The following is an AZPM Original Production.

From the radio studios of AZPM, welcome to the latest edition of The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

Coming up, Border Patrol agents raid a humanitarian aid camp allegedly without a warrant and arrest three people.

Plus, Senator Mark Kelly says he won't back down from his criticism of President Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth.

A panel of journalists joins me to discuss those and other stories next on The Press Room.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Welcome to The Press Room.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

A panel of journalists joining me today are Paul Ingram of the Tucson Sentinel, John Washington of AZ Luminaria, Katya Mendoza of AZPM News.

Good to have you all here.

More Project Blue news this week, John.

Majority of the Pima County Board of Supervisors decide not to proceed with a public health analysis.

Seemed like it was the same majority, again, that voted in favor of Project Blue in the first place.

How did we reach this point?

Public health analysis sounds pretty important.

Yeah, so the requirement to do a public health analysis of any user that would have used lots of water and power was put in after Project Blue land sale was already completed, was rather already voted on.

It's not yet completed, but that could be coming very soon.

And the reason that both one of the county administrators and one of the county attorneys said they couldn't do the review, it's just there isn't enough time.

So the developer of the project is saying that they need to close the land deal by Christmas, and that's only a few weeks away, and they said there just isn't capacity to do a thorough analysis.

And so the votes fell in the county along the lines that they've been following on for a while, 3-2 to not conduct this full due diligence review of what the public health impacts would be.

And that came the day before another major hurdle was crossed at the Arizona Corporation Commission, which allowed TEP, the power utility company, to proceed with this agreement with the developer.

Yeah, so Katya, what's set out for you this week?

A lot of Project Blue news.

A lot of Project Blue news.

There's always Project Blue news, I feel.

Yeah, so going back to the county not moving forward with the due diligence ordinance, the ordinance itself was passed shortly after the supervisors voted to approve the project with limited information.

Supervisor Jennifer Allen had pitched this decision, or to put it on the agenda, I should say, and she's been consistent in her votes against the project due to various concerns and specificity, which a lot of the people in the community have been concerned about, like where exactly the water is coming from.

Will TEP raise costs because of this project?

Yeah, John, was it the same folks we've been seeing, same sort of community protestors, and not to be cynical about it, but it almost feels like at what point, obviously they care about the community and they care about this issue, but at what point do they almost throw up their hands and say, "We're not changing minds here"?

Yeah, I haven't seen them throw up their hands at all.

I've seen them really stick with it.

And another piece of the news that came out this week is the reporting of Daily Star saying that Amazon no longer is the final end user.

So recall that Beale Infrastructure is the developer of this data center, and they came in promising that they would have all of these things to lay out for the community, and that was sort of assumed after some reporting that it was gonna be Amazon, which was named in early documents going back a few years.

Now Amazon is saying that they're not going to be the end user, and we have no other confirmed end user.

And what has changed really since the announcement of this project to today?

I think the only substantive thing is that Tucson has really showed up and stepped up and brought the fire.

I mean, they have been committed against this project.

They have been filling out community meetings like I've never seen before in Tucson and in my years reporting here.

And they do not seem willing to give up.

They were at two meetings this week, one in Phoenix, and they also have threatened to file suit against the county for not following open meeting laws.

So I think they've also in the past, someone has said that they could potentially occupy the actual site.

It doesn't seem like they're backing down.

Paul, what's standing out to you?

I really think one thing to keep in mind too is that they haven't just protested this current project, which is kind of in the Southeast Tucson, but they've also really gone after the other project, which is gonna happen in Marana.

So there's that, it really comes down to, and I think how much this complicated the project with the loss of Tucson Water.

The project of course has said, hey, we're gonna go forward.

We're not gonna use much water to cool the giant number of servers that they're gonna have.

Instead, we're really gonna rely on using a lot more electricity.

And that has changed, I think, some of the financial math about how this is gonna work for these companies.

And that may have actually kind of kicked out Amazon who wants to use as much server space as they possibly can and use water cooling.

So now they're gonna have to use, generate more electricity.

They're gonna have to pay more.

Things are gonna cost more.

Now, the question of course is, who's the next bidder?

Who's the next company?

Who wants to be in this?

It's how much of this is sort of still up in the air.

And I think this is one of the things that comes back to Project Blue as always been these bunch of open questions.

