PHOENIX — As journalists we often cover tragic stories, then because of the rush of news events and the nature of our business we move on to the next story. But the story doesn’t end when the cameras and microphones are packed up and the headlines fade away.
PHOENIX — Late last month, 14 unauthorized immigrant defendants appeared in a crowded courtroom in Maricopa County Superior Court. They were shackled and wearing black and white stripes.
They were there to change their pleas to guilty.
Their crime was using fraudulent Social Security Numbers to work at Sportex, a Tempe company that makes custom sports apparel.
TIJUANA, Mexico — I’ve been working on a few stories about deportees living in Tijuana. On a recent morning I went to one of about a dozen shelters in Tijuana’s Zona Norte for people who’ve been kicked out of the United States but have no place else to go.
That’s where I met Jesus, who so far has given me only his first name. He lived in Los Angeles, and was deported to Tijuana about a year and a half ago. Without family here, he made his way into the Tijuana River, a concrete channel that runs along the border fence and most of the year is just a trickle of putrid green water.
Agricultural workers are given a fast-track to citizenship in the bipartisan Senate proposal for immigration reform. The dairy industry across the Midwest and the Southwest relies heavily on immigrant labor. In Wisconsin at least half the dairy farm workers are undocumented.
TUCSON, Ariz. — As authorities continue their investigation into the suicides of two immigrant detainees at a private prison in Arizona, questions are being raised about the government oversight of private detention facilities.
TUCSON, Ariz. — In Southern Arizona, medical examiners and federal immigration agents are preparing for another year of dozens of deaths in the desert as people try crossing the border illegally.
This year, officials say, they’ve developed a map showing exactly how many people have died in their attempts over the years.
Back when Vice Adm. David Buss started his military career in 1978, the idea of unmanned aircraft operating alongside conventional aircraft sounded like something out of a George Lucas film.
"I would have really called that very Star Wars like but we are there today," Buss said.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The president of the Navajo Nation signed a lease extension with a coal-fired power plant in northern Arizona that’s worth $1.2 billion to the tribe over the next three decades. But the plant owners aren’t too happy with some of the tribe’s conditions.
New Mexico is currently experiencing the worst drought in the country according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
In just the past week the percentage of New Mexico under extreme drought shot up from 4 percent to 25 percent. The U.S. Drought Monitor map shows the state blanketed in red.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Last week Fronteras Desk sent me to Wisconsin after we learned that more and more of rural America’s new neighbors are Latino, according to this report.
SAN DIEGO — We know what tech CEOs want when it comes to immigration reform. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and others have been lobbying for more visas to bring high-skilled workers to the United States. And Washington has been listening.
But what do the high-skilled immigrants want? As it turns out, they have very different ideas about how to fix the system.
