The following is an AZPM original production.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC ♪ Welcome to this latest edition of The Press Room from the radio studios of AZPM.

I'm your host, Steve Goldstein.

Coming up on the program, Senator Bernie Sanders endorses a congressional candida in Southern Arizona, and our policy changes continue to affect international students.

With me to talk about these and other topics are Caitlin Schmidt of the Tucson Spotlight, John Washington of AZ Luminaria, Danyelle Khmer of AZPM News, and Tim Steller of the Arizona Daily Star.

Hey guys, thanks all for being here, appreciate it.

John, you wrote an extensive story for Luminary about a student, we'll call him Amir, you said not his real name, describing what he went through, the whiplash of the visa situation and ICE.

I'm going broad here, so narrow it down for us a little bit.

How did you come across Amir?

Why did you think that his story was especially worth profiling?

Yeah, well, it's been a really tumultuous and terrifying few weeks for Amir, and thousands of other students across the country.

So in brief, what happened is that he received an email from a representative at the University of Arizona saying that his visa had been terminated.

Out of the blue, he was on campus, he was ready to go meet his advisor.

He is a doctoral student right now.

This is his third terminal degree that he's gonna be going for, and he's been studying in the United States for six years.

He's also a graduate assistant, so he gives classes and does research.

He got this email and he was flummoxed and scared right away.

He didn't know what to do.

But with this visa revocation also came with an immediate termination of his employment.

So when you're a graduate assistant, especially as a doctoral student, often you get a tuition reimbursement and a small stipend.

And so all of a sudden he's on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars to pay full tuition, no longer has a job.

He was weeks away from his oral exams, and all of that is now was suddenly canceled.

So he met with attorneys, they filed a lawsuit.

A couple weeks later he got another email saying that his status was reinstated.

So that part is where I wanna go with you a little bit more, which is to some extent, I think people may read this and say, oh, well, okay, well, that's not great, but that's all right, just get right back on the horse.

And yet even there's a quote you had and there's something about where he's just, I'm totally paraphrasing here, but almost like, well, now I'm confused, I'm not really sure what I wanna do next because the sense of security he had before is now gone.

Right, yeah, the sense of security was very much gone immediately.

So the State Department was sending emails to thousands of these students across the country saying not only that their status was canceled, but that they could be picked up, they could be deported, they could potentially never get a visa again to come to the United States.

It was explicitly stated in that email that they could be sent to a third country.

So deported to a third country, given what we know about and what we're seeing around deportations to El Salvador right now, that is a very serious threat.

And people who have been taking it seriously have been going into hiding effectively.

The student I was speaking with as well did not feel safe sleeping in his apartment anymore.

Enormous disruption.

One other thing I think we have to point to before another development here is this is not disruptive just to the student, but to the university at large.

So the faculty were completely distracted by this case.

And this has been happening to departments throughout the university and throughout college and university throughout the country.

That all of a sudden their scrambling is like, "Well, who's gonna teach these classes?

"Who's gonna do this research?

"How are we gonna fund this person?"

They're an integral part of what we're doing here, in fact, potentially our core mission.

And so they themselves are kind of thrown off as well.

A couple days after his status was reinstated, ICE followed up and they said, "We are developing new policies."

And they're signaling that they're likely gonna go back and re-revoke some of these visas.

And there's a bit of a tautological or almost like circular logic here.

We're saying, "You're gonna revoke the status "of these students because they have interruption "in their visa status."

Which they themselves just stripped up these people.

So we don't know what's happening.

Lawsuits are continuing.

There's dozens and dozens of lawsuits throughout the country, including in Arizona.

So yeah, there's a lot of unknowns still.

Yeah, Caitlin, a lot to unwrap there.

But I think the point about university being disrupted is interesting one too, because obviously we have to think about students first and yet there are so many people involved, whether they are instructors or researchers, that are being hit by this.

I'm not sure what else there is to say, but it just feels like there's a lot to unwrap.

Yeah, I mean, and while many of these faculty members, especially advisors, I mean, they care very deeply for these students.

So this is really personal and traumatic for them as well, when a student that they've developed a relationship with finds themselves in a situation like this.

They are helpless, they can't do anything where, I mean, that's their job, is to help students.

So, and I mean, we are such a campus full of international students and we're right before graduation right now.

I feel terrible for them.

Job seeking as an international student has already been difficult.

