Summer is coming and for the third year in a row, the city of Phoenix will operate a 24-7 heat relief site. As deportations continue under the Trump administration, many longtime residents of the U.S.—and of Arizona—find themselves adjusting to a new life. A federal judge threw out the Department of Justice’s attempt to force Arizona to turn over its voter rolls to the Trump administration. Plus the latest water, indigenous affairs, and metro Phoenix news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ, your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I’m Tiara Vian, and here are this week’s stories you don’t want to miss. It’s the podcast designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of April 27, 2026.
State law requires that prosecutors charge 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds as adults if they’re accused of certain violent crimes. In Maricopa County, some of those young people are sent to a therapeutic treatment court run by the judicial branch. Matthew Casey reports.
MATTHEW CASEY: KJZZ is only using the first names of people enrolled in what’s officially called the Juvenile Transfer Offender Program, or JTOP. There are more than 300. Meet Robert. He’s 19.
ROBERT: I feel like I'm a very proactive person. I’m a very big family man. I feel like I deserve better things in life.
MATTHEW CASEY: Which is why Robert is taking his break from working on rebar and insulation to attend a resource fair at the courthouse in downtown Phoenix.
ROBERT: I feel like my attendance matters on all the little things for probation.
MATTHEW CASEY: Robert’s trying to finish supervision early. After shooting two people he says were about to shoot him, Robert spent a year in jail.
ROBERT: From the people that were there, I learned a lot from them. I learned how to take accountability. I learned how to be a leader. I learned how to make a better situation out of everything. I learned my worth of me as a person.
MATTHEW CASEY: This inaugural resource fair is to help Robert and others like him find a job, housing, banking, even get a state ID.
ROBERT: I feel like they're doing a great thing for kids my age. I feel like they're doing a great thing for the community, and I feel like every kid deserves another chance in life.
MATTHEW CASEY: Non-profit groups are also here to help with food insecurity, addiction, healthcare, and college. Walking around and greeting everyone is one of the judges who oversees the program, Max Covil.
MAX COVIL: Thank you all for being here. I'm glad that you were able to come and help our youth.
MATTHEW CASEY: J-TOP program participants are ages 16 to 25. Those eligible are screened, go through orientation, and sign a behavioral contract that requires supervised probation, treatment, drug testing, and other services.
MAX COVIL: You know, I don't consider them to be throwaways. I consider them to be people who have made a mistake and we’re catching them early enough, hopefully, to keep them from coming back.
MATTHEW CASEY: Recidivism is an issue in Arizona. Between 2022 and 2024, nearly one-third of people under 18 returned to custody within 12 months of being released, according to the latest data from the State Department of Juvenile Corrections. Covil likes that the roughly 20-year-old JTOP program lets him be hands-on.
MAX COVIL: What I’m hoping for is that this program will keep these individuals from coming back into the system at all. And that we’re giving them a fresh start, a new path. A path that doesn't involve them getting into more trouble. A path that gets them drug treatment, a path that gets them to stable housing.
MATTHEW CASEY: Covil’s counterpart overseeing the program is Judge Todd Lang.
TODD LANG: These are folks who have real potential to be contributing to our society, and they demonstrate it every time we're in court.
MATTHEW CASEY: Lang says the JTOP program addresses a fundamental, underlying lack of support that many people in it do not have. And he wants to grow the resource fair.
TODD LANG: I guess that's why I don't consider them throwaways, because this program works.
MATTHEW CASEY: This appears true for JTOP program participant Nyana, who is on probation and here to find help getting work.
NYANA: My dream job since always been nursing or lawyer or real estate. Those are just the three main jobs I've always said since I was a kid.
MATTHEW CASEY: The 18-year-old has experience in fast food and is looking for businesses that will hire someone with a felony. Hers stems from an incident in a foster home where she was living.
NYANA: What happened on my background doesn't define me as a person. It happened as an accident, and everything happened so fast.
MATTHEW CASEY: Nyana accepts that a record will stay with her. She says friends are the only support she has here.
