AzPHA Urges Senators Kelley & Gallego to Demand Accountability and Vote No on Continuing Current Homeland Security Funding Levels
The Arizona Public Health Association (AzPHA) exists to improve the health of all Arizonans through advocacy, education, and professional development.
As the unifying voice for public health in Arizona, we are compelled to speak when policies and practices threaten community trust, access to care, and the conditions necessary for people to live healthy lives.
AzPHA strongly condemns the indiscriminate and aggressive actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Minnesota and across the United States. Reports of individuals being targeted, arrested, and detained based on perceived immigration status, appearance, or language spoken, without transparency or accountability, raise serious concerns about civil rights, due process, and the public health consequences of fear‑based enforcement practices.
Equally alarming are documented instances of excessive force, without accountability, and the suppression of peaceful protests in response to these actions. The use of intimidation, violence, and fear to silence civic engagement undermines public trust and inflicts lasting harm on individuals, families, and communities.
From a public health perspective, the presence and practices of ICE and CBP, when conducted without accountability or community safeguards, create environments of fear that directly undermine access to essential, life-saving care.
Consistent evidence shows that individuals living in communities impacted by ICE activities delay or forgo prenatal care, childhood immunizations, chronic disease management, and other critical health services. These disruptions threaten not only individual well-being, but the health and resilience of entire communities.
Particularly egregious are tactics that place children at the center of enforcement operations. Practices that expose children to trauma, family separation, or coercive tactics jeopardize their physical and emotional development and carry long‑term consequences for population health and educational outcomes.
Arizona’s diverse communities are central to its identity as a state. It is home to twenty-two federally recognized tribes; more than 30% of the population identifies as Hispanic or Latino; nearly 13% of residents were born outside of the United States; and more than one quarter of Arizona households speak a language other than English at home.
This rich diversity, central to Arizona’s identity, also makes our communities uniquely vulnerable to indiscriminate ICE practices that rely on appearance, language, or perceived identity to carry out violent and destabilizing enforcement actions.
The intentional, long-term work of public health and health care institutions to build trust and engage communities that have historically been marginalized or excluded is now being systematically undermined.
Fear-based immigration enforcement is reversing years of progress in preventive care, early intervention, and community engagement. When people are driven into the shadows, public health cannot fulfill its mission to protect and promote health for all.
AzPHA urges Senators Kelly and Gallego to use their authority in the U.S. Senate appropriations process to stop business-as-usual funding for ICE and CBP.
Specifically, we call on Senators Gallego and Kelly to withhold approval of funding for ICE or CBP unless and until strict, transparent, and enforceable accountability measures are enacted.
This includes independent oversight, limits on the use of force, protections for children, meaningful consequences for violations of civil and human rights, independent agent accountability processes, greatly enhanced agent training, and more appropriate qualification criteria for CBP & ICE staff.
Additionally, AzPHA urges Arizona’s Senators to roll back ICE & CBP funding to Fiscal Year 2024 levels to limit capacity for the agencies to harm families, suppress free expression, and undermine civil liberties and public health.
Congressional funding decisions are among the most powerful tools available to protect community health, uphold human dignity, and restore trust. Arizona’s Senators must use that leverage now. Public health demands accountability.
AzPHA affirms that health equity, human dignity, and community safety are inseparable. We call for an immediate end to enforcement practices that criminalize identity, traumatize families, trample on civil liberties and obstruct access to care. Public health cannot thrive where fear is used as a governing tool.