Who's the end user?

How much power are they gonna use?

Even how many projects?

At one point they said there's three projects.

There's a third project we still don't know anything about that they have presented.

There's all these open questions and no one really seems to be willing to just answer and say, this is what we're gonna do.

This is how we're going to do it.

This is what it's going to use.

And this is how much it's gonna cost.

Katya, this is still an economic question for a lot of folks who are saying that Tucson's economy is somewhat lackluster, but bringing in these data centers, how many jobs are really produced by this?

And then of course, the water and energy concerns we've already talked about.

When that argument comes up, I mean, is this, this is a community-oriented show in a lot of ways people care about this stuff.

Ultimately, could it be driven though, by the fact that elected officials are saying, we need to create some jobs even if they're temporary.

I mean, how much was an economic issue?

So I mean, during these city council, county meetings, you will see those who are in support from the community in terms of the amount of construction jobs and opportunities for various labor unions who wouldn't have to travel as far and they could stay closer to town, closer to home.

And work on this big project that seems very promising.

However, once a data center is up and running, you really don't need that many hands on at the building.

So how many end jobs are really being offered and will be full time permanent positions.

I do want to go back to the water though.

So, you know, we have this looming Christmas day closing date for the project.

We don't have an end user anymore if we ever really did.

But also again, without Tucson Water, where is the water coming from?

And it's really interesting to see the county in this position where they're almost kind of stuck, trying not to breach this legal closing contract.

And yet, Beale has, or Humphrey' Peak has waived at least three different closing, what are they called?

The requirements, closing requirements.

Closing requirements I think is right.

Yeah, they had certain things that were part of closing conditions that they were going to have attached to it.

And they waived some of those conditions because it's clear they're pushing for getting the land sale complete no matter what.

And they're willing to waive those other conditions so that they can get it done by Christmas, which is their deadline that they've kind of, they have, I think in part is partially legal required, but it's also a goal from the company.

They really want to get this nailed down before the end of the year.

I mean, you frame it as an economic issue.

And I think that is the proponents of it is exactly how they're framing it.

That this is good for the economy, this is good for employment in the area, but everyone who's been against it is sort of flipping the script a little bit.

In fact, I think, Katya, that's sort of what you're doing, asking questions about water there, is that it's really an environmental issue.

I think a lot of people see it.

And now maybe it's becoming also a political issue.

And one thing that we saw this week more explicitly stated from some of the opponents to Project Blue, is that they are threatening recalls of two of the supervisors.

They have said that there will be political consequences for people standing up for big tech over community.

And so they're really drawing a line right here.

And they are naming names, specifically Matt Heinz and Rex Scott, who's the chair of the board and saying like, we are going to, I mean, it got ad hominem at times during this meeting as well, but they are threatening to come after them politically.

I think the last thing on this, and John, the reason I keep bringing that up, is just because, I mean, this is, I say, a lackluster economy.

There are people who are very progressive, who love this area and are wondering, okay, but we need more job creation.

So the argument against obviously hurting the environment, I think a lot of people will say, well, this is not what we want in Tucson.

But then, where are the answers to create more jobs somewhere else?

It's not necessarily related to Project Blue, but it's an issue that's gonna have to come up for the supervisors and the council members, doesn't it?

You know, I think that's a conundrum that people are facing right now.

Of course, people want economic development, but if you have an unsustainable environment, how can you have any sort of economy at all?

And I think that that's the real question here.

They see it as an existential issue for the survivability of Tucson as a place to need to live.

Katya?

And I do wanna add, in addition to being a political issue that stems from this, we are hearing more support towards our electricity being a publicly- owned utility.

And people keep getting vocal about that.

Yeah, that will be a big plan that we'll see if that proceeds.

And you see the energy around Project Blue spilling over to other issues as well.

Public utility is one, pushing back against some of the mining endeavors in the area, also even the potential ICE detention center in Marana.

You see similar people at all of these meetings and really connecting the different issues together.

And the bigger picture too, with the current administration, we're seeing obviously a lot of federal funding taken out of a community and that's gonna be a lot of things to look at.

All right, Paul, let's shift gears here.

According to No More Deaths, Border Patrol agents raided one of the organization's camps and arrested three migrants did not have, allegedly did not have a warrant for this.