NYANA: The faster I can get off probation... I like to travel. I'm not from Arizona, I'm from Chicago. But at 16, things happened with me and my family and I got put out and I've been in Arizona by myself since.
MATTHEW CASEY: Next April is the earliest Nyana could be free to travel. Matthew Casey, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In indigenous affairs, for decades, lowrider culture has been associated with gangs and criminal activity. Those stereotypes are giving way to mainstream popularity and official recognition by the U.S. Postal Service and Smithsonian Institution. Gabriel Pietrorazio visited a small valley town celebrating a major milestone.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: This adobe-style mercado along South Avenida del Yaqui is typically home to a barbershop, restaurant, and even a boxing ring. But every April, this fenced-off patio in the heart of Guadalupe, just east of Phoenix, turns into a jam-packed parking lot full of colorful lowriders, all sorts of makes and models.
MIGUEL ALVARADO: Back in the days when we first started, we only had over 12 cars just inside of the plaza. Six cars over here on this side, then six cars on that other side. So it was kind of empty.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Car show promoter Miguel Alvarado, along with his Guadalupe club, Intimidations, kickstarted this tradition back in 2000.
MIGUEL ALVARADO: Now we got 400, maybe this year we might have 500 because everybody’s all excited. They all want to come this way.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: From suburbs like Mesa and Maricopa, all the way to Tucson, Yuma, California, and even south of the border. On this Saturday, Alvarado has been up since the wee hours waiting for custom cars to roll in ahead of Sunday’s show.
MIGUEL ALVARADO: Everybody that brings a car to me is real important and real special because they’re like the main people that put the show together.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Over the last quarter century, the Guadalupe Car Show has grown into arguably Arizona’s most popular one among lowriders, even running out of space last year. And much like any parking situation, the best spots are available on a first-come basis. Some people arrive really early to stake their turf, like 51-year-old Carlos Rosales, who has snatched one corner of this mercado for his club, Klique Phoenix.
CARLOS ROSALES: Before I joined the club, they’ve been in the same spot for more years than the eight years I’ve been here.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: He’s president of the local Klique chapter, a storied club that emerged from East Los Angeles decades ago. As for Ernie Flores, lowriding is literally a family affair. Born and raised in Guadalupe, he was once with the Intimidations crew, but then founded his own club, Somos Familia in Tempe.
ERNIE FLORES: Familia is just our family. My wife, my dad, my mom, my grandkids, my kids.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Their collection spanning generations occupies another plaza corner. The next day, Main Street through the less than a square mile town was shut down. Rows and rows of cars lined the sidewalks as watchers weaved through the maze of parked vehicles. This melting pot of a small town made up of roughly 5,000 residents, mostly Latino and indigenous Yaquis from Sonora, came out for this special occasion: the 25th anniversary of the Guadalupe Car Show.
DANNY ORTEGA: Isn’t this beautiful? This is truly culture!
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: That’s attorney and local Latino leader, Danny Ortega.
DANNY ORTEGA: This represents who we are. This represents the best of our community.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: The lowrider scene has been long stigmatized, and cruising remains outlawed by Phoenix and other Arizona cities. But the gang stereotype is fading away. California repealed its statewide ban on cruising in 2024. Congresswoman Yassamin Ansari’s district includes Guadalupe, and thanks to her, Alvarado, the Intimidations club, and the rest of the town will forever be etched in the U.S. Congressional Record for their contributions to the lowrider community. The 52-year-old Alvarado was touched by the tribute, but told the crowd it wouldn’t have been possible without all of them.
MIGUEL ALVARADO: Without you guys, there’s no Guadalupe Car Show!
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: For KJZZ News, I’m Gabriel Pietrorazio, reporting from Guadalupe.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. Thanks for listening. Your smartphone isn’t just a phone. It’s your alarm, your photo album, your calendar, your wallet. Maybe you use it to shop, check your email, the time, or the weather, or traffic. These days, your phone is your connection to the outside world. Make the most of that connection and listen to NPR and KJZZ on 91.5, online, or on the mobile app.
