Arizona’s anti-immigration legislation and Latino political participation: An examination of the Latino response

Abstract This work examines Arizona’s anti-immigration legislation, focusing on the years between 2000 and 2018, and how, or if, this legislation affected the political participation of the Latinx community in Arizona. The research argues that members of the Latinx community galvanized across citizenship lines—that is, US citizen or national, documented/undocumented—in response to anti-immigration legislation. Using the theoretical foundations of political mobilization, this work explores the effect of anti-immigration legislation as a mobilizing factor for Latinx political participation. A series of observations of trends in Latinx voter registration and turnout and an analysis of the literature regarding Latinx political practices guided the formation of interview questions for the qualitative research. Interviews were conducted with fifteen key Latinx informants from the state. Their testimonios offer insight for the statistical trends in Latinx political participation during the observed years and provide evidence that members of the Latinx community in Arizona united to stand against anti-immigration legislation.