There's a tremendous expense attached to it, but now employers have to worry about, "Okay, well, if I take on this burden, "will this person then be deported?"

And all of that is for nothing.

Yeah, and just to add to what you were saying about the disruption, like it's important to also keep in mind that a lot of these people have been in the US for years, at least one of the students and probably more of them, but one of the cases that I was looking at, she has a US citizen child, she has a US citizen husband, she's been here since 2021 and has created a life here.

So, a lot of these people intend to stay here and intend to go into the workforce.

So, the long-term repercussions of that for people who are already an integral part of this community is yet to be seen.

Well, Tim, we also had a point this week by President Trump talking about related to the Dreamers, and that's another thing that affects students as well, as Danyelle says, people who've lived here a really long time, more uncertainty there, apparently.

Yeah, for, well, I don't actually know his statement, but in general, on the university thing, the thing that hits me in addition to what they all have said is the money.

Now, it's not so much the case with grad students, but with undergraduate students, a lot of times they're paying full ride, their governments or somebody else from their home countries is paying, and that's helping float local University of Arizona students, that is people from Arizona.

Financially, it helps float the university.

In the case of graduate students, there's more of a mix of scholarships, foundation grants and all that work, study and that kind of thing, but it's a major financial hit.

I mean, also for the money for the students themselves, they have invested lots of money, oftentimes relying on extended family to support these studies, and all of a sudden, if they're going to not be able to continue their studies, that's a huge blow to them as well.

Caitlin, other immigration policy related stuff you were telling us before we started taping about a woman who was getting a mammogram at TMC, and then all of a sudden, so what happened there, as far as ICE coming to get her?

This was, it was not at TMC, that's what Danyelle's been talking about in a minute, but this was a woman who had a while back gotten a screening at a free mobile breast health clinic, and then when she went to apply for her green card, her visa had lapsed, but she has a US citizen husband, she has a US citizen child, the process should have been easy, her attorney said, but they used the mammogram to say that she had used government resources, and she was deported, so.

Usually medical deportation has been reserved for when you have a diagnosis, and there's a significant burden of treatment attached to it, the expense, not a screening with no follow-up treatment.

Okay, and Danyelle, Guatemalan woman giving birth at TMC?

Yeah, so this is a story that just broke last night.

Basically, there was a Guatemalan woman who crossed the border and was apprehended by Border Patrol, I believe, who was apprehended earlier this week, and so she was nine months pregnant, she gave birth at TMC, and since then, she has expressed the desire for a lawyer, her family has expressed the desire for a lawyer, and keep in mind, she's still in DHS custody, so basically there are officers sitting outside of her hospital room not letting people in to help her with any legal advice, so the lawyer has been going there, and he has been telling them, I would really like access to my client, and so they have said, well, she needs to sign this very specific form that will allow us to give you access to her, and he said, great, I have that form with me, I will let me give that to her, and they said, no, we can't let you in unless you have this signed form, and no doctors or anybody else at the hospital is being allowed to take it in, so again, it's this sort of work around to not allow the woman to have access to her lawyer, and one important thing to keep in mind, this child that she just gave birth to is a US citizen.

Right, yeah, and it's a classic case that brings up the 14th Amendment issue that the Trump administration is trying to change here with its executive order, so this child under the president's executive order would not be considered a US citizen, although the Constitution says otherwise, because the mother is in the country illegally.

John, one other thing generally on this issue, because I wanna move on to some other things, I go back, and I brought this up in this program before, I go back to November when Prop 314 passed, I know there were a lot of other elements to it, where fentanyl obviously was in the spotlight on this as well, you have a situation where the majority of the state legislature, Republicans, wanted to push through this Arizona ICE Act, which Governor Hobbs did veto, but when we talk about issues like this, which for many people, I'm sure many of our viewers, many of our listeners, just sound so horrible and disgusting, and yet you may have a majority of the state saying, no, no, let's do a crackdown.

So how do people balance that emotionally, pragmatically?

That's a really hard question.

I think one of the things that stands out to me from this story, from both of these stories, rather, is that despite the onslaught of anti-immigrant policies right now, despite the government trying to push the full force of their attacks onto immigrants is that people are still compelled to cross the border, despite it all.

I mean, I think very few people at this point are coming into the country unaware of what they may face, and yet they're still willing to take that risk.

So if this is how politicians decide to respond to those people, that I think tells a lot about those politicians' moral compass.

