The Show for June 3, 2026: The state of DACA today, Pal Experiences and more

DACA recipients were supposed to be protected from deportation under the Obama-era program. But one advocate says the program is being slowly dismantled under Trump. Plus, a local nonprofit helps kids with developmental disabilities visit Valley attractions.

Transcript

UNDERWRITER: KJZZ’S audio service is supported by Banner Health, Arizona’s largest nonprofit healthcare system. Last year, Banner reinvested more than $1.1 billion in community health and charity care. Banner Health, nonprofit for Arizona. bannerhealth.com/nonprofitforaz.

LAUREN GILGER: Hi, I’m Lauren Gilger, co-host of The Show, an original production from KJZZ. Every weekday, we bring you the latest news and culture from across the state. You can find much more at theshow.kjzz.org. Here’s today’s episode.

GILGER: Good morning, and welcome to The Show here on KJZZ 91.5 in Phoenix. I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, we meet one of the Educators of the Year in Arizona and hear about how she overcame her own learning differences as a child. And MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard on having his first child, his Arizona roots, and covering a decade of Trump.

But first, recipients from the Obama-era DACA program — or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — are being detained and sometimes deported. This even though the program is designed to shield these so-called Dreamers from deportation.

Here in Arizona, community organizer, social media influencer and DACA recipient Karla Toledo was arrested by ICE last month at her Tucson home. ICE claimed she assaulted an officer. Here’s what it sounded like after ICE agents entered her home on May 18.

[AUDIO CLIP OF KARLA TOLEDO’S ARREST PLAYS]

GILGER: Toledo’s arrest sparked community outrage and attracted national attention, including from Democratic members of Congress. She posted bail on May 22nd and was released.

But it’s not just Toledo. Reports of DACA recipients being arrested, detained, and deported are on the rise as the Trump administration continues its nationwide immigration crackdown. Many other DACA recipients are facing months-long delays in renewals. The Trump administration says DACA isn’t legal status, and it isn’t enough to protect them from deportation.

Our next guest says it’s all part of the slow dismantling of the program that serves as a lifeline to more than half a million people in this country, including nearly 19,000 in Arizona. Unlike we saw during President Trump’s first term in office, he says there won’t be a big press conference announcing the program is being rescinded. Instead, we’re witnessing its slow demise.

José Patiño is vice president of education and external affairs at Aliento and is a DACA recipient himself. I spoke with him more about what’s happening with DACA now, and it’s today’s Deep Dive.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, it — it’s unprecedented, because when the program was created, the government then, the Obama government, promised that if you come forward out of the shadows, basically turn all the documentation you have, your school records, medical records, history where you live, and you get through this process, which — which is not easy to get through — you would then be able to be safe.

And the Number 1 thing was protection from deportation, and then second is ability to work.

But we’re seeing here in the state of Arizona with example of Karla, but previous individuals, DACA recipients, who are being arrested, detained, and in many cases, deported. So right now. there’s this huge fear that exists within the DACA community because the DACA community has shifted in the last 14 years since this program was announced.

I was in my early 20s, I just graduated from college and thinking like, "Oh my God, like, I’m going to start my career."

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: And now in my mid- to late 30s, and the majority of DACA recipients are much older. So now the worries is not only just about yourself, but you’re thinking about your family, you’re thinking about your — many of, many DACA recipients have kids.

So it’s a different worry, and in many ways, it’s — I think it’s scarier than it was then, because of now it’s not only you, you’re — you have little humans depending on you.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, I mean like, this is, it was always meant to be a temporary program, but it’s been almost 15 years, and people have lived their lives, right? Like, when you talk about fear within the DACA community, I know that that’s kind of been a perennial thing, right?

As a DACA recipient, people have always been sort of, you know, the political football. They’ve always been sort of unsure of the future of their own status. But it’s also been so long now that that, it sounds like, has shifted.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: It’s been going up and down. Towards the end of the Obama administration, there was a lot of sort of comfort. I think a lot of us believed that we had won at least a narrative that, "Hey, like, we came here as children, we’re now here adults, most of us are in prime working age or either in school studying. It’s a matter of time before Congress finds a way to legalize us into becoming, earning our citizenship."

