Group seeking to cut off all government services to illegal immigrants receives 100,000 petition signatures.

The Associated Press

PHOENIX - An Arizona group trying to put an initiative on the state's November ballot to deny government services to illegal immigrants got a boost yesterday when it was presented with approximately 100,000 petition signatures.
The Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform presented the Protect Arizona Now campaign with 12 boxes of petitions during a news conference at the Capitol.

Protect Arizona Now needs to submit 122,612 voter signatures by tomorrow to qualify its initiative for the ballot. However, initiative organizers generally like to have a substantial cushion of additional signatures in case many are invalid.

The campaign faltered when it tried to rely exclusively on volunteers to collect the necessary signatures, but FAIR and other national groups spent more than $400,000 in recent months to have paid circulators collect signatures.

The initiative is aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from receiving government services not required by the federal government.

The initiative would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, cast ballots at polling places and receive nonfederally mandated social services such as welfare.

Currently, the federal government requires proof of U.S. citizenship for welfare only if state agencies suspect an applicant is an illegal immigrant.

Officials said they expect up to 30,000 additional signatures from volunteers and paid circulators before tomorrow. Those would be added to the roughly 35,000 PAN already had before yesterday.

Supporters said they were optimistic the initiative will qualify for the ballot.

"We're going to let the voters speak loud in November," said state Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa. "We're not going to take any more."

Opponents predicted the state's random check of petitions will show the campaign did not have enough signatures.

"They're in deep trouble," said former legislator Alfredo Gutierrez, a Democratic candidate for governor in 2002. "If they submit 170,000, they won't get on the ballot."