AIVN will be asking our elected representatives to tell us of their plans to address issues that are important to Arizonans leading up to the 2024 election. The first issue is immigration reform. Duplicate letters were sent to all eight Congressmen and both Senators (you can read the letter here) and we have asked them to respond within the next two months. Read those responses (or note if there has been no response) and feel free to post your own constructive thoughts and suggestions. We will be featuring additional issues in the months to come.

November 3, 2023
Delivered Via Email and U.S. Mail

Re: Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Arizona Legislator,

The Arizona Independent Voter’s Network (AIVN) is collecting information from Arizona elected representatives regarding their plans to address the issues that are most important to Arizona voters in the run-up to the 2024 elections. In December, AIVN will highlight Arizona legislator’s responses regarding immigration reform on our website: azindvoters.net. AIVN relies upon verifiable information from reputable sources for concise reporting and analysis from a non-partisan perspective intended to serve Independent Voters.

According to the 2022, Center for the Future of Arizona (CFA) report, “The Arizona We Want” Arizonans want comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship. The CFA report notes that more than 70 percent of Arizonans agree that immigration reform is needed. The current public perception of immigration seems far removed from the actual state of affairs. 

• According to a Cato Institute review of 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data, the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey reports that immigration as a share of the U.S. population reached 13.9%, growing just 0.3% from July 2021 through July 2022.
• The past decade (2012-2022) has shown slower growth in the number of immigrants as a share of the total U.S. population than in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and 2000’s. 
• Arizona agriculture relies upon immigrant labor. One of the Arizona Farm Bureau’s priority issues is reform of the H-2A visa that allows qualified U.S. employers to fill temporary agricultural jobs with qualified foreign nationals.
• The Peter G. Peterson Foundation notes that one fiscal challenge facing the U.S. is the federal deficit, driven in large part by the rising costs of Social Security and Medicare. With an aging population, declining birthrate, and rising medical costs more young workers, e.g., immigrants are needed to contribute to these growing entitlement programs. In effect, we are just not replacing income earners as our population ages.

AIVN would like to understand and share your plans to address comprehensive immigration reform and to develop a pathway to citizenship for qualified immigrants. Since Independent voters do not have existing party channels of communication, we seek to serve those unmet information needs. 

We will post responses (and non-responses) on our website (azindvoters.net) in our “Ask Your Legislator” Section. We will be asking incumbents about other issues that are important to Arizona voters in the coming months and will continue to post that information on our website. We appreciate the complexity of the immigration issue but believe that it is essential our leaders develop and implement a constructive solution. We look forward to hearing from you on this critical issue.  

Warmest regards,

Richard Sinclair, AIVN