Arizona is usually offered two choices on immigration: accept illegal migration or demand more enforcement.

Sen. Mark Kelly has articulated a more constructive principle. “We’re a nation of immigrants. We’re also a nation of laws. And we’re fully capable of honoring both,” he said earlier this year.

Kelly’s new bipartisan visa proposal would begin turning that principle into policy by giving Arizona a role in building lawful immigration pathways tied to the state’s actual economic needs.

The Arizona Democrat and Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah have introduced the State Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act of 2026. It would allow participating states to sponsor foreign workers, entrepreneurs and investors through a federally administered immigration program.

Washington would retain authority over admissibility, security screening and immigration status. Arizona would assess its labor needs, select participants and oversee its program.

For a border state, that is not an alternative to enforcing the law. It is a recognition that enforcement is more credible when the legal immigration system provides realistic alternatives.

Arizona has a strong reason to consider the experiment. The state’s Office of Economic Opportunity projects that Arizona will add 454,167 jobs by 2034, including more than 113,000 in health care, nearly 52,000 in construction and approximately 29,000 in manufacturing. Job gains are projected in all 15 counties.

Those numbers do not establish that employers should be allowed to recruit abroad whenever they ask. They show why Arizona needs a more precise tool than national visa categories and numerical limits established in Washington.

Under the proposed legislation, participating states would have to assess labor demand and occupational wages, investigate allegations that U.S. workers were displaced and determine that sponsored hiring would not displace American workers. States would also have to permit participants to seek employment beyond the company that initially hired them.

That mobility is essential. A state visa should not make a worker’s lawful status entirely dependent on one employer. Workers who can change jobs are better able to report wage theft, leave unsafe conditions and participate in the labor market on more equal terms.

But Arizona should not wait until the bill passes to decide what a responsible state program would require.

First, sponsorship should be based on published workforce data, not pressure from individual industries. Arizona should identify eligible occupations, regions and economic-development priorities and explain why domestic recruitment, training and wage adjustments have not met the need.

Second, the state should require employers to pay sponsored workers at least what similarly qualified Arizona workers receive. The pilot must supplement the state’s workforce—not give businesses access to discounted labor.

Third, Congress should revise the geographic restrictions. The bill could terminate a participant’s status for residing or working outside the sponsoring state or an approved interstate compact. But Arizona employees travel for training, serve clients in neighboring states and work remotely for companies headquartered elsewhere.

Participants should have to maintain genuine Arizona residence and economic ties. Ordinary business travel, temporary assignments and remote work should not become immigration violations.

Fourth, Arizona should guarantee meaningful review before asking the federal government to terminate someone’s status. The bill leaves state appeals optional and largely insulates sponsorship decisions from federal review. An inaccurate employer report or mistaken residency determination could therefore have devastating consequences.

Arizona can enforce program rules while still providing written notice, access to the evidence and review by a neutral decision-maker.

Finally, the Legislature should require annual public reports identifying the occupations sponsored, wages paid, displacement complaints received and compliance results. A pilot program should generate evidence that lawmakers and the public can evaluate.

For decades, Arizona has experienced the consequences of a dysfunctional immigration system while exercising little authority to improve it. Kelly’s proposal offers the state something Washington rarely provides: a meaningful voice in legal immigration policy.

Congress should advance the pilot, and Arizona should prepare to implement it with measurable workforce criteria, wage protections, job mobility, due process and public accountability.

The immigration debate need not remain trapped between illegality and enforcement. Arizona can help construct a lawful third path.

Richard T. Herman is an immigration attorney and founder of Herman Legal Group.