Arizona
Oregon Republicans to visit Arizona-Mexico border to learn about security issues – Salem Reporter
Sixteen Republican lawmakers and legislative candidates from Oregon plan to visit the Arizona-Mexico border on Monday, arguing that lax security around the southern border exacerbates the drug crisis in Oregon, 1,000 miles north.
The group, which includes about one-third of the Republican lawmakers in the Oregon Legislature and three candidates, plans to visit Yuma, Arizona, and meet with Arizona lawmakers in Phoenix. They’ll pay for the trip with personal or campaign funds, and a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans who will join the trip plans to use vacation time to attend.
Many of the lawmakers attending the border tour signed a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this year praising his standoff with the Biden administration over border issues. Abbott has put up razor wire on the border, bused tens of thousands of undocumented migrants to Democratic cities far from the border and blocked U.S. Border Patrol agents from accessing some land.
Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, said the Oregon lawmakers’ letter to Abbott led to more connections with their colleagues in Arizona and Texas, resulting in an invitation to visit the border in Arizona. Despite Oregon’s distance from the southern border, he said Oregonians should be concerned about illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
“We know that there are drugs coming over the border, and those end up in probably all states, but certainly in the western states,” he said. “We’ve obviously seen some crime impact from people who have come in illegally. I think all of us want legal immigration, and recognize the need, but we also want to know who’s in the country and right now, we don’t, and that there’s significant danger there.”
Crime and immigration have been increasingly linked in Republican rhetoric, but researchers say immigrants of all sorts are less likely to commit crimes than American-born residents. Federal law enforcement reports that, while the southern border is a significant drug smuggling route, most of the drugs are brought by “highly organized and compartmentalized” Mexican organized crime groups, not immigrants and asylum seekers.
Knopp, who led Senate Republicans’ six-week 2023 walkout over abortion and transgender health care legislation, can’t return to the Legislature next year because voters approved a constitutional amendment barring lawmakers who miss 10 or more days of floor sessions from reelection. He said he expects Oregon Republicans to introduce bills related to border security, immigration and crime – though what effect they could have when the federal government controls immigration policy and Democrats control Oregon’s legislative and executive branches remains to be seen.
The Oregon Republicans will participate in a tour of the border in Yuma led by Jonathan Lines, a Yuma County supervisor and former chairman of the Arizona Republican Party.
His itinerary for the Oregon Republicans includes walking along the border itself and seeing the different barriers erected on the orders of past administrations. He’ll also take the visitors to meet with nongovernmental organizations and groups in Yuma, including visiting a local hospital and food bank. They’ll meet with leaders from Amberly’s Place, a local child welfare center and hear from former Arizona Democratic state Sen. Amanda Aguirre, who leads the Regional Center for Border Health.
“For many people, this is not real,” he said. “They see images.”
Who’s going to the border?
Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend
Sen. Fred Girod, R-Silverton
Rep. Vikki Breese-Iverson, R-Prineville
Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford
Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer
Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner
Rep. Court Boice, R-Gold Beach
Rep. Virgle Osborne, R-Roseburg
Rep. Boomer Wright, R-Coos Bay
Rep. Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville
Rep. Christine Goodwin, R-Canyonville
Rep. Dwayne Yunker, R-Grants Pass
Bruce Starr, Senate candidate from Dundee
Michael Summers, Senate candidate from Redmond
Keri Lopez, House candidate from Redmond
Lines told the Capital Chronicle he has fielded many requests from elected officials and candidates – most of them Republicans, though Democrat-turned-independent candidate for president Robert F. Kennedy Jr. participated in one – to tour the border. Some come just to get campaign photos and videos and others are there to learn, he said, but he shares the same information with both groups.
Rep. Greg Smith, R-Heppner, said he’s joining the trip because he wants to hear from Arizonans about how Oregon can help “try and keep the bad guys out while allowing legal immigration to occur.” He hears frequently from voters about border concerns, and he’s trying to figure out the connection between the southern border and the limited authority held by lawmakers in Salem.
“What I do know is we’ve heard testimony at the Capitol about drug cartels,” he said. “In my small little town of Milton-Freewater, I’ve got Highway 11, and four months ago in December, I had over 200 people in a room, asking me,the state police and ODOT to create a safety corridor because they were concerned about drug cartels driving through and human trafficking cartels coming through.”
Smith said he also hopes to meet with Arizona lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, to deliver an Oregon flag and discuss issues that matter to them. Sen. David Brock Smith, R-Port Orford and no relation, also hopes to double-dip on the trip by connecting with Arizona lawmakers: He wants to build a coalition of western legislators who can work together on fire policy and exert pressure on Congress to provide resources to prevent and respond to the infernos that blaze across the Western U.S. each year.
He said illegal drugs, many of which law enforcement suspects make it across the southern border, are a top concern in his southern Oregon district.
“There’s basically three ways to get drugs to Portland and two of them, two of those highways come through my district,” Brock Smith said.
