She stood up to ICE. Then came the death threats.
Arizona Sen. Analise Ortiz won't back down
Welcome to a Friday night edition of Progress Report.
Before we get to tonight’s newsletter, take a moment to appreciate these incredible photos from Minneapolis’s general strike and protest against ICE today. The people of the Twin Cities have truly stepped up in a way that feels without precedent in this country’s modern history.
Now, let’s get to tonight’s newsletter, about one lawmaker’s defiant response to ICE and the fascism of her extremist fellow legislators.
Be safe out there in the snow this weekend — try not to drive and stay warm!
Note: The far-right’s fascist takeover of this country is being aided by the media’s total capitulation to Trump’s extortion. It’s never been more critical to have a bold independent media willing to speak up against the powerful. That’s what I’m trying to do here at Progress Report.
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In August, Republicans in the Arizona state Senate sought to expel their Democratic colleague, Sen. Analise Ortiz, after she reposted an alert about an ICE raid near a school in her Phoenix district. Prompted by far-right social media troll Libs of TikTok, they also threatened to defund her office, launched an ethics investigation, accused her of a state crime, and referred the case to a federal prosecutor.
Each of the legal maneuvers failed, and if the goal was to chasten and silence the 32-year old Ortiz, the coda was more than a little ironic: Earlier this month those same Republicans were drowned out by chanting protesters at a “Stand With ICE” press conference — a humiliation that Ortiz amplified on Instagram. The caption: “Sorry bro we can’t hear your hate over the banda! 🎶🎶🎶.”
Ortiz never flinched under the pressure from the legislature’s Freedom Caucus, nor did she let the fury of the neofascist internet gremlins stop her from posting alerts to her constituents about federal agent raids and protests.
But no matter how defiant a tone she strikes — she told instigating Sen. Jeff Hoffman on Instagram that she’s “not fucking scared of you nor Trump’s masked goons” — the death threats that have flooded her office since Hoffman began his smear campaign and call for her ouster are impossible to simply ignore, especially in a time of escalating political violence.
“It is incredibly hard to go to work every day and know that my colleagues likely would not care if I was assassinated in the same way that [late Minnesota House Speaker] Melissa Hortman was,” Ortiz tells me.
“But this is what I try to think about: It is not about me and I cannot make it personal because I am down there to represent 250,000 constituents who rely on me to be their voice,” she adds. “And when Senator Hoffman and Peterson attack me, they are attacking every one of my constituents.”
(Hoffman is no stranger to ethics violations and criminal activity: he was involved in the fake elector scheme for Donald Trump in 2020 and last year was pulled over for speeding in a Cybertruck with the word “Freedom” emblazoned across the back.)
Here’s the irony: I’d initially gotten in touch with Ortiz to learn more about the bipartisan work she’s been doing to address Arizona’s housing crisis. How she’s able to work with people who so viciously and publicly slander and attack her is something of a marvel to me, but Ortiz is serious about representing those quarter-million constituents.
And in a heavily Hispanic district, in the West Phoenix neighborhood of Maryvale and parts of neighboring Glendale, that means helping organize against ICE, coordinate Know Your Rights trainings, and yes, alert folks about ongoing raids. That work has only escalated in recent days, as Arizona media reports that the immigration gestapo is setting its sights on the state.
ICE’s Melting Appeal
Americans, largely horrified by the ultra-violent, unrelenting fascist crackdown in Minneapolis, have rapidly turned against Donald Trump’s immigration policies: in a new poll released by the New York Times, 61% of Americans said that ICE has “gone too far” with its enforcement tactics, including nearly 20% of Republicans. The murder of Renee Good was an inflection point; the next poll is likely to show an even steeper decline as violence continues to rage, seniors are ripped half-naked from their homes, and preschoolers and toddlers are kidnapped and sent to detention centers.
In some ways, this is the nation catching up to Arizona, a state steeped in fascist immigration enforcement over the past decade and a half. Hispanic residents were forced to hide in their homes under the aegis of SB 1070, better known as the “Show Me Your Papers Act,” and were frequently rounded up and thrown in inhumane jails by racist Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The state is still littered with anti-immigrant extremists — see the armed cosplay militias that stand guard at the border — and voted for Trump in 2024.
Those are the people who lawmakers like Jeff Hoffman pander to when they hold flop “Stand with ICE” rallies, which creates the perception that someone willing to consistently protest and protect their community against the immigration gestapo is out of touch with the electorate. According to Ortiz, a similar transformation is underway in her home state.
“Arizona is known for making headlines with very fringe groups of people,” she says. “But I think what gets lost in the national discussion is that, when it comes down to it, Arizona is a very middle-of-the-road, common-sense electorate.”
It’s been a seesaw of sorts; it was SB 1070 and Arpaio’s reign of terror that awakened a whole generation of Hispanic activists, which helped break the GOP’s half-century stranglehold on Arizona’s politics. Now, Arizona has two Democratic senators, a Democratic governor, and a Democratic attorney general, a development that Ortiz attributes to several related factors.
First, there are the GOP candidates themselves, like failed Senate nominees Blake Masters and Kari Lake, the latter of whom also lost a gubernatorial election. “They’re going to have to learn their lesson and recognize that these absolute buffoons they’re putting up are losing candidates,” Ortiz says, not mincing words.
Republicans still hold a bare majority in the state legislature, but Ortiz is hopeful that they’ll start moving toward some kind of sanity. She was able to get buy-in for a bill that limits corporate ownership of single-family homes — more on that in a future issue — and has legislation ready to rein in ICE.
“I have a bill called the Immigrant Trust Act, which prohibits local law enforcement from asking about someone’s immigration status unless it has a direct connection to a crime,” she says. “It also would ban hospitals and direct service providers from asking about immigration.”
It’s the first of a laundry list of solutions, including a California-style ban on ICE agents wearing masks — something she praises state AG Kris Mayes for pursuing as well — and more municipal actions like Tempe’s ongoing stand against the agency. On Wednesday, city leaders voted to move forward with an ordinance that would prevent ICE from using city property as staging and debriefing areas, ending the federal commandeering of public facilities for terrorism.
“These are illegal searches. They are illegal acts of assault that are happening on United States citizens and non-citizens alike,” Ortiz says. “And I think we really need local elected leaders and even law enforcement leaders to take a hard stand on this, that they are not going to accept that type of criminal behavior, no matter who it's from.”
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We need more young people like her involved in government!
Ortiz sounds like a ray of light in the darkness. Hopefully this madness will pass.