Then in 2017, when, then the first Trump administration, they rescinded the DACA program. That crystallized everybody that nobody was safe. And I still had a lot of friends who were like, "They can’t like, get rid of us." I’m like, "We’re working, paying taxes, we’re buying homes, starting businesses. We have no criminal record. Like, why would they want to get rid of this population, especially right now that we’re having low birth rates among Americans? Wouldn’t this people, you have prime working age that are contributing and paying for Social Security and Medicare for people to retire?"

And my conversations also with them is like, "This is a different world. This is a different administration that may not see us as an asset of this country." And now, I think there was a calm that happened under the Biden administration, a lot of frustration because nothing really happened, materialized in Congress.

LAUREN GILGER: Sure.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: And now there’s just this, this fear is very palpable. Thus, everybody that I talk to, DACA recipients, they were just having a conversation about whether it be the World Cup or whether it be their kids or anything else, it always ends up into like, "What’s going to happen? What are we going to do?"

And for some reason, they think I have an answer, just because of being involved, and I’m like, "I can just tell you all the stuff that I know and in a way, project, what I think is going to happen, but I don’t know."

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, you don’t know. There are many changes that have happened under the Trump administration, it sounds like, since they’ve taken office this second time around. I know DACA recipients now are facing very long, weights for renewals. What else has changed?

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, that’s the one that, it got a lot of DACA recipients just alerted. Under the Biden administration, there were times where it was 15 to 30 days. I got approved within 21 days. I was so surprised and I was like, "Oh, this is how it can be done so fast."

And then it got into the first months of the Trump years, of this term, it was around 70 days, so a little over two months. So people are like, "Oh, nothing has really materially changed." But now since October of 2025, it’s taking more than 120 days, and in many cases, more than six months.

So, I’m in several conversations here locally of individuals who submitted within 120 days, in 150 days, because that’s what’s recommended when by USCIS, and their DACA has not been approved. And some of them have posted online saying like, well — and it, to me, it’s very saddening because it’s like, it’s a job that people work for so long, and they’re basically let go, not because of anything that they could do.

LAUREN GILGER: People losing their jobs because they’ve lost their status.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, because an employer cannot legally hire them, and they’re like, "Well, I lost my job because USCIS doesn’t want to process my application even though I submitted within time."

So there’s nothing that you could do, and it’s just heart-wrenching because it’s like, I am being punished because this administration is not doing their job. Now, therefore, I cannot do mine.

LAUREN GILGER: So DACA recipients, those lapses, right? If you’re a DACA recipient, means first of all, like you’re saying, you might lose your job, but also like, you’re open for deportation. You could be picked up and deported at any point if you don’t have that status or if you’re waiting for it.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, and DHS has said that, ICE spokespeople have said that, it’s like if your DACA lapses, you’re now no longer protected by the program, and therefore, you’re eligible for being arrested, detained and deported.

LAUREN GILGER: Wow.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: And then the folks are like, "Well, you are, the other part of you, USCIS, is not doing your job." And now they can send that information because they have ICE has access to all DACA recipient applications.

We found that out through a, FOIA request, Freedom of Information, and they can come and get you, whether it be at your home because most of us have our, every single time that we renew, we have to update our, residence history.

LAUREN GILGER: The Trump administration has been pretty open about this, right? They’ve said that DACA is not legal status, which it never has been, but also that it’s basically not enough to protect someone from deportation, whether or not it lapses, it sounds like.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, so the first time is true, DACA has never been lawful status. It’s always been legal presence. The second piece is the thing that I think is, in my opinion, I think they’re misleading people. Because they’re trying to change the narrative of the DACA program itself being unlawful or illegal because the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and also Judge Hanen in Texas said that the DACA program or the memo, and the Biden rule, is unlawful.

It hasn’t gone through the Supreme Court to actually be full. It has been appealed.

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Therefore, they’re saying like, "Oh, there’s this court already that has happened," which is not finalized, "therefore, the program itself is lawful, is unlawful, and we’re going to act as if now, even if you have DACA status, you’re not protected from deportation. You have to take the merits of the entire case."

But previously, even during the Trump first term, they would adhere to the provision and the understanding that DACA status protected you from deportation unless you broke the law and committed a felony or a significant misdemeanor.