But I think it's critical that we keep on pointing out these kinds of stories.

It's like really understanding the human impact of how these people are being affected.

Yeah, and just one more thing about that.

I think a lot of the laws that you were just talking about that have been enacted, those have to do with people that are already being detained by law enforcement for some sort of crime that they've committed that caused them to be detained, not just people who have crossed the border.

So I think that the public has in their mind, well, these are criminals, so why don't we just deport them?

So I think it is important, like John was just saying, to show these stories that are about people that are not what you would think of as a quote unquote criminal.

Well, I think it is a question of the abstract migrant versus the real migrant.

The person who is living in your community, you may have more sympathy for the person who's living in your community than you do for the abstract idea of the person who crossed the border illegally Caitlin, you get a chance to talk with me about Tucson Electric Power.

Yes, all right.

So the CEO of Tucson has looked into whether starting its own utility, there's a feasibility study, TEP was not very excited about this feasibility study, you know, without expecting you to be an electricity expert.

There's been discussion about whether we need more competition when it comes to this, whether TEP, and I've seen this in Maricopa County with APS, whether the Corporation Commission tends to lean in their favor a little bit too much at the cost of consumers.

I just, from the standpoint of someone who's lived in this area a long time, how feasible is it to actually have, especially in these days of, we don't know what the economy's gonna look like, we don't know how long it takes to build or fund, or whatever when it comes to utility, why does this sound to you with TEP?

Should the city of Tucson, do you expect the city of Tucson to continue to pursue this concept?

I mean, I think they're hearing from a lot of people that they want them to pursue this.

One of my reporters has been at several rallies for people who are in favor of public power, and they are very well attended.

So I think, if the city council is gonna listen to voters, they'll push this forward, but how realistic it is remains to be seen.

It's incredibly expensive and time consuming.

TEP has, of course, called this feasibility study flawed and said that the timeframe presented was much shorter than it actually takes, but then we have the city pointing out that TEP is actually in charge of the timeline because they have to help with the transition, and usually it is the incumbent power company that drags this out and causes it to take longer.

So, I mean, it kinda sounds like a threat a little bit there too, but it's interesting.

Maybe they'll bring it to voters, maybe they won't, but it certainly has been making a lot of noise.

Well, Tim, let me go to you first on this one.

So it's interesting to me the idea that, yeah, TEP might wanna drag its feet on a transition like that if they're gonna lose a lot of business.

I mean, that wouldn't surprise us, but what's your take on this generally?

Well, yeah, I mean, I am curious how Tucson voters would really approach this if it came to a vote because I think there's a relatively broad conception in Tucson that the city government, it doesn't do a lot of things right.

Streets, people are always complaining about the streets.

People complain about the bus stops having a lot of addicted people at them a lot of times.

There's a variety of committed violence.

So how would taking on a power company work?

That's one thing.

On the other hand, one thing that always is compelling to me is in the utility system we have these utilities are almost guaranteed given, they are guaranteed over time a given profit margin.

So it can be in like in the nine to 10% range.

And that's always stuck in my craw.

And I think it would in other people's as well.

Why are we guaranteeing these people this massive profit when, I don't know, maybe somebody else could do it for 1% or 2% or something like that?

Yeah, so what do you make of that?

I think it's important to point out the principal complaint behind TEP right now is that they haven't been transitioning to renewable power quickly enough.

So there was a franchise agreement that was up in 2023 that got voted down.

That was 2023, I believe.

And I think that was the reason and that was what people were saying.

And right now they're trying to find alternative means to push forward to rely more on, or rely less on coal and natural gas.

I think it's still over 50% of Tucson power comes from coal or natural gas.

I mean, that's still a big thing.

I know the federal government right now is trying to push for more coal, but I don't think that's what people want here.

So they're looking for just a different way to do more renewable resources.

Yeah, especially not in Tucson where there's been such a push for sustainability efforts and the efforts to our fleet, the bus fleet and the trash fleet, electrify them and go with solar power.

So the other issue that I'm hearing from people is that TEP is owned by a company in Canada.

And so we're giving that 10% profit to a company in Canada.

We could keep some of that local, if not all of that local by moving away.

So there's a few complaints, rising rates too.

TEP keeps raising their rates and people cannot afford to be paying anymore right now.

Danyelle, any thoughts on this?

Because I'm struck by the idea that we're in a situation where here's a community that likes renewables, would like more renewables.