In Fronteras news, as deportations continue under the Trump administration, many long-time residents of the U.S. and of Arizona find themselves adjusting to a new life. For some people, that means learning to live in a faraway country. But for others, that new life is just on the other side of the border. From the Fronteras desk, Nina Kravinsky reports from Nogales, Sonora.
NINA KRAVINSKY: In the cafeteria of the Kino Border Initiative migrant shelter, Jose Angel Mireles describes his morning routine.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: [Translated from Spanish] We wake up at 6:30 to take a shower.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The men in his dorm wake up at 6:30, drink coffee, have breakfast. Some go out to find work. Others take advantage of workshops or services at the shelter. All of his bunkmates, he says, have recently come from the United States. We’re about three hours south of Phoenix, Mireles’ home for the past 18 years. After being deported just a few weeks ago, the 48-year-old is trying to figure out what life will look like back in his native Mexico.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated) Here I am struggling, facing each new day.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Mireles says ICE detained him at a courthouse after he was served with a fine for driving a car with stolen plates, a car he says belonged to his boss. Despite no history of violent crime, he spent the next two months in the ICE detention center in Florence, Arizona. It was crowded and dirty, he says. Other detainees were sick, and he saw people sleep on the floor without blankets. Eventually, he and a van full of other deportees were shackled on both their wrists and ankles — ICE’s protocol for deportations — and taken to the border.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: [Translated from Spanish] They treated us like animals. Their plan is to mentally exhaust us so we don't come back.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Now, Mireles is separated by nearly 200 miles and a border wall from his 11-year-old daughter in Phoenix.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: (Translated) Honestly, I don't really like Nogales. But since it's close enough for my daughter to visit, I'm going to stay here.
NINA KRAVINSKY: His daughter, Sofia Nicole, came to see him at the shelter just a few days before we talked.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: [Translated from Spanish] There were tears, but she's strong.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The plan is for her mother to bring her to visit every two weeks. According to the Deportation Data Project, interior arrests, which can happen far from the border to long-time U.S. residents like Mireles, increased five-fold during the first year of President Trump’s second term. Adam Isacson is with the Washington Office on Latin America.
ADAM ISACSON: The people coming back now are people who very often have spent many years in the United States, even, you know, big portions of their lives in the United States.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Deportation numbers have dipped somewhat in the past few months as the Department of Homeland Security goes through a change in leadership. Its once high-profile presence in some U.S. cities like Minneapolis is also waning.
ADAM ISACSON: But that doesn't necessarily mean immigration enforcement will continue to diminish. It means there's a pause, but it could be the kind of pause that leads to a much bigger acceleration and more capacity soon.
NINA KRAVINSKY: More funding for ICE from Republicans’ 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill" will keep coming online. And Isacson says future increased immigration enforcement could take shape more subtly in the form of bureaucratic hurdles.
ADAM ISACSON: The shift is moving toward a lot of small, like death-by-a-thousand-cuts bureaucratic changes to try to get people to just self-deport.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Back in Nogales, Sonora, Mireles is grieving his life in Phoenix, where he worked in construction.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: [Translated from Spanish] My life was beautiful. I worked, I earned money, I could help my family in Mexico and pay my expenses.
NINA KRAVINSKY: In Nogales, the hard labor he can find, like pouring concrete, doesn't pay as much, even though life this close to the border is still much more expensive than in other parts of Mexico. There is one silver lining to being back in Mexico, Mireles says. He can go back to his home city of Torreon and visit his mom, who he hasn't seen in 18 years.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: [Translated from Spanish] The thought of seeing her softened the blow of being locked up for two months in ICE detention.
NINA KRAVINSKY: When we talked, he was planning a trip to visit her. After, he plans to come back here, to Nogales, a city that straddles the border, to be closer to his daughter. For now, his life is split in three: his family in Torreon, his daughter in Phoenix, and him, just over the border in Nogales, Sonora.
JOSE ANGEL MIRELES: [Translated from Spanish] It's like a life between places. That's a hard thing.
NINA KRAVINSKY: Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Nogales, Sonora.
