LUCHA, a Latino-run grassroots group, was formed in 2009 in response to the state’s “Show Me Your Papers” immigration law and Arpaio’s brutal 24-year reign. Senate Bill 1070, as it’s officially known, was the most punitive immigration law in the nation, and led to a seismic shift in the politics of the state.
“[SB 1070] was a watershed moment for the state of Arizona, in the sense that it was so raw and so politically motivated in terms of making the immigrant community and Latinos, by obvious association, the target that it backfired,” Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., told The Intercept a few days before the election. “And it backfired in the sense that it politicized a lot of people and energized a generation of activists.”
LUCHA has knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors in neighborhoods in South Phoenix, South Tucson, and West Phoenix since its inception. “You see just a tremendous force of young people that you’ve seen throughout this decade really leading the fight here in Arizona,” Abril Gallardo, LUCHA’s communications director, told The Intercept last week.
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