It’s the end of the workweek, readers!
And what a week it has been.
It kicked off with the opening day of the Arizona Legislature; included warnings of federal agents potentially ramping up operations in Tucson; and capped it with Democratic Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva heading to Minneapolis to get a first-hand view of what Donald Trump’s goon squad is doing there and how Tucson can better prepare itself in case he turns his attention on us.
Not to mention our own rocky journey to a new publishing platform.
Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so we’ll be taking a beat to reflect and tinker with the new platform to improve your experience.
Catch you at the usual time on Tuesday morning!
Before we go, a reminder: Freedom isn’t free.
But you can help keep it alive by supporting local, independent news.
As the Trump administration threatens to send 1,000 more troops to Minneapolis, Tucson is sending one of its heaviest hitters, Democratic U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, to see for herself.
Grijalva — who was pepper-sprayed by ICE in Tucson last month — boarded a flight yesterday, hours before President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minneapolis.
She is one of 28 members of Congress who flew to Minnesota to hold impromptu “accountability hearings” with Democratic U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Ilhan Omar.
Back in Tucson, city officials are preparing for a similar occupation1 by federal forces.
Tucson officials sent out a detailed news release on Tuesday, along with a resource guide for locals who want to better understand their rights or might have a loved one kidnapped by federal immigration agents.
That wasn’t a one-off press release.
Next week, the council is setting aside time to discuss “prohibiting use of city property for staging of civil immigration enforcement operations.”
The view from Minnesota. (NBC News)
Vice Mayor Lane Santa Cruz said calls to the Ward 1 office spiked after residents watched the televised murder of a mother of three in her car in Minneapolis last week.
Remove the winter clothes and the snow on the ground, and locals worried the same thing could happen here.
“More and more people were asking for clarity about what the city can and cannot do if they came here,” Santa Cruz told us.
Tucsonans have been on edge for quite some time. Just this week, rumors circulated that ICE agents were gathering at The Graduate Hotel near the University of Arizona campus. But that turned out to be Arizona Department of Public Safety officers in town for a conference.
Santa Cruz has a message for Tucson families: Talk to each other and make plans on how to stay connected if federal agents come to Tucson.
In the last year, Southern Arizona has been home to countless peaceful protests of the Trump administration. But Grijalva and city officials still worry about federal agents clashing violently with locals here in the Old Pueblo.
It doesn’t take much provocation for ICE or the Border Patrol, most notably Commander Gregory Bovino and his shock troops, to descend upon a city.
President Donald Trump has cast Democratic-controlled cities as “the enemy within,” and his advisor Stephen Miller told ICE agents they have “federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.”
In the case of Charlotte, it appears Bovino decided to go there after somebody tweeted at him.
Just a few weeks after that reply, Bovino’s squad was chasing people around Charlotte, scaring parents into keeping their children home from school or pinning “I am a citizen” on their kids’ backpacks.
“It's like a hurricane came through," an education official in Charlotte said after the Border Patrol left.
In the case of Minneapolis, the federal occupation came after somebody posted a video on YouTube claiming that Somali residents were running fraudulent daycare centers.
It was a garbage claim, but it was enough of a pretext to send in the goon squad.
If you were in charge of a blue city, what would you do?
The plan so far
Tucson officials are developing a plan to slow down any terror campaign from the feds, while staying within the bounds of the law.
The discussion at next week’s council meeting will outline the limits of the council’s political power when it comes to federal agents operating inside the city limits.
The council also will re-affirm that the Tucson Police Department does not work shoulder-to-shoulder with ICE or any other federal immigration agency, although Tucson police do cooperate with federal agencies on certain investigations.
And Tucson is looking at other cities for inspiration for what else to do.
A memo from Mayor Regina Romero and Santa Cruz pointed to examples of federal immigration agencies using local government property “such as parking lots, garages, vacant parcels, parks and public facilities as staging areas” in other cities.
