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♪ UPBEAT RHYTHMIC BRASS MUSIC ♪ Hello and welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up in the program, we'll talk about the nation's border czar, talking about deportation and the Arizona legislature and lawmakers step into immigration again with the so-called Arizona ICE Act passing.

With me to talk about these and other topics are Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, Alisa Reznick of KJZZ Radio, Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Sentinel and Katya Mendoza of AZPM News.

Thank you all for being here.

Jim, I'm gonna put you in the spotlight for a moment.

As I mentioned, the border czar was here.

Tom Homan said a lot of inflammatory things.

I guess not a surprise that he would come to Arizona, but what do you make of the fact that he was here, Homeland Security Secretary Noem was here and they were putting on a big show, border security, toughness, et cetera.

I think it is a big show.

I think what we're seeing in the common theme of all of the immigration stuff is this sort of production almost like a "Cops" episode where Kristi Noem's going out and rounding up dirt bags.

You know, Tom Homan's talking about setting up an Amazon Prime so we can ship people out of the country.

The whole notion is this ongoing dehumanization of people who are in the country illegally.

And I think it's a sad commentary on our American leadership at this point that so many people are taking glee in what is disrupting and destroying the lives of so many people who are here because they fear that they're going to be killed if they remain in the countries that they were born in.

I just, you know, Stephen Miller said during the campaign that the Trump advisor that America is for Americans only and we are seeing that we are no longer the shining city on the hill that we want people to aspire to come here.

We are now the bully of the world and we are going to, we dehumanize people and drive them from our country.

Yeah, Caitlin, there's a really uncomfortable feeling to all of this, to most of us to watch it and the glee, the reality TV aspect.

And I know women get criticized for this more often than men do, but even the way Kristi Noem was dressed for this kind of thing, it's like it sort of looked like she should have been heading to some sort of like nighttime event as opposed to dealing with real people's lives in a serious way.

What do you make of just what happened this week overall?

I mean, it's all very performative.

It's all been very performative.

Even what we see playing out on a local level has become performative with these ICE visits where people are given prior notice so that they can alert the media and bring people out.

We've never had that before.

It's to draw attention to what's happening and it's really sad to see.

I think the cops, the reference to "Cops" is perfect.

That is what it feels like and it feels gross.

Well, and Alisa - so Tom Homan was there, ostensibly to speak to the legislature, but all the Democrats walked out and I wanted to hear what he had to say.

We're gonna talk a little bit about some of the specific stuff you've been covering, but what do you make of this?

The reality TV aspect of it.

Also, what struck me a little bit was the pride that Tom Homan takes in it.

Even for those people who agree with the policies, it certainly hasn't been done in a humane or smooth way.

So it's not as though taking a victory lap seems appropriate at this point, does it?

Sure, I mean, I would say, as we've all said, it's a lot of a sort of show and tell that we've seen in other parts of the country and now here, especially with the border expo, the security expo that's going on as well.

Yeah, I mean, the fact that Democrats walked out is kind of another sign of this huge rift that's growing in the legislature right now.

Obviously, GOP interests are very powerful right now in the legislature, as I'm sure we'll get to later.

Legislation has already passed that Democrats have been pretty vocally opposed to at the state level.

Katya, any initial thoughts on this, as far as Arizona being at the center of this, um, this week especially?

Yes and no, I think we've seen some of this performance in other states.

I'm thinking about Kristi Noem here.

I mean, she was holding a semi-automatic weapon.

It was interesting to see that Senator Gallego did call her out being a veteran, so he understands how those weapons work.

I agree, there is just the increasing divide across the aisle and like Jim said, the dehumanization, you know, Homan said something.

It was like, "if you're in this country illegally, you should be looking over your shoulder."

I think that is applicable to most people who do not fit the MAGA profile, to be honest.

I think even people sitting at this table should be looking over their shoulder.

They're going after all of Trump's enemies and that is a long list.

Well, as someone who has lived in Maricopa County most of my life, I certainly remember what Joe Arpaio tried to do and this seems like out of that playbook to some extent.

Alisa, Homan said that illegal border crossings are down 94% in five weeks.

First of all, based on what you've seen or reported, is that true?

And is it also true in the last days of the Biden administration?