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, basically you say, José, that this is the slow dismantling of this program, right? Like you think that we’re not going to see some big press conference announcing that DACA is rescinded again, but that it is being taken apart piece by piece.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, I remember being in Congress in 2017 and 2018, after the DACA program was rescinded. And I saw the frustration with some of the senators, both Democrats and Republicans, but it was some of the Republicans who were like, "Trump created this issue when it didn’t need to be this much."

By ending the program so emphatically, I think galvanized the American public, galvanized a lot of us to be like, "OK, we have three months to be able to do something." And in Project 2025, it’s outlined that the recommendation, not only for the DACA program itself, but other programs such as Ukrainian refugees or even TPS to dismantle, slow down those programs. If they cannot do it statutorily by law, they can do it by removing agents from working in those cases.

And then allowing those, those programs to lapse, and then also add extra vetting requirements to delay more the process. Because as I mentioned, it’s like even during the Trump first administration, DACA applications get processed within two to three months. Nothing really changes a lot in two years, because you go through your fingerprints, and if you have a criminal record, that’s going to pop up.

But they’re doing this intentionally, in my opinion, and others’ opinions, to specifically is end a program that they do not like for a lot of reasons. One of them is because it was created under President Obama, who is an enemy or a rival of President Trump. And the other piece of it is I think is DACA recipients have been able to build support among the American public because, like, I was here when I was 6 years old. I went to my whole education here. You build ties, you build, you get careers. I’ve been recognized here, locally for awards as well as nationally. So people who are fully undocumented can never do that.

So I think that if you get rid of DACA recipients, you lose a large voice, who’s very influential in the immigrant rights' space, and advocates for immigrants themselves.

LAUREN GILGER: You told us that you think the Trump administration is basically slowly dismantling the DACA program and this kind of less outright way. And I wonder if that’s frustrating from your point of view, José, because it’s being dismantled in this way that maybe people just aren’t going to notice in the same way that they would, you know, like they did under the first Trump administration when they attempted to rescind it and people were outraged.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: It’s terrifying, and it’s, it’s really angry to me because it allows to be able to do, I think, a lot of harm, and people will not notice. And if you have to explain to people the steps, you lose them, because you can’t have 5 minutes to explain them on an ad.

But if you do 15 seconds, it was very easy in 2017 that then-President Trump had ended the DACA program because he had a press conference, "We’re going to end this program."

LAUREN GILGER: Right.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Now it’s, you don’t have a press conference. Now it’s step by step, it’s very meticulous, very bureaucratic. Now they’re using the government and the mechanisms and its working to end a program, and few people, if anybody, know about it.

LAUREN GILGER: What has this meant for your life, José? I mean like, I know that some DACA recipients have talked about like, you know, not having kids, not buying a house, kind of waiting, being in this kind of holding pattern because you never know what might happen.

PATIÑO: Yeah, as you mentioned, there’s several individuals, several of my friends. DACA community is very, very close. You kind of bond over this experience of like, OK, when does your DACA expire or how do I apply for advance parole and all these things?

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Yeah, and I have several friends who have, who have delayed going back to school because of, they didn’t want to, they want to make sure to not take any debt. I have some individuals who have delayed potentially marriage, especially if their significant other is also a DACA recipient. That’s kind of a no-no.

Like one of the things I was always told by older adults was please do not fall in love with another undocumented person. And then when we became DACA, please do not fall in love with another DACA recipient. So that's something else ...

LAUREN GILGER: Like you can prevent that, right?

JOSÉ PATIÑO: I think that, I think it comes from a good place, but I think that people are, so those are some of the decisions. And I know some people have broken up because of that. I know people have not taken kids.

Personally, for me, it’s been, that’s part of my calculation. Like growing up with undocumented parents, it was always very scary and very hostile, and it was always like, are they going to be here or I’m not going to be here? And I don’t want to put a kid or a child through that piece, especially now knowing everything that I know.

And then the other piece of it is, is just sort of, you just have to adjust to this way of life that, unless you ask me, I don’t think about it. Or other people ask me, I just like, oh, this is just my normal life. And other people live their lives, I’m like, ah, they can do that, but I can’t.

LAUREN GILGER: I mean, like, is that mentally taxing, like emotionally exhausting? I wonder what that’s like in terms of, how do you compartmentalize something that big?