Let's remind our viewers and our listeners what No More Deaths is and how this story plays into their fraught relationship in a lot of ways with the Border Patrol.

Sure, No More Deaths is an organization, humanitarian organization, it's all volunteers.

They've had a camp out in Arivaca, which is south of Tucson, and they've had it since 2004, and they've really operated that as a camp in two ways.

It's an aid camp, which means if you show up out of the desert, they're gonna take care of you.

It also is used as a camp to do search and rescue operations into the desert, really to look for people.

And this really came about especially in an era where there were lots and lots of people who were dying in the desert.

And there are still, of course, are people dying in the desert.

We just don't see the numbers because there's not so many people attempting to cross right now.

But nonetheless, No More Deaths has had this established camp for a long time.

It's an ad hoc camp, it's mostly trailers, it's small stuff, and it's on a piece of private property, which becomes really important here.

So over the last few years, Border Patrol has come onto the camp because they've said, hey, we see that there are people who have come into the camp who maybe have crossed the border illegally, and we want to arrest them.

And they have, in previous occasions, No More Deaths has always said, no, you can't come in, go get a warrant.

And Border Patrol has gone through that process.

What's really interesting about this most recent event is that Border Patrol agents went outside the camp, they said, hey, can we come on?

No More Deaths volunteers said, no, you may not.

They waited for an hour, and then they came onto the camp anyway.

And more importantly, they also broke their way into a trailer to arrest men.

So this really has a big Fourth Amendment question about what the agency is allowed to do, how the agency is operating under constitutional law, and specifically how this, so really thinking about this, they got into a personal home without a warrant, without doing the usual process, something that they've done before.

I want to take one step back, as your piece for the Sentinel, when they disappeared for an hour and then came back, what language did they supposedl use and change?

Oh, and we somehow took care of it, what was the quote?

Do you remember the quote?

I don't remember the quote, but really keep in mind is that they, it's very clear to us that they went and they discussed it with authorities.

And I'm not, my sense is at this point that they talked to the folks at the US Attorney's Office.

They said, "We're needing a warrant," and someone said, "No, you don't, because you were in hot pursuit."

And so hot pursuit is this term that like, if somebody runs into a house and you're chasing after them, you don't have to stop and get a warrant because you saw them getting in the house.

It's not clear that they had that.

They're probably, they were operated, they had surveillance, they may have had cameras, we don't really know.

The agency has been closed mouth about actually how this went the other week.

We don't know the details of this, at least from the agency's point of view, which is a little bit different than in previous occasions.

In 2020, they did a very large raid where they arrested 30 people, and that raid involved dozens of agents, it involved a helicopter, a BearCat armored vehicle, ATVs, and the agency was very clear about why they decided to do that.

Okay, John?

Yeah, I mean, I think the point about hot pursuit is pretty important to point out.

It basically provides an exception to needing a warrant.

And No More Deaths volunteers who were there and described the situation as like, there's nothing at all that constituted a hot pursuit.

It was a slow cold pursuit in their eyes, and Border Patrol just went ahead and did it anyway.

They broke into the trailer.

The next couple steps are important to point out as well, is that as of today, as far as we know, the people who were arrested have not yet been found.

And so Border Patrol, sorry, No More Deaths is framing this as another disappearance where people kind of get sucked into the ICE detention complex and are not locatable.

And this is of great concern for their family and for friends and for advocates.

Also important to point out is the context.

As you were saying a little bit, Paul, that this has happened before as well, and No More Deaths has been very specifically targeted at key moments under both the previous Trump administration and then this one as well, arresting volunteers and even going back further, people getting arrested or prosecuted for littering, for putting water out in the desert to save lives.

So yeah, this is a pattern that we've been seeing.

And it's really, I mean, we go back really far.

I mean, there was a period where volunteers were actually transporting people because they transported people who were medically, who needed medical help.

They were arrested for it.

There was this trial actually went up to the Ninth Circuit.

Ninth Circuit said, no, they actually have the right to move people if they're transporting because that's not smuggling.

And so this has been a kind of long fight, but there was a period where there was a bit of a detente between Border Patrol and No More Deaths.

And I think that's kind of important because Border Patrol really liked the idea that No More Deaths was sort of helping to keep people from dying in the desert.

And there was a bit of an agreement to that.