We were seeing many fewer crossings anyway, so it just seems like they're trying to take credit for something that may have already been in the works or may not in fact be accurate, I don't know.

- Not just days before the Trump administration took office, but weeks or months.

There had been a steady decline in the number of apprehensions in Arizona and across the border.

For much of 2024, actually, as Biden-era policies grew increasingly restrictive on asylum seekers, in fact, by the end of the year, there was very little access to the asylum process at the border, which again is a legal right under US immigration law and under international treaties that the US has signed.

So by the time that Trump took office, it was very difficult for an asylum seeker to get to the point where they're on the phone with an asylum officer who would be conducting what's called a credible fear interview, which is the first stage in a very long process to potentially getting asylum.

So even that very first stage was very restricted under Biden-era policies, which resulted in a lot less people in custody and being seen at the border.

Yeah, and Caitlin, going back to what Katya had to say about people being nervous.

Obviously, that's affecting international students as well.

We're seeing that as graduation is approaching now as well.

- Yes, yeah, the Arizona Luminaria reported this week that 50 international students at ASU had had their visas revoked.

Spokespeople would not confirm the number, but they spoke with some attorneys who were working with the students already, one who was being detained and had spent some serious time in detention already.

And we're right, we're a month away from graduation, so not only are these international students fearful that they won't have the chance to graduate, they're also looking for jobs in a climate where they're being told more and more every day, "you're not welcome here."

And I can't imagine spending four years of your life in America working hard.

I've had several international students that I've worked with that are terrified right now.

They didn't wanna go back before and they don't wanna go back now, but job prospects are looking slim.

- Yeah, and Jim, this goes back to what you were saying before, just this general fear and the fact that it's inhumane, et cetera.

(Jim) Oh, absolutely.

When a man has a court order saying that he shouldn't be deported from the country and he ends up in an El Salvadoran prison and the Trump administration says, "Oops, sorry, can't do anything about it."

And the courts are now saying, "You need to do something about it."

And they're like, "Well, we don't."

You know, I think that's, I think the sorts of freedoms that we believed this country were about are rapidly vanishing before our eyes.

(Steve) Yeah.

And, Katya, you obviously work on a college campus.

Have you seen anything, have you heard anything related to what Caitlin was talking about?

- I believe that local news organizations are doing a really great job following the lead on ICE tips, reported sightings, that sort of thing.

The students are vocal that the administration here and at least nationwide, to be honest, should be doing more speaking out.

I was reading the Arizona Luminaria reporting on this and the United Campus Workers of Arizona, they're calling on all three universities to speak out and become more transparent.

I'm gonna plug an episode of the New York Times podcast, "The Daily," that I listened to this week.

So, you know, these prestigious universities, such as Princeton, are under fire.

Universities nationwide are under fire right now and losing funding rapidly.

With that, I'm gonna say the Princeton University President Eisgruber, I believe is his last name, he said that more university presidents should be more outspoken against this because not only are undocumented migrants being targeted, university students, as we are talking about right now, universities, and it's a scary time we're living in right now.

- Yeah, sort of a weird transition before we get into some of what the Arizona legislature is doing.

But Caitlin and Jim, I wanted to ask you guys about this.

So, Kristi Noem, as part of her visit, said the US-Mexico border wall is gonna be extended, that there are 85 miles fully funded to extend the border.

Is this just a repeat of what we saw in the first term?

I guess we haven't heard Mexico's gonna pay for it this time.

But I mean, is this, this is just this running thing we have to keep hearing, right?

- Yeah, I mean, yeah, it feels like we're on repeat over and over again.

The question is, are we gonna buy new shipping containers or are we gonna buy them back from the people that we sold them to at discounted rates?

- Right, yeah, we have to get Doug Ducey to weigh in on that, I guess.

- You know, it seems like if people aren't coming across the border, there's not that much need for a border wall, but apparently that's one of the things that while we're cutting spending on healthcare and education and museums and libraries, we're gonna pick up spending on a wall on the border.

(Steve) Well, you just wrote the whole narrative for the administration, Jim, thanks for doing that.

Alisa, let me ask you about the state legislature in particular, SB 1164, the so-called Arizona ICE Act.

