Mesa’s longtime partnership with ICE has emerged as a major fault line in the July elections, as organizers work to limit local collaboration with federal immigration authorities.

It’s a sweltering 105 degrees on a Sunday afternoon in June when Jillian Ryan sets out to tell voters in east Mesa that their city has a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to allow local police officers to be a cog in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts.

The 39-year-old mother of two is the head of Indivisible Mesa, a local group formed in the wake of Trump’s 2024 election to oppose his policies, particularly his promise to deport millions of immigrants.

The Mesa Police Department has a 287(g) agreement with ICE that allows police officers to investigate the citizenship status of people once they’ve been arrested and booked into the local jail—even if they haven’t yet been charged with any crime. Mesa is the only city in Arizona that has chosen to join the 287(g) program, which is typically operated by county sheriffs instead, and activists have mobilized to pressure the city council to terminate that partnership without success. One meeting in September 2025 saw more than 100 people submit comment cards calling on the city council to rescind that partnership.