TIARA VIAN: In politics news, a federal judge threw out the Department of Justice’s attempt to force Arizona to turn over its voter rolls to the Trump administration. From the politics desk, Wayne Schutsky reports.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The Department of Justice sued more than two dozen states that rejected requests for sensitive voter data. The DOJ argued it has the authority to obtain that information under federal law as it seeks to ensure states are properly maintaining their voter rolls. That law requires state election offices to maintain certain documents from federal elections and gives the attorney general the power to demand state officials turn over that data. But Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes argued some of the requested information, including Social Security numbers, is protected by state and federal privacy laws. And U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich found that the exact information sought by the Justice Department goes beyond the records the AG is allowed to demand from states. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: This is the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast. In water news, the cities of Phoenix and Tucson are setting up a new system for sharing water with other agencies in Arizona. As Alex Hager reports, it's in response to shrinking water supplies from the Colorado River.
ALEX HAGER: Phoenix officials are calling it the Secure Water Arizona Program, or SWAP. It'll create an emergency reserve of water and connect willing buyers with willing sellers. Max Wilson with Phoenix says big cities in Arizona have an interest in helping stop smaller cities from going dry.
MAX WILSON: Water insecurity on even the smallest communities in Arizona can have an enormous impact on public perception and economic development for all of Arizona.
ALEX HAGER: Proposed cutbacks from the federal government could deal massive water cutbacks to some cities in the valley as the region grapples with record low water levels in the Colorado River. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In heat news, summer is coming and for the third year in a row, the city of Phoenix will operate a 24/7 heat relief site. As Katherine Davis Young reports, the all-hours cooling center opens on Friday.
KATHERINE DAVIS YOUNG: The city is once again leasing a warehouse building downtown on West Jackson Street for its 24-hour cooling center. Last summer, more than 5,000 people sought heat relief here, and across Maricopa County last year, heat-related deaths decreased about 30 percent. City Councilmember Anna Hernandez says the round-the-clock services at this site are part of what saved lives.
ANNA HERNANDEZ: Expanding access to safe, climate-resilient public spaces is not optional. It is our responsibility. One heat death is one too many.
KATHERINE DAVIS YOUNG: The site will be open through September. Katherine Davis Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And finally, from KJZZ’s The Show, could Major League Soccer come to Phoenix? Here’s co-host Mark Brodie.
MARK BRODIE: The future of the Major League Soccer team in Vancouver could have implications for soccer fans here in the valley. A committee of MLS owners has met to talk about what might be next for the Vancouver Whitecaps, and that could include the possibility of moving the franchise. And if that happens, Phoenix seems to be one of the potential destinations. Phoenix Rising play in the USL Championship, a tier below MLS, but the club’s owners have been trying for years to move up. With me now to talk more about all of this is Paul Tenorio, senior writer at The Athletic. Paul, good morning.
PAUL TENORIO: Good morning, thanks for having me.
MARK BRODIE: Thanks for being here. So what’s going on with the Whitecaps? Why is... why are they potentially leaving British Columbia?
PAUL TENORIO: Well, the Whitecaps don't have control of the stadium in which they play. BC Place is controlled by the province. And as such, they don't have access to many of the revenue streams that come from game day experiences. So the Whitecaps right now rank at or near the bottom of MLS in ticket revenue, in sponsorship revenue. They can't sell the naming rights to the stadium. All of these areas that are critical for Major League Soccer team, which unlike some of the other American professional leagues, um, doesn't rely on media revenue as its main driver of revenue, but rather those game day revenues. And so it's become quite a complex business problem for the Whitecaps and without a stadium deal in the future and with the terms of the lease remaining even somewhat similar to what they are today in Vancouver, they just don't see it as a viable uh path forward for the Whitecaps, especially as the cost of business in MLS will continue to rise.
MARK BRODIE: And am I right that this is also happening sort of uh in parallel with a potential sale of the team?