This has some elements to it that people have been familiar with before and it seems like the legislature is taking up to some extent where it left off with SB 1070 15 or so years ago.

So what happened down there, what should we know about the so-called Arizona ICE Act specifically?

Well, I guess first a little bit of background on the legislation.

This has been in the works since shortly after Trump took office and it is spearheaded by Senate President Warren Peterson.

The original version would have required local jurisdictions to have what's called a 287(g) agreement with ICE.

Now that has a couple of different forms, but it allows or rather requires local jurisdictions to work with ICE in certain ways, either within its jail system or sometimes within like what's called a warrant mode, which is slightly different in a slightly different context.

But let's look at the jail model.

Usually there are two, well, not always two, but there are trained officers within that local jurisdiction that are trained by ICE to look up someone's immigration information, send that to ICE, and then ICE has time, 48 hours, 72 hours to come and pick them up if they have some sort of warrant or they are found to be in the country undocumented or unauthorized.

So that is something that has kind of fallen off in Arizona.

You know, at this point, only a handful of jurisdictions actually have active agreements, but more famously, 287(g) was actually revoked from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office after SB 1070 and after rampant reports and lawsuits over racial profiling.

So Arizonans have seen this before.

This is not like this first, you know, this is the sequel.

The most recent version of this act drops that requirement but still requires local jurisdictions to hold people if ICE requests it, as well as basically bans local jurisdictions from banning local police from blocking immigration enforcement efforts.

(Steve) Okay, and Caitlin, this makes me think about Prop 314 that Arizonans actually overwhelmingly supported and there were a lot of other elements too.

Of course, there was the big fentanyl element in there as well, but is there, you know, without obviously polling everyone in the state, does this indicate that there's more of a taste for this even if a lot of people don't wanna hear that based on how the legislature's moving?

Often the legislature's out of step with what the public is doing, but based on Prop 314, would you weigh that maybe people are seeing this issue a little bit differently?

I mean, I think based on what we saw with Prop 314, which I thought was surprising, people are leaning towards this, but I do think that this piece of legislation is much more aggressive and I don't think that this would pass if it came to a vote before constituents.

I think they're taking advantage of the fact that 314 is held up in court because of the Texas legislation and they're pushing ahead with one that is much stricter and much harsher and I think would make a lot of people uncomfortable.

A lot of people were uncomfortable with SB 1070 who I think voted in support of Prop 314 and here we are again with it.

- So I kinda wanna get into the politics a little bit, Jim.

Let me ask you first and that's because this, I suppose we can imagine, state lawmakers, whether it's because of Donald Trump or something else, the Republicans are saying gung-ho, let's move forward on this.

Is there any aspect of this though to put Katie Hobbs in a tough position to if she vetoes this, does she look out of step, especially when we expect her to be running for a real election?

You know, that's really hard to say and there's gonna be so many different factors at play in an election that this one issue may not rise above all the rest.

I think the 2026 midterms are gonna show us a lot about where the country's going and how they are going to react to what the Trump administration and Republicans are doing and there's still more of that to play out as they move forward with this budget thing.

We don't know if they're going to actually cut Medicaid and they're gonna throw all these people off the insurance rolls and what the impacts of that are gonna be.

So there's so many factors out there that I don't think we can, especially this far out and at the rate things are changing and we don't know what the economy's gonna be like at that point.

So there's just a lot to- a lot to unwind between now and then.

- Alisa, what's the rhetoric you're hearing?

Is it pretty inflammatory other than obviously the legislation itself?

But are you hearing folks like Senate President Warren Peterson saying nasty things about undocumented migrants, et cetera?

Well, I think that the initial idea, much like we heard from Homan at the beginning is this is for criminals.

This is for people who are a threat, a criminal threat to communities that they're in.

Warren Peterson has mentioned this figure of 700,000, which is kind of roughly the estimated number of people who are undocumented who have some sort of criminal record.

This has been found to be largely nonviolent crimes, but that's less than 1% of the total 13, roughly 13 million undocumented population in this country.

As we've talked about already, immigration enforcement efforts so far have not necessarily targeted this sort of very specific group of people with a criminal record.

In fact, a lot of the dragnet has included people who have no record whatsoever.

