Arizonas Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes quietly worked hand in glove with a radical anti-police, anti-border enforcement group as she publicly fought a border security initiative that Arizona voters would later approve by a wide margin.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, internal records show that Mayess office coordinated behind the scenes with Living United for Change in Arizona, or LUCHA, a left-wing activist organization that has demanded the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection and championed efforts to defund local police. The coordination unfolded as Republicans advanced the Secure the Border Act, a Texas-style measure requiring immigration status checks for certain public benefits and empowering state and local officers to arrest illegal border crossers, which ultimately appeared on the ballot as Proposition 314 and passed with roughly 62 percent support.
The paper trail begins on May 6, 2024, when a lobbyist for LUCHA emailed Mayess office to sound the alarm that GOP lawmakers were preparing to roll out the Secure the Border Act. Lucha is asking if AG Mayes would oppose [the bill] and come out with a statement against these efforts, as this policy and policies like them are not a sincere effort to address the humanitarian crisis at the border, the lobbyist wrote, adding, It is going to be tough to defeat this, but public pressure like this helps make it possible.
Within three days, after Republicans in the legislature moved the bill forward, Mayes delivered precisely the kind of public pressure LUCHA had requested. She issued a statement denouncing the Secure the Border Act as a political distraction that will sow seeds of bias and fear without fixing the issues it claims to address, language that echoed progressive talking points rather than the concerns of border communities bearing the brunt of federal failure.
The correspondence did not end with that initial exchange, suggesting an ongoing, strategic relationship between the states top law enforcement officer and a group openly hostile to immigration enforcement and policing. In June 2024, LUCHAs thenpolitical director, Chris Gilfillan, contacted Mayess communications director, Richie Taylor, seeking a call on how AG Mayes is thinking about the Secure the Border Act, especially from a prosecutorial perspective.
Gilfillan pressed the political upside of a more aggressive stance, writing, I think there's a really strong narrative that she could seize, but also understand it could/would be inherently political. Taylor replied that he was happy to chat and shared his phone number, and by September 2024, Gilfillan was back in touch asking Mayes to join a Democratic AG letter circulating that attacked Texass immigration policies, with Taylor soon confirming that Mayes had signed onto this letter.
These communications underscore that Mayess office maintained a close working relationship with LUCHA even as she attempted to brand herself publicly as a champion of border security. In her statement opposing the Secure the Border Act, Mayes insisted she had been extremely vocal about our federal government's blatant failure to secure Arizona's border but claimed to harbor concerns about the bills unintended consequences.
Two years later, as she seeks another term, Mayes is campaigning as a partner to law enforcement who has locked up drug cartel members and seized more than 27 million deadly fentanyl pills off our streets. That law-and-order image sits uneasily beside her quiet alignment with LUCHA, which declared as early as 2018 that We must Abolish ICE & Abolish CBP and has been at the forefront of efforts to strip resources from police departments in Arizona.
LUCHAs hostility to law enforcement has been explicit and sustained, particularly during the height of the defund the police movement. In June 2020, the group organized a rally outside Phoenix City Council Chambers as the council considered the citys annual budget, using the moment to attack local officers and demand sweeping cuts.
Phoenix has one of the deadliest police forces in the country and their violence has been on full display during the past week of protesting, LUCHA wrote in a Facebook post promoting the event. The police budget should be going to programs and services that will create healthy communities. The police do not protect or serve us. We need to show up tomorrow to demand that city council defund police.
Despite that record, Arizona Republicans pressed ahead with the Secure the Border Act as a legislatively referred statute, bypassing the governor and sending the measure directly to voters. Rebranded as Proposition 314, the law won overwhelming approval in November 2024, even as LUCHA spearheaded unsuccessful lawsuits attempting to strike it down on constitutional grounds.
The disconnect between Mayess private alliances and public rhetoric has drawn increasing scrutiny as the election season intensifies. Neither Mayess office nor LUCHA responded to requests for comment about their coordination, leaving voters to weigh the documentary evidence against the attorney generals campaign messaging.
The revelations land at a politically sensitive moment for Mayes, who is locked in a competitive reelection battle with Republican Warren Petersen, the president of the Arizona Senate and a vocal supporter of tougher border enforcement. A recent Noble Predictive Insights poll shows Mayes with a 6-point edge over Petersen, but more than 30 percent of voters remain undecided, and her campaign has described the contest as one of the closest races in the country.
Mayess narrow 2022 victoryshe won by just 280 voteshas already made her a prime target for Republicans seeking to reclaim the attorney generals office. Her recent comments about ICE and the use of lethal force under Arizonas Stand Your Ground law have only heightened concerns among law enforcement advocates and conservatives about her judgment and priorities.
In a January interview with 12News, Mayes suggested that Arizonans might be justified in shooting masked ICE agents under certain circumstances. It's kind of a recipe for disaster because you have these masked federal officers with very little identification, sometimes no identification, wearing plain clothes and masks, she said, adding, And we have a Stand Your Ground law that says that if you reasonably believe that your life is in danger and you're in your house or your car or on your property, that you can defend yourself with lethal force.
When pressed by the interviewer on whether she was telling folks, You have license, if you are threatened, to shoot a peace officer, Mayes tried to draw a distinction but did little to calm critics. Well, no, but, again, if you're being attacked by someone who is not identified as a peace officer, how do you know? she replied, a formulation that many in law enforcement viewed as dangerously ambiguous.
The Arizona Police Association swiftly rebuked her remarks, warning that such rhetoric from the states top prosecutor could have deadly consequences. Words from elected officials matter. It only takes one unstable individual to interpret such commentary as permission or encouragement to use deadly force against police officers, the association said in a statement, adding, As Arizona's chief law enforcement officer, the Attorney General has a responsibility to de-escalate, not inflame. We find these remarks reckless, irresponsible, and dangerous to the safety of all law enforcement professionals in the state.
Facing mounting backlash, Mayes released a videotaped statement two days later in an attempt to walk back the controversy. She faulted right-wing media for amplifying her comments and emphasized her support and appreciation for Arizona law enforcement, even as her documented collaboration with LUCHA and her opposition to a voter-approved border security law continue to raise doubts among conservatives about whose side she is truly on.
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