Things got heated during the Senate Director Nominations Committee on May 11 after Republican lawmaker Sen. Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) said “we’ve had millions of illegals invade this country,” and called out fellow lawmaker Sen. Analise Ortiz (D-Maryvale) for her efforts to defend Arizona’s immigrant communities.
The altercation began after Hoffman asked if Gov. Katie Hobbs’ nominee to lead the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, Brig. General John Conley, would deploy National Guard resources to support US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts in the state.
“Knowing that we’ve had millions of illegals invade this country, and knowing that there are many of them that are dangerous criminals,” Hoffman said. “In fact, just in my colleagues’ district, ICE conducted an operation, one that she tried to doxx.”
Ortiz wasted no time rebutting Hoffman, “Don’t talk about my district. Keep my district’s name out your mouth,” she said.
A district under fire
Hoffman was referring to an incident last August, when Ortiz took to social media to warn community members about immigration enforcement activity near an elementary school at Southwest School near 11th Avenue and Dobbins Road, but contrary to Hoffman’s statements, the school is not in Ortiz’s district–it’s in Legislative District 11.
“He got that very basic fact wrong because he’s a habitual liar,” Ortiz said.
Ortiz, who represents a heavily Latino district, reposted an alert on her social media to warn community members about ICE activity in Phoenix. It later resulted in the lawmaker being targeted by Libs of TikTok, a far-right social media account with a history of doxxing teachers, activists and politicians. The incident led to a series of attacks from far-right accounts and Republican lawmakers that were so bad, she said, that she had to leave her house out of safety concerns.
“It got to the point that I could not stay in my home for a week because I was not safe,” Ortiz said in February. “It was horrifying to know that my fellow senators did not care that their lies about me could incite their followers to violence.”
Republican lawmakers later filed an ethics complaint against Ortiz for her posts.
During the contentious hearing, Hoffman shot Ortiz down, advising she “better understand,” legislative procedures, before continuing and stating that the ICE operation that targeted an Arizona father rounded up “dangerous rapists, pedophiles, domestic abusers.”
Ortiz wasted no time interjecting, again, calling out Hoffman for what she called “misinformation.”
“You do not have facts about the incident you’re talking about,” Ortiz said. “There [were] no rapists or murders involved in that day. Nor [were] there in 80% of the detentions that have happened since Trump took office.”
Most immigrants held in ICE detention—70% per recent statistics— do not have criminal convictions, according to Trac Reports, a nonpartisan research organization.
Despite that, Hoffman advised Ortiz “learn legislative procedure, or you can stay quiet,” leading to Ortiz, once again, shutting Hoffman down and defending Arizona’s immigrant communities from his remarks.
“And you can keep my district’s name out of your mouth,” Ortiz said. “Or speak truth into the microphone.”
The politically charged hearing lasted hours before the committee eventually voted to advance Conley.
Ortiz told the Arizona Mirror afterwards “There’s a difference between vetting and being disrespectful jerks, and they were disrespectful jerks,” she said.