And that really broke down in 2017 under the first Trump administration and really kind of continued where they went after No More Deaths and other humanitarian organizations for a while.

And then it stopped under the Biden administration and now we're back to the battle days.

I mean, that is maybe what Border Patrol's claim would be, but I think that they're also seeing it as a potential optics issue or a political liability that they were pushing back against No More Deaths.

But I don't know if we can say that with certainty that they were actually glad that No More Deaths was out there, given just the presence and the ongoing enforcement operations that they're doing, knowing the consequences of it.

It fundamentally depends on the agents.

I mean, you talk to some agents, and some agents are very happy to have No More Deaths and Samaritans and other humanit groups out.

There's other agents who don't care.

But I mean, and I think that's one of the things that shifted is over time, the agency's interest in keeping people from dying in the desert has waxed and waned, which is, I think, problematic to think about in this way that the agency has changed its opinion about something because of who's in the administration.

I think the other thing too that's probably important is, and I have the quote from Greg Vivino, who's the commander of these large scale immigration sweeps that have gone across the United States, Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlotte.

And he said, and this was a Tweet, but also he said it, he said, "We talk to the breeze, we go where we please."

And it's quoting Charlotte's Web.

That I think is in part telling agents that they can push these lines, that they can go further than they normally would.

In previous iterations in 2020, they knew that there were 30 people at this camp and they waited for more than a day to get a warrant, to go through the process, to get all their agents together and then go raid the camp.

That's very different than what they did this other night, which was ad hoc in the middle of the night and they broke through a door, went into the place and did things really pushed further than they would have in previous occasions.

Well, I mean, to some extent, and let's close on this, John, it does feel like there's a, from the standpoint of the administration, let's scare as many people as we can in addition to doing things.

What you're saying, Paul, is more about, yes, people are going to be scared.

We don't know exactly what they're going to do, but at least they're dotting their I's and crossing their T's.

In this case, it just seems like, no, no, we can create more fear and maybe prevent more people from crossing if we just look like we're just going in there crazy.

Yeah, I mean, you could potentially see this as a test case.

I mean, they have been pushing the boundaries, pushing against legal limits in all of their operations, especially in these major metropolitan areas that you're mentioning, Paul, but also in how they conduct asylum processing, how they treat immigrants in custody.

Everywhere you look, you see them really pushing hard and trying to get people out or scare people, as you say.

Yeah, all right, Katya, let's move on to Senator Mark Kelly, who has not backed down from President Trump, even when words were used like sedition and phrases like punishable by death, 'death' in all caps, because of this video that Senator Kelly took part in telling people in the military, you don't have to follow illegal orders, et cetera.

What do you make of how Senator Kelly has not backed down, even if he's been threatened by some court martial, which we presume will never happen?

Yeah, so he has definitely caught the attention of Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump.

Earlier this week, he held a press conference where he talked about the investigation, but also, I think, really what he meant by those words in joining other elected officials who are also veterans.

His intention has been clear of what exactly he was talking about when he said, "You don't have to follow illegal orders."

But he has said that his office has experienced an increase in threats as well.

And we know, of course, what happened to his wife.

Right, exactly, what happened to Gabby Giffords.

But yeah, I don't think this attention will go away anytime soon.

And of course, Senator Kelly said this week, and certain people would not disagree with that, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, at least in this situation, are not, quote, "serious people."

Yeah, going back to a previous comment about pushing against legal limits, critics of these attacks on the alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, calling these war crimes.

Even some Republican senators have wondered, yes.

Right, and there's now a bipartisan committee looking into these, especially this particular strike that killed people who were supposedly clinging on to a boat for their lives.

So what Mark Kelly initially said in that video that got him into this hot water was that you should not follow illegal orders.

And I saw a critic the other day say that following orders does not get you out of committing a war crime.

So that is what people are calling these strikes, that these are actually constituted war crimes.

And we're facing a real standoff here with, you said presumably there won't be a court-martial, but I don't know if I can share that presumption at this point, we're in untested waters, I think.

I think really we have to really go back.

The reason that these laws exist, the reason this structure exists is all about World War II and what happened with the German Army, with the Nazis, and how there was the Nuremberg trials.

The idea was that you can't say, "well, I was given orders," you don't have to follow, you have a duty not to follow illegal orders.

