By admin 
YUMA, AZ (AZFamily) — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has dropped its legal challenge to a new Arizona law that allows local police to enforce federal immigration laws.
Read more Interstate 10 widening project reaches halfway point
The ACLU cited a lack of active enforcement by local departments as the primary reason for pausing the lawsuit. The law, known as Proposition 314, was approved by Arizona voters in 2024 but did not take effect until earlier this summer.
Civil rights groups have criticized the measure as unconstitutional, warning it could lead to widespread racial profiling. However, because no Arizona police departments have begun actively enforcing the law, attorneys opted to withdraw the litigation for now, with the option to refile if enforcement begins.
“We will continue to monitor for racial profiling, unlawful detentions and deportations that violate people’s rights,” the legal director for the ACLU of Arizona said.
While local police have yet to make arrests under Prop 314, immigrant families in border communities like Yuma are already bracing for increased enforcement amid a tightening federal landscape.
For Cynthia Heredia, the threat of deportation has already disrupted her family. Her husband, Salvador Velasco, a gardener who came to the United States from El Salvador at age 14, was recently arrested by federal immigration agents.
Heredia said Velasco was on his way to work when he stopped to pump gas. He was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and taken to the San Luis Detention Center before being transferred to a facility in Florence, Arizona, approximately 200 miles away.
Velasco holds Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a program that protects eligible foreign nationals from deportation if their home countries are deemed unsafe, but the Trump administration recently implemented rule changes targeting TPS holders, leaving families like Velasco’s vulnerable.
Read more Why officers who misused Flock cameras could still be hired by other departments
Heredia said she rushed to the San Luis facility with her husband’s documentation but was turned away by agents who refused to show her an arrest warrant.
“I had his documentation, and I asked the agent where the notification of the warrant for his arrest was,” Heredia said. “He told me it was sent to the address that is on file. I said, ‘Which one?’ He replied, ‘You know.’”
The family has retained legal counsel and is actively fighting the deportation order.
“We have gone through tough times, and I am not going to stop fighting for him,” Heredia said. “Whatever it takes, I will do it for my husband.”
Their attorney is currently filing a motion to halt Velasco’s deportation, highlighting the high stakes for mixed-status and protected families as state and federal immigration policies continue to shift.
Velasco’s GoFundMe has more information.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Read more Judge refuses to block border wall build along reservation in Arizona