Reliable sources

Border confusion reigns … Expect a full-court press … And that's a really long playlist.

Border mania is upon us.

President Donald Trump made immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border a big part of his pitch to voters and now he’s launching an onslaught of new policies.

He’s trying to get rid of birthright citizenship. He wants to let immigration officers detain people in schools and churches. He’s dismantling the refugee system. The list goes on and on.

And that was just Week One. We have four more years of this.

Every time there’s a new policy, there’s a new reaction. Right now, legal experts are poring over Trump’s executive orders. Lawyers are suing to put a stop to those policies. Activists are gauging where the next blow will fall. Advocates are reaching out to immigrant communities.

The confusion is setting in. All of a sudden, a bajillion things are happening in immigration policies, which are already some of the most labyrinthine, counter-intuitive policies out there.

How are you supposed to keep track of all this? You’re gonna need some help.

Curt has paid close attention to the Arizona-Mexico border for the past 15 years. He knows how it feels to be swamped by border news.

So he put together a handy list of reliable reporters and researchers. Follow them on social media and you’ll get the border news that’ll help you make sense of these wild times.¹

Tucson reporters

These are the names you’ll see frequently in our Other News section. They’re the ones reporting on how new policies affect people in Southern Arizona.

• Emily Bregel, Arizona Daily Star. Follow her on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Rafael Carranza and John Washington, Arizona Luminaria. Follow Carranza on Twitter. Follow Washington on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Melissa del Bosque and Todd Miller, Border Chronicle. Follow del Bosque on Bluesky. Follow Miller on Twitter.

• Paul Ingram, Tucson Sentinel. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Danyelle Khmara, Arizona Public Media. Follow her on Twitter.

• Alisa Reznick, KJZZ’s Fronteras Desk. Follow her on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Daisy Zavala Magaña, Nogales International. Follow her on Twitter or Bluesky.

National reporters

These reporters also cover what’s happening at the border, but for the most part they’re the ones who chase down Senators in hallways, work sources within the federal bureaucracy, and generally inform the national conversation.

• Hamed Aleaziz, New York Times. Covers the Department of Homeland Security and immigration policy. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker. Staff writer who has written books about immigration. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Miriam Jordan, New York Times. National immigration correspondent. Follow her on Twitter.

• Zolan Kanno-Youngs, New York Times. White House correspondent who covered immigration and DHS. Follow him on Twitter.

• Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News. Covers immigration and politics. Follow him on Twitter.

• Maria Sacchetti, Washington Post. Covers immigrant communities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Follow her on Twitter or Bluesky.

Researchers

Several researchers have embraced their roles as public intellectuals over the past few years. You’ll see them quoted in news stories and when they testify before Congress.

• Jason De León, anthropologist at UCLA and author. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Adam Isacson, Washington Office on Latin America. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky.

• Austin Kocher, assistant professor at Syracuse University and research fellow at American University. Follow him on Twitter and Bluesky.

• Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky.

We’re sure we missed some deserving people, so add to the list in the comment section!

Border politics don’t just play out on the national stage. They’re also a big deal at the Arizona Legislature, and state lawmakers already are introducing border-related bills. Here’s a sampling of the ones that were filed as of Wednesday:

• Democratic Rep. Mariana Sandoval’s HB2504 would change the language of state statutes by replacing “alien” with “immigrant” or “undocumented immigrant.” She also introduced HB2505 to repeal SB1070, the infamous immigration law from 2010. Attempting to repeal SB1070, which was partially shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court, is an annual exercise for Democrats.

• Republican Rep. Alexander Kolodin introduced HB2053 to establish a tax credit for people who allow the federal government to build a border barrier on their land. He also introduced HCR2006. That legislation doesn’t actually do much, but we’re keeping an eye on it because it’s a placeholder for a “strike everything” amendment for a border ballot measure later in the year.

• Republican Rep. Walt Blackman’s HB2146 would establish an “Arizona Border Coordination Office” in the state government to work on border-related security, public safety, and humanitarian concerns. The office would get $50 million from the state’s General Fund next fiscal year.

• Republican Rep. Quang H. Nguyen introduced HB2606, which would take $50 million from the General Fund and move it to the Department of Public Safety. The money would be used to pay local law enforcement officers who work on drug interdiction, as well as grants for cities, towns, and counties to prosecute and detain people for border-related crimes.

Paid subscribers can find a live link to our full border bill tracking list at the bottom of today’s email.

Tucsonans pardoned: Cory and Felicia Konold will receive pardons for their convictions related to their involvement in the January 6 riots, the Arizona Daily Star’s Divya Gupta reports. Both siblings were sentenced to relatively short prison sentences, had to pay restitution and were ordered to be on probation for 24 months.

Moving on up: Several local Democratic politicos were elected to state party leadership roles over the weekend. The folks moving up include: Kim Khoury, a member of the Pima County Democratic Party Executive Committee; Paul Eckerstrom, former Pima County Democratic Party Chairman; Shanna Leonard, another member of the Pima County Democratic Party Executive Committee, and Joshua Polacheck, who ran for the Corporation Commission last year. Eric Robbins, the current Pima County Democratic Party Chairman, was elected to the position of “Chair of Chairs.”

The opposite of an asylum app: Mexico has launched its own phone-based app, known as ConsulApp Contigo, for those facing deportation or detention in the United States, Arizona Public Media’s Paola Rodriguez reports. The app will notify their emergency contacts and Mexican diplomatic officials about any pending actions related to new U.S. immigration policies.

A cosmic kiss: A University of Arizona astronomer has a fascinating theory about Pluto and its icy moon Charon, the Star’s Henry Brean reports. NASA postdoctoral fellow Adeene Denton believes the two icy objects once "kissed" and formed a snowman-like object before breaking apart.

Sun Tran is turning 50 this year and the city’s public transportation system is celebrating its rich history here in Tucson. Not to be confused with Sun Link, the city’s modern streetcar system, which celebrated its own 10-year anniversary recently.

We love the retro logo and dig the timeline that the city put up outlining the highlights of their five decades of service.

But what we’re laughing at is the 4.7 hour-long period-specific Spotify playlist that someone at Sun Tran put together as part of the celebration. That’s enough for an entire week of using the city’s transit system to commute to work, or one really long bus ride.

You can pick out your favorites by browsing the list, but we love that the playlist starts with the Boss’ “Born to Run” hit from 1975. Although we might suggest skipping the nearly 17-minute version of Donna Summer’s "Love to Love you baby" - you might miss your stop.

1. We have a lot of respect for all the reporters listed here, so we put them in alphabetical order to avoid any sort of ranking.