Earlier this month, for instance Oregon State Police reported that they stopped a Phoenix man driving north of Roseburg with 62 pounds of methamphetamine and 22,000 fentanyl-laced pills that police said the man was taking to Portland.
Democrats panned the visit as a campaign stunt. Hannah Howell, executive director of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, FuturePAC, said Democrats are staying in Oregon to fix Oregon’s problems and Republicans are welcome to join them.
“It’s honestly baffling,” Howell said. “While Oregonians are worried about rising prices and safety and homelessness, Republicans are inventing a reason to bring divisive national problems – that they don’t even know how to solve – to our state.”
Howell’s counterpart at the Senate Democratic Leadership Fund, Oliver Muggli, added “Oregonians expect their elected officials to be focused on our people in our state, not playing MAGA politics a thousand miles away. This is a cheap election-year stunt that does nothing except show how deeply out-of-touch Republican politicians are with Oregon priorities.”
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact [email protected]
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Julia Shumway is deputy editor of Oregon Capital Chronicle and has reported on government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska, spent time at the Bend Bulletin and most recently was a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix. An award-winning journalist, Julia most recently reported on the tangled efforts to audit the presidential results in Arizona.
MARANA, AZ (AZFamily) — Proposals for data centers and ICE detention facilities in Marana are dividing neighbors and turning some against their local leaders.
These are two issues that some Republicans and Democrats are finding themselves agreeing on, as people try to take charge of who and what ends up in their communities.
“Well, first I think everyone on our city council needs to be replaced. What they are doing to Marana and surrounding areas is destroying our future and our kids’ futures,” a Marana resident said.
A recent proposal by the Department of Homeland Security would create an ICE detention center about 3 miles from the community center.
The property proposed for the ICE facility was a minimum-security prison with a capacity of about 500 people. The release said that renovations will increase capacity to 775, but could expand to over 1,300.
DHS officials say the facility would include more exam rooms, a dental area, and other features.
Arizona’s Family asked DHS for some clarification on those numbers and details. DHS released a statement saying, “ICE does not discuss individual pre-decisional conversations, but when a new facility contract is finalized, information will be available on ICE.gov.”
Data center concerns
Meanwhile, a rezoning application for a data center surfaced on the Town of Marana’s website last week.
It’s the second potential data center in the area and has people itching to get to public comment to voice their concerns.
“The detention center- we don’t need that here; no one wants that here. The data center- I mean, we already don’t have water and it’s awful; we don’t need another data center. Look at the ones across the country and what they’re doing,” the Marana resident we spoke with said.
Marana Town Manager Terry Rozema said nothing is set in stone.
“There’s so many factors that could come into considering whether or not something is beneficial to a community,” Rozema said.
Supporters of these projects said they will create jobs.
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The Pocket Fire burning north of Sedona and sending smoke and ash into Flagstaff has been tricky for firefighters to access because of the steep and narrow terrain through canyons and along cliffsides. These same landscape features mean that many others watching the fire’s rapid progress from afar have worried with little information about which of their favorite hiking trails and scenic viewpoints near Oak Creek Canyon may not look the same again in their lifetimes.
On June 30, the fire perimeter had exceeded 15,000 acres after growing about 4,000 acres overnight. This expansion took the shape of a finger jutting to the west from near the southern edge of the fire while the northern edge broadened along Forest Service Road 9042, where firefighter crews worked to hold it.
For residents of Kachina Village, the community most in the path of the fire’s recent growth and one known to be particularly vulnerable to fire, that northern progress being redirected east and west along the firebreak road was something to celebrate.
For others, fears and questions about singed trails, camping spots, homes and businesses remain.
What is clear is that parts of the distant edge of the popular West Fork trail, which starts at West Fork Trailhead off of U.S. 89A through Oak Creek Canyon and follows West Fork Oak Creek as it twists and turns between stunning red rock canyon walls, are within the Pocket Fire’s active perimeter. The popular panoramic vista from the “Edge of the World” viewpoint in East Pocket off Forest Road 231 was also enveloped by the fire in its early days.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean these areas are unrecoverable as scenic and beloved recreation spots. Wildfires frequently burn discontinuously through forested landscapes, as embers send out new sparks to distant forest patches. So the damage severity from the Pocket Fire in many places is not yet known.
After the Dragon Bravo fire burned 150,000 acres near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 2025, a Burn Area Emergency Response team concluded months later that only 1% of the 71,000 park-managed acres within the perimeter showed evidence of a “high severity” burn. The rest had better odds of ecological recovery.
To prevent a need for too much of that in one of the Sedona area’s most treasured spots, though, crews on the Pocket Fire have worked out a “really solid plan to protect all of our identified values and to keep fire out of the bottom of Oak Creek Canyon,” said operations section chief trainee Clyde England of the Southwest Incident Management Team in his morning briefing about the fire on June 30.
England emphasized that crews were focused on keeping the fire out of the West Fork drainage, by conducting backburning efforts and building a buffer on the east side, while limiting progress north toward Kachina Village. They are also working with the Arizona Department of Transportation to remove hazard trees along the roadway, so there is “one less risk we have to worry about” if the fire does jump down into Oak Creek Canyon.
