PHOENIX — There was a lively debate in federal district court in Phoenix last Friday over whether Arizona can ban young immigrants who qualify for an Obama administration program from getting driver’s licenses.
In a hearing that lasted well over two hours, the judge grilled both sides with tough questions.
Or so I heard from other reporters. I didn’t get to see it myself.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — This week is Semana Santa – or Holy Week. It’s a big week in Mexico, when schools cancel classes and businesses take a holiday for the last week of Lent before Easter. And it’s a big week for retailers in the Southwest, because Mexican shoppers cross the border in droves.
NOGALES, Mexico — Hiram Gonzalez stands on a quiet street in Nogales, Mexico. He’s watching two men peering through the bars of the border fence into the U.S. One is talking feverishly into a cellphone while the other scrambles up the 25-foot border wall in seconds. Both men are oblivious to a pair of reporters standing on the street just beneath them, watching, until the man on the cellphone turns around.
On March 10, a gun battle erupted in Reynosa, a border city across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas. The battle raged all night. The events that followed illustrate the complexities of a drug war inflated with intimidation and speculation.
SAN DIEGO — Lawyers delivered opening statements today in the trial of two alleged Mexican drug gang leaders accused of up to nine murders in San Diego.
Jorge Rojas Lopez and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez are being tried for murders that occurred between 2004 and 2007. Some of the victims’ bodies were dissolved in acid.
TUCSON, Ariz. — A final report on the gunwalking scandal known as Operation Fast and Furious shows a Homeland Security agent in Arizona participated in the operation and tried to warn his superiors in Phoenix, but those officials never read the reports.
HATCH, N.M. — Lately there's nothing grand about the Rio Grande. Persistent drought across the Southwest has sucked the river dry.
Light snowfall and little rain mean the region must brace itself for more of the same this year. It's a wake-up call for city folk and farmers alike that water is increasingly scarce.
PHOENIX — In Arizona, more than a dozen faith, labor and pro-immigrant groups are launching a state-wide grassroots push for immigration reform. The push coincides with the period when Senators and Representatives are home from Washington, D.C. on a recess.
These groups want an immigration reform package that keeps families together and includes a pathway to citizenship. They announced a two-week effort promote this message in front of Sen. John McCain’s Phoenix office on Monday, and are scheduled to attend his town hall meeting later in the day.
PHOENIX — Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor grew up in a rural Arizona town on a working ranch. Before her judicial career, she spent her childhood riding horses and raising cattle.
She and her eldest son, Scott O'Connor, came to StoryCorps Phoenix to talk about Sandra's early life. She was sent to El Paso to attend school and live with her Spanish-speaking grandmother.
Approximately one-third of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) major Information Technology systems, or projects, are not meeting costs or schedule commitments, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office.
SAN DIEGO — Amir Mohammed Estakhri is an American citizen of Iranian descent, and a longtime San Diego resident. He's a native Farsi speaker — the official language of Iran. And he speaks Dari, a very similar language spoken in Afghanistan.
