Pima County Sheriff Lawsuit | ACLU vs. Nanos 2026

The ACLU of Arizona is suing Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos in Pima County Superior Court, accusing his department of violating Arizona’s Public Records Law by refusing to disclose records of deputies’ contact with Border Patrol and ICE. The lawsuit, filed in July 2025, follows repeated unfulfilled records requests and contradicts Nanos’ repeated public assurances that the Pima County Sheriff’s Department does not assist in federal immigration enforcement.

Incident reports obtained through the litigation reveal a pattern of deputies contacting Border Patrol after encountering Spanish-speaking individuals not suspected of any crime. The case remains active, with an evidentiary hearing held in April 2026 and the ACLU continuing to press for additional records.

Lawsuit Timeline and Updates

January 2022 to June 2023 — Deputies Contact Border Patrol, Records Later Surface

Incident reports covering this period, obtained through court orders in the ACLU lawsuit, show Pima County Sheriff’s Department deputies called U.S. Border Patrol on multiple occasions after encountering Spanish-speaking individuals who were not suspected of committing any crime. One report describes a deputy contacting Border Patrol after searching the bags of three men and finding nothing illegal. Another shows deputies transporting five men to a Taco Bell, then calling Border Patrol to meet them there. These are the same years Sheriff Nanos publicly insisted his department did not cooperate with immigration enforcement.

January 2025 — Nanos Publishes Video Denying Immigration Enforcement

Days after President Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, Sheriff Nanos released a 12-minute video directly addressing community concerns. “Your immigration status is not a concern to us,” he said. “What we don’t do, is we don’t enforce federal immigration law.” The statement was widely shared. It also set the stage for a direct contradiction — because the ACLU was already gathering evidence that told a different story.

May 2025 — ACLU Submits Public Records Request

The ACLU of Arizona submitted a formal public records request to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, asking for documents related to when and how deputies verified immigration status during traffic stops, including radio traffic logs and incident reports. The department acknowledged receipt. No records were provided. The ACLU also learned, through a parallel request by Arizona Luminaria, that the department had stopped tracking contact with federal immigration authorities in June 2024 — even though the internal policy requiring that tracking remained in effect until July 2025.

July 2025 — ACLU Files Lawsuit in Pima County Superior Court

With no records and no timeline for compliance, the ACLU of Arizona filed a verified complaint against Sheriff Nanos and the Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Pima County Superior Court on July 21, 2025. The complaint alleged repeated violations of Arizona’s Public Records Law. ACLU immigrants’ rights attorney John Mitchell stated that the department’s lack of responsive records, combined with its midstream policy revisions, should raise serious concerns for county residents. At the time, investigations had already revealed that at least 16 undocumented individuals were turned over to Border Patrol by PCSD deputies between January 2022 and June 2023.

March 2026 — ACLU Files New Brief, Incident Reports Enter the Record

On March 25, 2026, the ACLU of Arizona filed a new brief in Pima County Superior Court, presenting incident reports obtained through prior court orders. The reports documented multiple troubling encounters. In one, a 911 caller reported 25 to 45 Hispanic individuals gathered behind a Dollar General store — and PCSD called Border Patrol. In another, a deputy who said he legally could not hold three men any longer than 15 minutes still alerted Border Patrol before releasing them.

In the Taco Bell incident, deputies offered five men “a ride into town,” drove them to the fast food location, and called Border Patrol to collect them. The ACLU argued these incidents potentially violated the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable seizure. The department refused to cooperate with additional requests, claiming the work was unduly burdensome, and sought exorbitant fees to comply.

April 2026 — Evidentiary Hearing and Continued Scrutiny

An evidentiary hearing was scheduled for April 3, 2026 in Pima County Superior Court, with attorneys from both sides set to appear. The ACLU said it still awaited records covering the period from July 2024 through May 2025. The lawsuit was unfolding against a backdrop of intensifying pressure on Sheriff Nanos: the Pima County Board of Supervisors had voted unanimously in March 2026 to compel sworn reports from the sheriff following an Arizona Republic investigation that found Nanos had misrepresented his work history, including prior discipline, when applying for his Pima County position. A recall effort against Nanos was underway. The Pima County Deputies Organization had held a no-confidence vote, with roughly half of members calling for his resignation. Nanos declined to comment on pending litigation.