PAUL TENORIO: That's correct. The Whitecaps owners put the team up for sale, um, the Kerfoot family especially, the main owner of the team, the majority owner of the team, was looking to divest from the team. Um, and they have had meetings with more than 100 prospective owners or people that wanted to at least investigate the potential purchase of the club, and no bids came out of those 100 meetings with owners that would have kept the team locally. And so they're under a bit of a time crunch here and the owners have stated they want to sell the team to somebody who would keep it in Vancouver, but Major League Soccer is kind of looking at its own watch and saying, "Listen, we’re running out of time here. You know, this team is for sale, the business structure doesn't look right, the stadium deal is not viable for where this league is going. You know, and hey, we might have some interested investors that are in other markets that would be willing to pay and do have potential stadium deals in place."
MARK BRODIE: So how — what is the feeling within MLS ownership and the other owners in terms of whether they would like to keep a team in this market or if it's a realistic possibility that the Whitecaps could be on the move?
PAUL TENORIO: Well, I think it's tough to say. You know, the ownership group in Major League Soccer is so diverse across the 30 different markets. All of them have invested at different times in the league's history, their investment horizons are completely different, their ties to the history of the league are completely different. And so we have to acknowledge there's kind of two sides to this, right? The first is the history. The Whitecaps franchise has existed in Vancouver since well before it was in Major League Soccer. It goes back to the 1970s and the NASL. But there are these kind of business realities for Major League Soccer as well. And the owners of the league would benefit from a relocation because MLS is going to charge a relocation fee if it were to move the team out of Vancouver. So there's almost this weird financial incentive, albeit not a large one, to move out of Vancouver and into another market if the deal is right.
But I do think the owners are keenly aware of what makes the soccer league special, which is the fans and the atmosphere that is completely different from what people can get at other sports like the NBA and NHL and NFL. And when you move out of a market that’s shown such support — I mean, 27,000 people were at the Whitecaps game last weekend, they had more than 45, 50,000 for games last year, they’re one of the best teams in the league—you know, there's no guarantee you're going to get that support in every single market that you go to. And so there has to be this balance between the culture and the importance of fans and building a history to the league at the same time that there are these financial realities as well.
MARK BRODIE: So you have reported that if the Whitecaps were to move, that two potential landing spots could be either Las Vegas or Phoenix. Phoenix has obviously been sort of in the conversation for an MLS expansion team for several expansion cycles now, but they’ve never brought a team here. What does it look like in terms of like if one or one of those is a maybe more attractive uh location for MLS from the — from the league's perspective right now?
PAUL TENORIO: Well, I think right now Las Vegas is the leader in the clubhouse. I think that's because there's an interested party who is willing to put an offer down and I think there is, you know, considerable interest in the Las Vegas market and there has been for Major League Soccer's part going back to the early 2010s when there was a group led by Wes Edens, um, who wanted to bring a team to Vegas. After that, it was Bill Foley, the owner of the Golden Knights, that wanted to bring a team to Vegas. So Major League Soccer has been looking at that market for a very long time and that market is evolving rapidly, right? They gained an NFL team, looks like a baseball team is coming, there's an NHL team there, WNBA. So this is becoming a sports destination.
Really, though, this is going to boil down to, you know, who is the ownership group, how much money are they willing to put forward, how much are they willing to pay for the Whitecaps, how much are they willing to pay for a relocation fee, and what does the stadium situation look like? That... that is a critical part of this equation. So if Vegas looks like it has that all of those things lined up, I think it does rank above. However, to your point, there have been discussions with Phoenix in the past. There have been groups that have been interested in bringing a team to Phoenix, not just the Phoenix Rising group, but other investment groups who have been known in Major League Soccer have had discussions about bringing an expansion team to Phoenix. So, you know, I think that Phoenix is in a very strong position and certainly I also want to point out that, you know, this Whitecaps sale is not the only MLS team up for sale, and I think it also starts to open up discussions about, you know, what — what the next phase of the league looks like and whether they start talking expansion again.
MARK BRODIE: Interesting. Alright, lots more to come on this, I suspect. That is Paul Tenorio, senior writer at the Athletic. Paul, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
PAUL TENORIO: Thanks so much for having me.
TIARA VIAN: This has been the Stories You Don’t Want to Miss podcast, made possible in part by the Katina Foundation and Basis Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I’m Tiara Vian. This is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