And yet it would cost a lot and we have a federal government that wants to cut everything.

So it all just seems like not a perfect storm, I suppose.

Yeah, and you know, I mean, ultimately, I think this is a somewhat complicated issue, at least it seems that way, I think, to a lot of people who may not know the exact ins and outs of what's going on.

And so I think for a lot of people, they just look at their electric bill and say, well, it seems like it's going up and up every year.

So something has to give, something has to change.

So in that respect, I do think that the city might be able to get the public to get behind them on this.

Yeah, finally, politically, leaders of the city of Tucson are all on board, at least really checking this out.

Do we know yet?

How public have they been?

They have their, I mean, it's gonna go before voters maybe.

So I think they're trying to kind of play a fine line.

You can also see various moves as leverage in various other debates.

I mean, there's the whole undergrounding of power lines that's involved in this.

I mean, they're playing it both ways too, because they're trying to put forward a placeholder election for a 20 year franchise agreement with TEP while they're still exploring this other avenues.

Yeah, Tim, you had a compelling column this week.

I mean, they're all compelling.

Oh, okay, yeah.

This was especially compelling about the Regional Transportation Authority.

There's been a lot of background as to Mayor Romero feeling like she and Tucson are being disrespected at this point.

So let's, before we get into the background, there's pressure on the executive director of RTA, and in your column, you posit maybe it's time for him to go.

Give us some background on him and why there's been so much conflict.

Well, okay, so Farhad Moghimi is his name, and he's executive director of the PIM Association of Governments, which also makes him the head of the Regional Transportation Authority, which is funded, now the PAG exists independently.

The RTA is funded by a half cent sales tax that we as voters in Pima County approved in 2006.

And so that tax is about to run out.

It was a 20 year tax to pay for a transportation plan.

Moghimi has been the leader of the RTA and PAG for 13 years.

And in the last few years, going back to at least 2021, there's been growing discontent especially among people in the city, feel like he's been essentially opposing their, First Avenue is a good example.

They tried to get First Avenue, the project to widen it, changed so that it would remain the same width and this would save money in various, Moghimi and the staff resisted this.

It went on for along time.

They asked for additional public comment, that sort of thing, and then ended up in the same place.

So that's background, basically people in the city especially, but also elsewhere, some have opposed his leadership for quite a while.

Then suddenly in the last year, there've been many leadership changes, membership changes on the board.

And most importantly, in the last couple of weeks, Matt Heinz, a Pima County supervisor, has been appointed as the county's representative on the board.

And his first act was to basically try to get Moghimi fired.

That's a lot easier said than done.

Yeah, now that struck me as well, this idea that, I guess it was Matt Heinz and Mayor Romero that wanted to check out his contract, do an evaluation, and then it was like, ah, no, there are a lot of other hoops you gotta jump through to actually even get to that step.

Well, yeah, so there's a couple things going on here.

One is that apparently in his contract, it says that both the RTA board and the PAG board have to meet together to consider his contract, which is a funny demand because they're basically the same board.

There's one person different.

So when you have one board, you have the other board, basically.

The other thing that happened though was in that meeting, it became clear that Heinz clarified he wanted to fire this guy.

He said, "We wanna consider dismissal."

And then he said, "Also, I wanna consider firing "the attorney who you've had representing you."

And some would say, "Representing the executive director's interests "more than the board's interests And so then that man, Thomas Benavidez, resigned a day or two later, which left them without legal counsel.

Now, the mayor of Oro Valley is using that lack of legal counsel as a reason not to hold this special meeting that is needed to reconsider the director's contract.

Very complicated story, but it ends up becoming very hard for this board to even consider the employment of the director they employ.

And then let's veer off, Caitlin, into what happens.

So there is, I guess it's officially, we're not gonna have something on the ballot in November, which means we have to have something on the ballot next spring to extend the sales tax.

How much does all this muddle that?

Oh no, this is great for that.

Yeah, this is beautiful.

Just what we need, like a big complicated mess when we're trying to iron out a really controversial 20-year plan and squeeze it onto the ballot.

I mean, yeah, this makes me incredibly nervous.

They thought they were trying to get something on the ballot for this March and couldn't make it work.

We've now missed November and this is just gonna slow things down even more, so.

Yeah, John, the timing not good.

No, I don't think it's good.

Thanks also, Tim, for the background on this.

I mean, I lived here for a while before I really understand what RTA was.

