Not wanting to go down the road of major United States cities besieged by ICE agents running rampant, like Chicago and Minneapolis, the Phoenix City Council approved the formation of the Community Transparency Initiative (CTI) on March 25, 2026.
This initiative, when fully in place, would “document federal immigration enforcement activities within Phoenix and assess their impacts on residents and City operations.”
In other words, this program would create, over the next 60 days, an online site called the Sivil Complaint Portal, for people to notify local authorities when federal immigration officials abuse the enforcement process and violate a person or person’s civil rights.
If the complaint reveals credible allegations of federal immigration abuse, “the results of the investigation may be forwarded to the appropriate agency for criminal charges, forwarded to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, and/or shared with the relevant federal agency with a request for further investigation. All reports will be preserved for potential future civil action and for public records requests.”
This new documentation system bears some similarity to the Oversight Immigration Enforcement Dashboard House Democrats, including former Phoenix Councilwoman and Vice Mayor Yassamin Ansari, developed last November.
Commenting on a City of Phoenix Press Release following the Council vote, Mayor Kate Gallego stated:
“The behavior we saw in Minneapolis, Portland, and Chicago – and here in Phoenix – is un-American. It doesn’t make us safer. The actions the City took today are important steps to ensure we are prepared if we see escalated federal immigration enforcement activity. We’ve heard from countless residents who are rightly concerned, even including interpreters who supported our troops in Afghanistan, and I am proud of the measures we took today to protect our diverse community.”
On social media, the Mayor added:
“Last night, the Phoenix City Council and I took steps to protect our community from federal immigration enforcement actions that violate civil rights. The City will document and preserve information on all federal immigration enforcement activities that may violate criminal statutes and civil rights for potential prosecution of federal agents. We will also collect data on the impacts to City services as a result of federal immigration enforcement. City employees will be trained on handling encounters with federal enforcement actions, including protocols related to administrative and judicial warrants. Federal agencies will be required to go through a permitting process if they want to use city-owned property. This is not the end of our work. We’re going to remain vigilant and learn and do as much as we can to stop civil rights abuses from happening in our community in the first place. We’re committed to making sure that ICE agents who violate the law will be held to account.”
To learn more, visit our Community Transparency Initiative webpage.
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