And it's important, but the other thing too, of course, is the representatives and senators made an, put this piece out, and the administration has really gone after them, which has big First Amendment complications, the idea that you can't just criticize the agency, you can't lay out the law, you can't just read the law aloud, or you're getting punished.

The idea that they're going also to take a sitting senator and bring him back in the military, specifically to punish him under the military justice code.

And then, more importantly, then of course, as we talked about war crimes, well, we're not actually at war.

We are claiming that we're in conflict, and they're saying, but if it wasn't a war crime, it's still a crime, whether or not.

And so there's, I think, this whole series of things that are happening at once, and one thing that's very clear, yes, Mark Kelly is certainly not backing down.

He's using this as, I think he really cares about this, I think this is a huge issue for him, but also the way the administration is going after him, and they're also using this as a way to fundraise.

I mean, they're saying, hey, help us out.

There's fundraising emails that include Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs and other Democrats who are really extending this.

So it's really turning into a big fight between the administration, and it's very clear, I think what's interesting is that when Kelly and the other folks made this comment, the administration could have said, yes, we agree, of course.

And instead, they really criticized him.

It's very clear that they hit a huge nerve with Hegseth and with Trump and with the other folks in the administration, which I don't think really, I mean, comes down to it.

It's not a particularly good defense if you immediately panic when someone says, here's the law.

Right.

Katya?

And just to add, going back to Senator Kelly not backing down, he did say earlier this week that he does not want the American people to get used to the administration's rhetoric that they are using.

And then I think you also mentioned that he said that Hegseth and Trump were not serious people.

Gallego had an interesting response as well, a very spicy response, dropping a few F bombs in response to Trump's response.

Remember, just like if there's a sort of circularity to this, Kelly says, don't do things that are illegal.

And the Trump administration is saying that it's illegal to say not to do illegal things.

Just gets a little bit confusing.

So that's not ironic, though.

The silent speaks volumes, John.

Let me spend the last couple of minutes, John, talking about a piece that you did, you've done similar pieces before.

In other words, a documentary you worked on with AZPM related to restoration, to competency in mental health care in the jails.

I mean, this is a huge piece.

We've got two minutes.

Let's talk briefly about what restoration competency is and then some of the things you discovered.

With two minutes, I'll start in 1960.

Okay, thanks, please.

When the Supreme Court said that it is necessary that people who face criminal prosecution understand the court proceedings and can assist in their own defense.

Otherwise, a case cannot proceed.

And so today, skipping ahead 60 some years, we say that there's these converging crises of mental health, a very drastic dearth of mental health treatment outside of jails, and then opioid crises, homelessness, and ongoing criminalization.

And all of it amounts to people, a lot of people who are criminalized and may not completely understand what's happening to them.

So I looked into Pima County and one of their responses, and this is similar to other localities, has been to create this restoration to competency program where people who don't understand the trial are given a chance to be evaluated to see if after a while they are competent enough to proceed with their case.

And what we found was that a lot of people who are in this program end up in jail, and they're in the program in jail.

And we found a number of cases where people's time in jail is extended because of this, because their criminal case is on pause.

And the problem for the people who I've spoken with who go through the program or experts is that jail is just not conducive to good mental health.

In fact, it often exacerbates previous problems or even triggers nuance.

And I've talked with people who spent over a year in this program, their case completely on pause, and they're not getting better, typically.

So briefly, and this is the larger picture to me, we often talk about people in law enforcement, everyday police officers who at times are being asked to be social workers.

They're asked to figure this stuff out.

And that is sometimes on our public streets where maybe people aren't feeling as terrible, but in a jail, yes.

So 30 seconds, we stress that point.

Yeah, so the problem is that a lot of people either aren't trained to deal with mental health issues, and those are the frontline law enforcement officers or the correctional officers in the jail.

And yet they are often the people who are most confronting the issues that come up because of them.

And another major issue is the sort of siloing of information.

A lot of people don't have their heads wrapped around how this happens, how many people get put into the program, and don't understand what the consequences are.

And so that was the sort of basis of the article.

And I'll let our audience know, so if you wanna learn more, azluminaria.org, John Washington's piece.

John, thank you for being here today.

Paul Ingram, Tucson Sentinel, thank you as always.

Katya Mendoza of AZPM News, thank you very much.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of The Press Room.

We'll be back next week with a new edition.

I'm Steve Goldstein.

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