JOSÉ PATIÑO: No, yeah, it is. It’s, it’s really, I — I have to, I have, I have a therapist and I’m able to talk to, because sometimes I’m like, I got to talk to somebody that is not another person who knows by this, because then it feels like we’re dumping on each other.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Mental health practices, doing a lot of physical activities, running helps a lot. But yeah, when I think about it, which is typically when I’m not working or I’m not doing activities, then I, I’m just like, how did my parents do it? How did other people do it?

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: And I’m just reminded that there’s a history of individuals who have overcome difficult things, and this is just my challenge that I need to do, and I had to keep moving forward. But there are days that I just don’t want to. I’m just like, just —

LAUREN GILGER: Just sick of it, I’m sure.

PATIÑO: Yeah, I’m just sick of it. I’m like, why can’t we just fix this out? I’m like, all we’re asking, and this is maybe me naive, is like all we’re asking is people who have been living here for 20, 30 years, who speak the language and understand the culture, is to be able to work legally, pay taxes, and that’s it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: And like, I don’t understand why that is such controversial to the public. It’s like, oh, you entered here when, well, I was 6 years old, but people are like, "Oh, you enter here illegally." Yeah, but OK, so how can I ever redeem myself for it? And it feels like there’s nothing that you could do. This is like the original sin, and nothing matters.

LAUREN GILGER: You were a kid, right?

JOSÉ PATIÑO: Well, yeah, I was a kid, but then to say now, OK, what can I do? And there is like, oh, nothing, you just have to wait for Congress to solve it or wait for your senators.

And I’m like, I heard about the Dream Act and got involved in community organizing when I was a senior high school because I found out that I was undocumented, that meant that I couldn’t pay for for college, and I didn’t have access to in-state tuition, all this stuff, and the scholarships that, originally, were given to me, they’re like, "You can’t earn them again."

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah.

PATIÑO: And I, that’s like I heard about the Dream Act. I talked to a lot of my teachers and friends who were there Republicans, because it was a lot of Bush Republicans. And I was like, "Oh, they’re going to pass it." Like, they’re like, "Oh, this makes sense, like, don’t worry about it. You’re going to get fixed. You got to focus on your studies."

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.

JOSÉ PATIÑO: And it’s been now almost 20 years, and I’m still in the same place. And I’m just like, what happened? What happened?

LAUREN GILGER: So, I mean, that’s my last question, because the perennial conversation, right, around DACA is that it, you know, it’s not the answer. The answer is comprehensive immigration reform, this very elusive thing in American politics forever.

Do you have any hope at this point that that or anything like it will happen? I mean, like Mark Kelly, our senator from Arizona, has been calling for that, is calling for it again. But I mean, what do you think about that at this point, 20 years in?

JOSÉ PATIÑO: I have my mom’s and my dad’s hope. Because I’m like, logically, it doesn’t make sense. Like, we have a president who ran on mass deportations. You have ICE and the DHS department saying, "DACA is not confer you lawful status, and even if you have DACA and if you do nothing wrong, you could still be deported." You have Congress who never works and doesn’t pass any bills, and for the last 40 years cannot tackle any big issue like immigration reform.

But I still believe that there’s a path forward. And I’m probably, until the day I die, I’m probably going to believe that there’s a path forward for this mythical unicorn of immigration reform because I have had conversations with people who have been arduous and staunch as like, "No, you should be deported and," and then we sit down, go through them, and they’re like, "Oh no, you’re like a human being, like, you’re OK. "Oh, your — oh, your parents must be OK because they raised you."

And I’m like, it’s, most people are like me, like it’s just about getting to know individuals. And my concern now is because of social media and also AI and all this misinformation and all these online trolling that we’re not able to have those conversations to see each other as humans.

GILGER: All right, José Patiño, vice president of education and external affairs at Aliento, joining us, a DACA recipient himself. José, thank you very much for coming in, appreciate it.

PATIÑO: Thank you.

GILGER: Good morning. It’s The Show here on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger. And let’s return now to my conversation with immigrant rights advocate José Patiño about the uncertain place DACA recipients find themselves in today. He is vice president of education and external affairs at Aliento, as well as a DACA recipient himself.