And that's exactly the thing that people, when we talk about the Arizona ICE Act are worried about.

Seeing a repeat of SB 1070, seeing a sort of huge wide net that will include racial profiling and will take in people who are DACA recipients, undocumented people with no criminal record and US citizens.

Katya, what does this feel like to you based on what we've all talked about so far?

It kind of makes me think of just how we were talking about earlier the increasing divide between Republicans and Democrats.

I do want to bring up that Governor Katie Hobbs did make an effort to call on the administration to release FEMA funds for border security purposes.

165 million in federal homeland security and FEMA grants are on hold.

She also submitted a letter to Kristi Noem requesting a meeting which Kristi Noem did not respond to and said she opted for a photo op.

Yeah, another sign of the politics you mentioned.

All right, so let me ask you about other things related to the feds and another chance for us to talk about another administration figure in the state, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. but you've spoken at least with the Pima County Health Department to figure out how some of these federal grant cuts are impacting potentially health in Arizona and the counties.

Who have you talked to?

What have you been able to figure out so far about this?

(Katya) So this past week I was able to speak with the director of Pima County Health Department, Dr. Theresa Cullen, as well as Jeff Terrell, the director of Santa Cruz County Health Department.

I'm just trying to, you know, really figure out the impact that is going to be felt here in Southern Arizona.

Obviously a lot of funds are on hold.

A lot of projects have either been stopped or ordered.

The administration's requesting a workforce reduction plan amongst other things.

What I've found so far is that most of these grants are tied to immunization work and increasing public health services.

And this is so important because there is a measles outbreak in a neighboring state.

There have been two reported deaths so far.

You know, the measles was eliminated in 2000.

And we are seeing an increase according to Dr. Cullen, an increase in personal exemptions for school children to not be vaccinated.

So all of that to say, we're gonna see more sick people.

Well, the US Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as I mentioned, was in the state and he's someone who I guess kind of is trying to change his tune.

He's very political.

- He did on April 6th, I think.

- Yeah, we'll look at all the things that he's said for the last decade at least.

And now the measles outbreak is making him, I guess now he's saying the measles vaccine is okay.

- Yeah, on April 6th, I believe he said that is a method to combat the measles, yes.

- So, Jim, we're lucky to have all these administration people in state, are we not?

- We certainly are seeing maybe a little bump in tourism numbers.

I don't, I think the healthcare situation is really fascinating because they're obviously slashing away at the CDC, at HHS, they're eliminating a lot of jobs at the same time, they're saying, "Oh, we're gonna make America healthier."

It seems like you don't make America healthier as people grow older and need more healthcare as our population ages and you reduce that.

And now this whole question of Medicaid is up in the air.

They're looking at $880 million- billion, sorry, billion dollars in cuts over a decade.

This is putting Juan Ciscomani in a tough position.

He said, "Yeah, it wouldn't really be good for the state."

The business community has come out and said, this is catastrophic for not only the people who lose their insurance, but the rest of us because of the burden it's going to place on the healthcare system and the limits that the healthcare system is gonna have and the uncompensated care that hospitals are gonna face.

And so far, Representative Ciscomani is trying to have it both ways where he's saying, "Oh, these are all lies.

We're not really moving forward with this."

But he continues to vote on a budget even this week, just yesterday, that moves forward, a plan to make those cuts.

- Katya do you have to get more on this?

- Yeah, I did.

I mean, it's interesting that the administration is really pushing this Make America Healthy Again plan, so to speak, and yet they are cutting funding to increase healthcare services.

They're attacking Medicare, Medicaid.

They're also, the Environmental Protection Agency is actively working to roll back regulations for clean air, clean water, public lands health, and that sort of thing.

It's just... Well, forget my sarcasm.

That's Darwinian, I guess.

For those few people who don't need all those things, they'll out-survive the rest of us.

- Caitlin, totally different issue, but one that affects a lot of people as well, a lot of low-income people.

Free public transit in Tucson may be going away because of a huge budget shortfall.

What did you make of what the city council talked about and the fact that they wanna move ahead with a study to figure out, hey, is there a way we can keep this free or not?

I mean, I'm not surprised they wanna move ahead with a study, right?