What the Lawsuit Alleges

The core allegation is straightforward: the Pima County Sheriff’s Department violated Arizona’s Public Records Law by refusing to produce documents the ACLU requested. Arizona public records law requires government agencies to respond promptly and provide records unless a specific exemption applies. No exemption was cited by PCSD. The department simply did not respond.

The secondary layer is more serious. The records the ACLU has obtained through court orders suggest that PCSD deputies were, in fact, contacting Border Patrol during and after encounters with Spanish-speaking individuals who were not criminal suspects. That directly contradicts Nanos’ repeated public statements. The ACLU has argued that some of these documented encounters raise Fourth Amendment concerns: if a deputy cannot legally detain someone beyond a brief stop, alerting federal immigration authorities to that person’s location may still constitute a constitutional violation.

The Pattern the Records Reveal

What is striking about the incident reports is the context in which deputies called Border Patrol. These were not situations where criminal activity was confirmed. A group of Hispanic men on a roadside. A gathering near a dollar store. Men looking for work on a construction site. In each case, PCSD deputies made contact and then contacted federal immigration authorities.

The pattern matters because it suggests something structural, not incidental. The ACLU notes that the department maintained a formal policy requiring it to track these contacts. Then, in June 2024, the tracking stopped — even though the policy itself was not formally revised until July 2025. That gap, the ACLU argues, was not accidental. Stopping the record-keeping while the practice continued is exactly the kind of opacity that public records law exists to prevent.

Sheriff Nanos has pushed back, arguing that any historical contacts with Border Patrol were inherited from his predecessor, Republican Sheriff Mark Napier, and were tied to federal grant requirements rather than immigration enforcement posture. That explanation does not account for the incidents documented in 2021, 2022, and 2023 — years of Nanos’ own tenure.

The Broader Context: Immigration Enforcement and Local Police

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department patrols a vast jurisdiction in southern Arizona, including areas near the US-Mexico border. The region has been a focal point of immigration enforcement, and the relationship between local law enforcement and federal immigration agencies has long been contested. Under the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, scrutiny of local departments intensified nationally. Community advocates in Tucson had been circulating videos showing police officers calling Border Patrol for backup during traffic stops. For many residents, the question was not abstract.

Nanos positioned himself as a Democrat who would not do the federal government’s enforcement work. That positioning has political value in Pima County. It also creates a higher standard for accountability. When a sheriff says his department does not cooperate with immigration authorities, and records suggest otherwise, the contradiction is not merely legal — it is a breach of public trust that affects community willingness to interact with local law enforcement at all.

This is why the ACLU pressed the case even as the litigation grew expensive and slow. The records sought here are not just documents. They are the evidence that either confirms or refutes the sheriff’s stated policy. As John Mitchell put it, the lawsuit is about “the transparency that real accountability demands.” You can read related coverage of law enforcement accountability in our article on the Google Android cellular data lawsuit, which similarly tracks institutional transparency failures.

Defendant Response

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department has maintained a consistent posture throughout the litigation: no comment on pending legal matters. A department spokesperson confirmed that policy to multiple news outlets. Nanos himself has not addressed the specific incident reports surfaced by the ACLU in court filings.

On the substantive question of immigration enforcement, Nanos told Capitol Media Services that his department does not proactively cooperate with immigration enforcement and does not hold individuals for immigration authorities. He attributed historical records of Border Patrol contact to practices carried over from Sheriff Napier’s administration, tied to federal grant compliance requirements. The ACLU disputes that framing, pointing to incident dates that fall squarely within Nanos’ own tenure.

What This Lawsuit Teaches Consumers

The Pima County Sheriff lawsuit is not about a drug, a product, or a corporate defendant. It is about something more foundational: whether a government official’s public statements match the documented actions of his department. That gap between stated policy and documented practice is the central problem this case exposes.

Public records laws exist precisely for moments like this. They are the mechanism by which residents, journalists, and civil rights organizations can hold public officials accountable without relying on those officials’ own accounts. When a department stops tracking records it is required to track, then claims it cannot produce them, the law provides a remedy. The ACLU used it.

The broader lesson is about how trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement is built and destroyed. Sheriffs who publicly pledge not to enforce immigration law do so in part to encourage undocumented residents to report crimes, cooperate with witnesses, and engage with the legal system without fear. If those pledges are undermined by actual practice, the damage is real and lasting. People stop calling 911. Crimes go unreported. The community becomes less safe for everyone.

Watch what officials do, not only what they say. And when the two diverge, the public records laws of Arizona — and the civil rights organizations willing to enforce them — are among the few tools available to close that gap.