Arizona’s illegal immigration law today is a narrower set of rules than the sweeping 2010 statute known as SB 1070. Only one contested piece of SB 1070 is still enforceable: police must check a person’s immigration status during a lawful stop if they have reasonable suspicion the person is in the country without authorization. Two other pieces of Arizona’s enforcement framework also remain in force — a rule letting residents sue local governments that adopt sanctuary policies, and a separate 2007 law requiring every Arizona employer to use E-Verify.
What Police Must Do During a Stop
Section 2(B) of SB 1070, codified at Arizona Revised Statutes 11-1051(B), requires state and local officers to make a reasonable attempt to verify a person’s immigration status when two things are true: the person has been lawfully stopped, detained, or arrested, and the officer has reasonable suspicion the person is unlawfully present in the United States.
For anyone who is formally arrested, immigration status must be determined before release. Verification runs through the federal government under 8 U.S.C. § 1373(c), meaning Arizona officers do not decide status themselves; they ask federal authorities.
The U.S. Supreme Court allowed this provision to take effect in Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012), partly because it had not yet been enforced and there was no record of how it would play out in practice. The Court signaled that its survival depended on narrow use.
Limits on the Status Check
The statute and later court guidance impose real constraints on how these checks can happen.
- Race, color, and national origin. ARS 11-1051(B) states that officers may not consider race, color, or national origin when implementing the status-check requirement, except to the extent the U.S. or Arizona Constitution permits.
- Presumption with ID. A person is presumed not to be unlawfully present if they show a valid Arizona driver’s license, a state-issued nonoperating ID, a tribal enrollment card, or any other government-issued ID that requires proof of legal presence before issuance.
- No prolonged detention. The Supreme Court emphasized that the check cannot extend a routine stop beyond what the original reason justified. A traffic stop cannot be dragged out while officers wait on a status response.
- Investigation exception. Officers can skip the check if making the determination would hinder or obstruct an ongoing investigation.
After further litigation by civil rights groups, Arizona and the coalition of plaintiffs reached a 2016 settlement in which the Attorney General’s Office issued an informal opinion setting constitutional guidelines for how officers should carry out the check. Section 2(B) itself was not repealed and remains enforceable.
What the Supreme Court Struck Down
Three other high-profile provisions of SB 1070 never took effect because the Supreme Court invalidated them in 2012. Knowing what is gone matters as much as knowing what remains.
Failing to Carry Federal Registration Papers
Section 3 made it a state misdemeanor to be in Arizona without valid federal registration documents. The Court struck it down because Congress had already built a complete federal registration system that left no room for state add-ons, even duplicative ones.
Working Without Authorization
Section 5(C) would have made it a state crime for an unauthorized immigrant to seek or hold a job. The Court struck it down because the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 deliberately penalized employers who hire unauthorized workers but chose not to criminalize the act of working from the employee’s side. Arizona could not add a criminal penalty Congress had intentionally left off the table.
Warrantless Arrests for Deportable Offenses
Section 6 would have let state officers arrest anyone without a warrant based on probable cause the person had committed a removable offense. The Court held that this stripped the federal government of its discretion over when to begin removal proceedings, which is central to how Congress designed immigration enforcement.
Lawsuits Against Sanctuary Policies
Section 2(G) of SB 1070 was not challenged in Arizona v. United States and remains fully in force. It gives any Arizona resident a private right of action against a city, town, county, or state agency that adopts a policy limiting immigration enforcement below the full extent federal law allows.
If a court finds a violation, it must:
- Order the government entity to pay the plaintiff’s court costs and attorney fees, and
- Impose a civil penalty of between $1,000 and $5,000 for each day the offending policy remained in effect after the lawsuit was filed.
Collected penalties go to the Department of Public Safety’s gang and immigration intelligence team enforcement mission fund. The provision makes sanctuary-style policies financially risky for Arizona municipalities.
E-Verify Requirements for Arizona Employers
Arizona’s other major immigration enforcement law predates SB 1070. The Legal Arizona Workers Act, enacted in 2007 and codified in Title 23, Chapter 2 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, requires every Arizona employer to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm work authorization for all employees hired after December 31, 2007. This law survived its own Supreme Court challenge in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting (2011).
Penalties are tied to the employer’s level of knowledge:
- First knowing violation: terminate all unauthorized workers, file quarterly reports on new hires at the affected location for three years of probation, and possible business license suspension of up to ten business days.
- Second knowing violation: permanent revocation of the business license for the location where the unauthorized work occurred.
- First intentional violation: terminate all unauthorized workers, file quarterly reports for five years of probation, and a mandatory license suspension of at least ten days.
- Second intentional violation: permanent revocation of all business licenses.
A second violation counts as such only if it occurs at the same business location as the first violation during the probationary period. Employers who do not use E-Verify are also ineligible for state economic development incentives and government contracts.
Your Rights During an Immigration Stop
If you are stopped in Arizona and asked about your immigration status, several protections apply regardless of your citizenship.
You have the right to remain silent under the Fifth Amendment. You are not required to answer questions about your immigration status, nationality, or country of birth, and you can state that you are exercising that right. Refusing to identify yourself during a lawful stop can carry separate consequences under Arizona’s stop-and-identify rules, so silence about identity is different from silence about immigration.
If you carry a valid Arizona driver’s license, state-issued ID, tribal enrollment card, or other government ID that required proof of legal presence to obtain, showing it creates a statutory presumption that you are lawfully present. Officers should not continue the immigration inquiry once you produce one of these documents.
Officers cannot extend a traffic stop or other routine detention solely to wait for a federal immigration status response. Once the original reason for the stop is resolved, continuing to hold you to complete an immigration check runs into the constitutional limits the Supreme Court flagged in its 2012 opinion. If that happens, note the time, the officer, and the agency; it is the kind of detail that matters if you later challenge the stop.