by EFE
Environmental and human rights organizations hope that the end of the mandate of the Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, and the arrival of Democrat Katie Hobbs in 2023 will change policies on immigration, the Latino community and the environment.
The Republican – whose most recent controversy was the installation of containers on the border to stop the migratory flow – will be replaced in January by Hobbs, who opposed said initiative.
[Arizona will destroy the container wall it built on the border with Mexico]
Latino groups consulted by the EFE agency assure that they were "ignored" during the eight years that Ducey governed, who is an ally of the also Republican Greg Abbott, governor of the state of Texas, and of his anti-immigrant policies.
“Governor Ducey could have done much more for our Latino community, unfortunately he failed us in many ways,” said Lydia Guzmán, director of advocacy and civic engagement at Chicanos por la Causa, an Arizona nonprofit.
Ally of Trump and his anti-immigrant policies
During the Trump administration, Ducey and other Republican governors backed his zero-tolerance immigration policies, including building a 245-mile border wall in Arizona.
Ducey ordered in 2021 the transfer of the National Guard to the border to assist the Border Patrol and in August he placed metal containers, where the wall did not reach, to stop the passage of migrants.
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The outlook looks more optimistic with Hobbs, who defeated Republican Kari Lake, who during the contest garnered national attention for her extreme positions on issues such as immigration, which earned her comparisons with former President Trump.
In an interview with the Arizona Mirror, the Democrat said that she "did not agree with Ducey's characterization" of what is happening at the border and considered that there is "another side of immigration that is a humanitarian crisis."
[Republicans win Latino voters in states like Florida. Why do they lose them in the southwestern regions?]
“Our (immigration) system is broken and we need the federal government to take action and fix it,” claimed the Democrat.
Immigration isn't the only difference between Hobbs and Ducey.
A commitment to diversity
Guzmán, of Chicanos por la Causa, criticized the Republican for denying the Latino community more funding for public schools and at the same time implementing a voucher program for children to attend state-funded private schools.
He explained that these resources are insufficient to pay the total tuition in private schools, which affects low-income families.
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Hobbs, for his part, promised to put more money into schools and recruit more teachers "so students have someone in the classroom who looks like them."
In Arizona, 60% of students in public schools are Latino.
Ducey also signed several laws this year that remove from the early voting system people who are “suspected” of not being US citizens or who have not exercised their right to vote in two consecutive elections.
Hobbs pledged to have an Administration that reflects the diversity of the state.
“That means a lot more representation from Latino communities than what we're seeing now,” he said.
[Democrat Katie Hobbs will be the new governor of Arizona after defeating Kari Lake in a close race]
This includes positions in judicial positions, commissions and the Board of Regents of people who reflect all communities, including the Hispanic one.
Activists like Isabel Garcia, director of the Arizona Human Rights Coalition, hope that the governor-elect will be more open to dialogue and to listen to the needs of border communities.
Katie Hobbs, governor-elect of Arizona, in a photo from November 2022. Matt York / AP
"Ducey never knew the dynamics of the border, he spent more than 100 million dollars on border security, using the immigration issue as just a ladder for his political aspirations,
he leaves us a legacy of racism against our community
," García complained. .
During his tenure, Arizona joined other Republican-led states in filing lawsuits against programs like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which protects some 600,000 undocumented youth from deportation.
[This is how the elections affected migrants: driver's licenses and educational aid]
Garcia claimed that the containers at the border are a reflection of his political aspirations.
Although he announced that he would remove them on January 4, the day before he ends his term, after losing a lawsuit for illegally locating them on federal land.
The one who will now be ex-governor could aspire to the Senate, where until a few weeks ago the two seats for Arizona were Democrats.
Centrist Senator Kyrsten Sinema announced in December that she was leaving the Democratic Party to register as an independent.