That’s the double-edged sword of Trump’s terror campaign against blue cities. He doesn’t have to send forces to every city to make millions of people afraid. That’s the point of terrorism.2
But each time Trump sends his goons to a city, officials in other cities watch how it works and develop a playbook of their own for how to respond if it happens in their city.
Up in Maricopa County, even Republican Sheriff Jerry Sheridan said his office would take action if deputies see ICE agents break the law.
“I’m not afraid to do that,” Sheridan told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Outspoken with Bruce & Gaydos on Wednesday. “We have people in law enforcement that shouldn’t be there and when they step over the line … we police ourselves very well.”
Sheridan also urged protesters to remain peaceful and stay on the right side of the law.
Tucson officials said the Tucson Police Department will “respond for the safety of Tucson residents and to keep the peace if protests or demonstrations develop.”
“I am committed to protecting all Tucsonans, regardless of immigration status, and their freedom to exercise First Amendment rights by a police department that values diversity, accountability, and transparency,” City Manager Timothy Thomure said.
IN OTHER NEWS
Joining teams: University of Arizona researchers is working with Precise Systems, Inc. to try to get a piece of the $151 billion in federal money the Trump administration set aside for the “Golden Dome” missile defense system, the UA said in a news release. The UA also joined a team of universities trying to figure out how to navigate the new world of paid college athletes, per UANews.
Prices go up, enrollment goes down: The impasse in Congress over funding the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act led to about 70,000 fewer signups in Arizona, per the Arizona Mirror’s Jim Small. Premiums rose by nearly 30% without the subsidies, leading to a 17% drop in enrollment in the state.
Long road: The clock is ticking for the demolition of the 22nd Street Bridge, which is scheduled for March 3, Andrew Christiansen reports for KGUN. The City of Tucson hosted an open house on Wednesday to discuss the long-awaited project. City officials said public feedback has helped shape the project into its current form, including foot paths along each side of the bridge.
"Public feedback was so important to this project because the project as you see today that will go to construction is nothing like you saw three years ago," Erica Frazelle, the City of Tucson's Department of Transportation and Mobility’s Transportation administrator, said.
Still trying to connect: State officials have spent years, and $26 million, trying to establish a communication system that would connect schools to law enforcement in the event of an emergency. But the state Auditor General found only about 20% of schools are connected, Athena Kehoe reports for KGUN.
Lock him up: The former chief civil deputy county attorney in Cochise County, Paul Correa, is facing accusations he filmed 12-year-old girls at a Target in Sierra Vista, Terri Jo Neff reports for the Herald Review. Police reports and surveillance footage indicate Correa tried to record two girls while he was in the store. One of the girls told her mother, who called her father, who confronted Correa in the parking lot. Police arrived on scene and let Correa go, but kept his phone. Correa was fired the next day and arrested.
TODAY’S LAUGH
Before Democratic U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva hopped a plane to Minnesota, she virtually swung by Capitol Hill to leave House Speaker Mike Johnson a little something on his desk.
Grijalva introduced the aptly titled No Delay in Representation Act, which would require members of Congress to be sworn in within five days after the results of a special election are certified — a gentle reminder that democracy is not a “whenever you get around to it” situation.
“For 50 days, 813,000 Arizonans were deprived of representation in Congress and access to basic constituent services due to political games being played by Speaker Johnson. That is why I am introducing the No Delay in Representation Act to prevent any one individual from blocking the will of the voters and silencing the voice of an entire community,” Grijalva said.
1 A note about a few terms we’re using today. We’re using “occupation” because local residents and officials clearly don’t want armed federal agents in their cities, and there are now about five times as many federal troops as local police in Minneapolis. We’re not sure whether “goons” or “henchmen” is the more accurate term. Goons do dirty work for a paycheck, while henchmen actually believe in the cause. It’s a coin toss with each agent whether they fit in one or the other category.
2 Terrorism: The systematic use of violence or the threat of violence as a weapon of intimidation or coercion.