I mean, a lot has changed in the landscape.

In the past several years, since public transit became free in 2020, I think...

It's gonna be interesting to see what happens, right?

There's a good argument to keep the bus free.

It's very clear that people who are riding the bus, many of those people need that.

That's not their option.

I think it's gonna be hard to keep the streetcar free, especially when they know that the biggest drivers are university students.

We are getting really close, it seemed like, to the university being willing to chip in to keep it free for students, and now we have the financial crisis here.

So it's a shame that it's come to this, but it's been a discussion every year since it became free, and with this huge looming deficit, I'm really not surprised here's where they're going first.

I mean, the options to cut from are affordable housing services, substance use.

So there's nothing good.

There's nowhere good to make cuts.

- Now there are a few options, I suppose.

They could charge a little bit.

They could put a cap on, if you take transit a certain number of times a week, maybe only cap you out at $5 or something like that.

I mean, could they be creative?

Could we expect them to be creative about this?

- Yes, I don't think that we'll go back to the fee structure that we saw before.

I think there will be exceptions if we go back to charging for transit for low income people.

I think they will find a way to make the money where they need to off the people that they can pay for it, but I do think it'll have a devastating impact regardless.

There are just some people that cannot pay for it that will not be able to ride the bus, and whether that's to work or just have a place to stay out of the sun and not die during the summer, it's become an important service.

- Jim?

(Jim) You know, the bus system has never paid for itself.

I mean, the fares are maybe 20 to 25% of the cost of running the bus system.

If you have folks who can afford to pay for it, it probably makes sense given the city's budget situation, which is, I think they're talking a more than $60 million shortfall in the upcoming budget year.

We don't know how much, I mean, I think it was bringing in like nine to $11 million before they stopped charging for fares.

I think it's, whatever they do moving forward, they should definitely ensure that there are programs that provide bus passes, whether it's nonprofit organizations that manage that and provide people with bus passes.

If they need them, it may be an extra step that folks need to go through, which is not an easy thing if you're on the street and homeless, but I do think that given where we're at with the city budget and the other, you know, it's a matter of priorities.

The truth of matter is only 2% of the population is likely to ride the bus anyway, and making the bus free has not significantly increased that.

And there are arguments that it's actually driven away choice riders because there's some chaos on the buses that sometimes as a result of the free ridership.

There's some suggestion that putting a barrier on there would make the experience better for folks who are willing to ride it out of choice rather than out of necessity.

- Yeah, Katya, the health thing pops up to me when Caitlin mentions the summer coming and the fact that this is just a way to keep, you know, an air conditioned bus feels a lot better than standing in the sun.

It could be, again, if people have vision for it, it could be a way to maybe start charging some people, but not others in order to protect those who can't pay at all.

- Yeah, with that, I don't know.

How do you pick and choose who qualifies for free transit?

(Steve) I guess that's always a danger.

I've got about a minute left.

Caitlin, Jim, I'm not sure if either one of you has been looking at the RTA, the fact that the potential of extending that, does that affect any of this at all?

If there's another, if we're gonna extend the sales tax, could that be factored into effect whether we charge for transit or not?

Could money be shifted around as far as the sales tax?

Or is that a very strict thing based on having been in effect for almost 20 years?

- There's always been a transit element to the RTA's and it paid for half the streetcar downtown, but it's also paid for expanded routes.

I talked to Ted Maxwell who chairs the RTA.

He says that there's not likely to be an election in November so it's being pushed off to next year.

So these are conversations that are gonna continue.

But if the RTA fails, that's a lot of transit money that goes away and the city may have to come back and try to do their own version of it if that happens, but that's all speculative and stretching into 2026.

- Caitlin, a few seconds on that, any thoughts?

- Yeah, I mean, if the RTA goes away, the city is gonna find themselves in a dangerous position, I think between the $66 million budget deficit and then no additional funding for transit and road repairs.

- Okay, great discussion, everybody.

Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, Alisa Reznick of KJZZ Radio, Jim Nintzel of the Tucson Sentinel, and Katya Mendoza of AZPM News.

Great to have you all here.

And great to have you watching and listening to The Press Room on this edition.

We'll be back with one more episode and another episode next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein, have a great night.