PHOENIX — An official with the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce said a possible boycott in response to illegal immigration legislation will not solve anything.

“From our view, boycotts do nothing but harm the economy and don’t lead to solutions,” Mike Huckins with the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce said. “Many times these boycotts are more divisive than the policies that they are aiming to stop.”

The boycotts often hurt the hard working people that don’t deserve it, Huckins said, as opposed to those who the anger is intended towards.

“The groups can accomplish their goals by gathering the stakeholders together, go and have a common sense, calm conversation,” he said. “Rather than ramping up the rhetoric and calling for boycotts.”

The economic harms of boycotts and the rhetoric just fires up the wrong individuals, Huckins said.

The group behind the possible boycott, Somos America Coalition, said more than a half-dozen bills moving in the Arizona Legislature target illegal immigrants and strike fear in the immigrant community.

“It is the persistence of extremist opinions that hold sway in the state legislature,” Somos America President Roberto Reveles said.

Of the most concern to the group is Senate Bill 1377, which would require illegal immigrants convicted of certain crimes to serve the entire length of their prison sentence without the chance of parole.

Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, sponsored the bill that would essentially make it impossible for immigrants in the country illegally to receive any leniency in the courts when they commit serious crimes.

Smith said the bill came in response to a case from last year in which an immigrant who entered the country illegally and was out on bail for a separate crime shot and killed a 21-year-old convenience store employee over a pack of cigarettes.

If that bill and several others are signed into law, Somos America would reinstate a nationwide boycott of Arizona. The group first boycotted the state when SB 1070 was signed into law.

“The passage and signing of these bigoted proposals would be an unforgivably shortsighted affront to the best interest of Arizonans by triggering the resumption of the nationwide Boycott Arizona Campaign,” Reveles said.

KTAR’s Cooper Rummell and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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