“I want to reiterate that the threat component is still there, as fire is coming down into West Fork,” England said. “There is still a potential for the fire to find some fuels and get some alignment with the winds out of the canyon. We don’t anticipate it. That’s why we still got a big presence up there, just in case some unforeseen event pushes some fire out up on the ridge into that (eastern) corner.”
Another area the team is watching is along the southern edge of the fire in Dry Creek near Bear Sign Canyon, the site of a popular 7-mile hiking trail that passes through “a carpet of ferns with views of white Coconino sandstone cliffs,” according to a nearby business offering lodging for hikers. England said the team has been able to “insert people” into that area over the past few days to build hand lines and work with helicopters on bucket drops to help prevent the fire from spreading to the Seven Canyons area and Enchantment Golf Resort.
The historic Fernow Cabin, a former U.S. Forest Service guard station, is also safe so far, England said, thanks to defensive firing by crews over the weekend that will continue for a few more days to keep the structure intact.
On the northwest edge of the fire, a containment line along Forest Service road 231 is “looking really good,” England said, with a recent expansion of the fire map there reflecting defensive fire efforts rather than wildfire growth. That effort will help protect the power lines to communities in Oak Creek from damage. Fire retardant drops and reinforced dozer and hand lines have helped prevent the fire from progressing over the 536 or 535 roads.
“If we can get it down in this canyon, use the weather patterns, the fuels, the rocky terrain to our advantage, we can find a way to choke that out,” England said. “So our ops are all looking good, our confidence is there.”
Addressing the southwestern corner of the Pocket Fire perimeter, England struck a more somber tone, acknowledging expansion of flames across Round Top Mountain toward Secret Canyon.
That’s the reality of wildfire in the American Southwest, scientists say, in an age of the drying and warming influences of climate change combined with ever-expanding human development and juxtaposed against federal funding cuts.
“The anticipation is that some of this fire will be on the landscape for a while,” he said. “There’s just no access and no way to get folks into that country. You might see that fire and that smoke for a while.”
Joan Meiners is the climate news and storytelling reporter at The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Send tips or questions to joan.meiners@arizonarepublic.com or follow her work on Instagram at @joan_bikes_arizona.
Have a news tip? Contact The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com at newstips@arizonarepublic.com.
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Arizona Republic
Flags were lowered in Arizona on Tuesday, June 30, in honor of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who died fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013.
Gov. Katie Hobbs ordered flags be flown at half-staff from sunrise through sunset on Tuesday to honor them on the 13th anniversary of their death.
Sparked by a lighting strike, the Yarnell fire became nationally known as an emblem of tragedy. The crew, which was part of a unique municipal-level firefighting effort, was encircled by flames reaching 2,000 degrees with no way out. All but one of them died.
The blaze was the deadliest for U.S. firefighters since 1933 and the greatest loss of U.S. firefighter life since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“Hotshot crews take on dangerous and difficult firefighting to keep Arizona communities safe,” Hobbs wrote in her a statement. “We recognize and honor the sacrifice and bravery of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. This will always be a day we mark with mourning, reflection, and deep admiration for the members of this crew, their families, and the wildland firefighting community.”
Here’s when flags are traditionally lowered in the United States and the difference between half-mast and half-staff.
What is the difference between half-mast and half-staff?
The terms “half-mast” and “half-staff” both refer to lowering a flag to honor or mourn someone, but they are used in different settings.
“Half-mast” traditionally refers to flags flown on ships or at naval stations, while “half-staff” is used for flags flown on land. In the United States, “half-staff” is the term most commonly used for government buildings and public flag displays.
When are flags flown at half-staff in the US?
In the United States, flags are lowered to half-staff on certain national observances and following the deaths of notable public officials.
According to the Arizona state website, the U.S. flag is flown at half-staff on these days:
- Memorial Day, when the flag should be displayed at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.
- Peace Officers Memorial Day, unless that day is also Armed Forces Day.
- Patriot Day.
- National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.
- National Firefighters Memorial Day.
The president of the United States may also order flags to be flown at half-staff after the death of a notable public figure. In those cases, the length of time depends on the person’s role:
- 30 days from the death of the president or a former president.
- 10 days from the day of death of the vice president, the chief justice or a retired chief justice of the United States, or the speaker of the House of Representatives.
- From the day of death until the interment of an associate justice of the Supreme Court, a secretary of an executive or military department, a former vice president or the governor of a state.
- The day of death and the following day for a member of Congress.
The governor may also order flags lowered to half-staff after the death of notable current or former government officials or members of the armed forces who die while on active duty.
In Arizona, the governor can also require that the state flag be lowered at all state, institutional and educational buildings. The law also allows the state flag to be lowered on the death of an incumbent elected state officer for seven days beginning on the day following the death of the officer.
Arizona Republic reporter Laura Gersony contributed to this article.
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