrote. On the practical question of staging operations, she was blunt: "If ICE needs a parking lot to stage a civil immigration enforcement operation, it can simply choose a parking lot that does not belong to the county."
The ruling follows a similar Mayes opinion backing a City of Phoenix policy that forbids federal agents from using city-owned property to stage civil immigrant enforcement operations.
Senate President Warren Petersen, a Gilbert Republican who is seeking to unseat Mayes in November, criticized the decision. "Attorney General Mayes has officially picked a side, and it's not the side of public safety or the brave law enforcement officers working every day to protect Arizona communities," Petersen said in a written statement.
For Scottsdale and Paradise Valley property owners and business operators, the ruling sets a legal framework that other Maricopa County municipalities could cite if they choose to adopt similar policies governing access to publicly owned facilities. No such policy is currently on the Scottsdale City Council's agenda.
Around the web
Public conversation on this topic is minimal. The single identified post discusses a separate Arizona issue—closure of a domestic violence hotline in Maricopa County—unrelated to immigration enforcement or judicial warrants. No substantive discussion of the AG opinion or Pima County's ICE policy appears in the monitored posts.
Public discussion (links to original posts):
- Reddit · r/phoenix — u/babystarlette (806 upvotes · 137 comments)
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- azmirror.com retrieved 2026-05-07T00:39:20.469164+00:00
Authored by hayden_cole. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 2026-05-07T00:39:20.469164+00:00. Every claim traces to a source.
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