I knew that it was about taxes and people were mad at it.

That's new.

And then I started understanding a little bit more.

And yeah, I think that we're in a situation where this person has, an unelected person with the purse strings of a couple billion dollars, right?

Nearly so, has lots of protections.

And I think this shows another, like we're gearing up for another potential face plan on this.

And what we've seen with Prop 414 recently, how is the city really gonna ensure that we're gonna be able to keep our tax base high enough to actually do the projects that they wanna do?

And I think they're struggling to do that right now.

Yeah, but Tim, this has to end up on the ballot.

Next March, doesn't it have to?

Oh yeah, and I think overall, likely they will put something on the ballot.

To be clear, there is a plan called RTA Next.

However, no one has decided that this is the plan.

They wanna tweak it to make it as palatable as possible.

And the trick is to make it as palatable as possible to city voters because those are the voters that have supported this in the past.

And it's the majority of voters in the county.

But the big debate then is, is it better to have the same director, Moghimi, in charge, a stabilizing force?

Or is he a negative force that would turn off voters who they might need to approve this ballot measure?

Tim, finally on this.

So Mayor Romero actually said that Moghimi has hatred for Tucson.

What other examples are viewers and listeners in the audience you know about?

Oh, I mean, I think the First Avenue is the best example in the sense that he individually as a staff leader tied that up for years.

There have been various examples.

And yeah, it's the city versus him, but now with a bunch of other helpers on the board.

Danyelle, let's close with this.

So we talk about endorsements in political campaigns a lot.

I happen to love talking about them, even if they're meaningless.

So Senator Bernie Sanders, who was in Tucson recently with Representative Ocasio-Corte got a huge crowd.

He has endorsed Adelita Grijalva.

A lot of people at this table probably thought Adelita was in pretty good shape anyway.

But what do you make of the fact that Bernie Sanders decided to come out and do this?

And how impactful could it be?

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's surprising at all.

You know, when Bernie was here, Adelita Grijalva spoke during that rally.

And yeah, her father had passed away not long before that rally.

And so, you know, I mean, Bernie Sanders has known Raul Grijalva for a very long time.

He was, you know, a very liberal member of Congress.

And so it doesn't surprise me at all that he would come out and endorse somebody who, you know, he already knows and already is familiar with and has a track record in local politics.

Yeah, so I don't think it surprised anyone.

So I would think that at this point, the progressively in the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders and AOC are the two biggest stars, even as they have this huge age difference and everything else.

So what do you make of this?

I mean, I think it's a smart move.

It's a good way to signal to the voters in Tucson that, yeah, this is an off-year election, but this is important to us.

This is important to the future of the Democratic Party and get out there and vote.

You know, special elections are always dicey.

And we, you know, people might think this is a walkthrough for her.

So I think it was a good move on her part to rile people up.

So off-year election and special election, gentlemen, makes me think of turnout.

So can Bernie Sanders help turnout to make sure that Grijalva is able to stay ahead of Hernandez, Fox, whoever else may be there?

I mean, I'm sure that's the hope for the Grijalva campaign.

I think too, this points to, you called it meaningless a little bit talking about endorsements.

Of course it's not politically, but they are without substance.

And I think so far in this race, we've really seen little on the issues.

This is something that I think we've complained about a little bit in this room before, but I was speaking with Adelita Grijalva just last night, and she's planning to roll out policies, I think then we can actually start digging in and start talking about the actual issues.

Until then, it's a popularity contest, and I hope it's more than that.

Tim, final thoughts on Bernie Sanders?

Yeah, well I think it's interesting because you think of him as sort of a rebel, or what have you.

But what I see building behind Adelita Grijalva is kind of the establishment.

In a way, Bernie Sanders is the progressive establishment, and then you got like Mark Kelly, who is Democratic establishment.

They're both backing Adelita Grijalva, which kind of makes her the establishment candidate.

Not necessarily a bad thing, but it opens up room for someone else to be the rebel.

Interesting how establishment changes to pay on where the vote is being cast.

Everybody, thank you so much.

Tim Steller, Arizona Daily Star, Danyelle Khmara of AZPM News, John Washington, AZ Luminaria, Caitlin Schmidt of Tucson Spotlight.

Thank you all as always, always great to see you.

And thank you all for watching, thank you all for listening.

We appreciate you being with us on The Press Room, which will return next week.

I'm Steve Goldstein.