And before the break, José, you told us that you think the Trump administration is basically slowly dismantling the DACA program and this kind of less outright way. And I wonder if that’s frustrating from your point of view, José, because it’s being dismantled in this way that maybe people just aren’t going to notice in the same way that they would, you know, like they did under the first Trump administration when they attempted to rescind it and people were outraged.

PATIÑO: It’s terrifying, uh, and it’s, um, it’s—it’s really angry to me because it—it allows to be able to do, I think, a lot of harm, and people will not notice. And if you have to explain to people the steps, you lose them, uh, because you can’t have 5 minutes to explain them on an ad.

But if you do 15 seconds, it was very easy in 2017 that then-President Trump had ended the DACA program because he had a press conference, "We’re going to end this program." Right. Now it’s, you don’t have a press conference. Now it’s step by step, it’s very meticulous, very bureaucratic. Now they’re using the government and the mechanisms and its working to end a program, and few people, if anybody, know about it.

GILGER: Mmm. What has this meant for your life, José? I mean like, I know that some DACA recipients have talked about like, you know, not having kids, not buying a house, kind of waiting, being in this kind of holding pattern because you never know what might happen.

PATIÑO: Yeah, as you mentioned, there’s several individuals, several of—of my friends. Um, DACA community is very, very close. You kind of bond over this experience of like, okay, when does your DACA expire or how do I apply for advance parole and all these things?

GILGER: Yeah.

PATIÑO: Um, yeah, and I have several friends who have, who have delayed going back to school because of, they didn’t want to, they—they want to make sure to not take any debt. I have some individuals who have delayed potentially marriage, especially if their significant other is also a DACA recipient. That’s kind of a no-no. Um—

GILGER: Like you can prevent that, right?

PATIÑO: I think that, I think it comes from a good place, but I think that people are, so those are some of the decisions. And I know some people have broken up because of that. Um, I know people have not taken kids. Personally, for me, it’s been, that’s—that’s part of my calculation. Um, like growing up with undocumented parents, it was always very um, scary and very hostile, and it was always like, are they going to be here or I’m not going to be here? And I don’t want to put a kid or a child through that piece, um, especially now knowing everything that I know.

And then the other piece of it is, is just sort of, you just have to adjust to this way of life that, unless you ask me, I don’t think about it. Or other people ask me, I just like, oh, this is just my normal life. And other people live their lives, I’m like, ah, they can do that, but I can’t.

GILGER: But I can’t. I mean, like, is that mentally taxing, like emotionally exhausting? I wonder what that’s like in terms of, how do you compartmentalize something that big?

PATIÑO: Um, no, yeah, uh, it is. It’s, um, it’s—it’s really, I—I have to, I have, uh, I have a therapist and I’m able to talk to, because sometimes I’m like, I got to talk to somebody that is not another person who knows by this, because then it feels like we’re dumping on each other.

GILGER: Yeah.

PATIÑO: Um, mental health practices, um, doing a lot of physical, uh, activities, running helps a lot. Um, but yeah, when I think about it, which is typically when I’m not working or I’m not doing activities, then I, I’m just like, how did my parents do it? How did other people do it?

GILGER: Yeah.

PATIÑO: And I’m just reminded that there’s a history of individuals who have overcome difficult things, and this is just my challenge that I need to do, uh, and I had to keep moving forward. Uh, but there are days that I just don’t want to. I’m just like, just—

GILGER: Just sick of it, I’m sure.

PATIÑO: Yeah, I’m just sick of it. I’m like, why can’t we just fix this out? I’m like, all we’re asking, and this is maybe me naive, is like all we’re asking is people who have been living here for 20, 30 years, who speak the language and understand the culture, is to be able to work legally, pay taxes, and that’s it.

GILGERNES: Yeah.

PATIÑO: And—and like, I don’t understand why that is such controversial to—to the public. It’s like, oh, you entered here when, well, I was 6 years old, but people are like, "Oh, you enter here illegally." Yeah, but okay, so how can I ever redeem myself for it? And it feels like there’s nothing that you could do. This is like the original sin, and nothing—nothing matters.

And I’m just like, you were a kid, right? Well, yeah, I was a kid, but then to say now, okay, what can I do? And there is like, oh, nothing, you just have to wait for Congress to—to solve it or wait for your senators. And I’m like, I heard about the Dream Act and got involved in community organizing when I was a senior high school because I found out that I was undocumented, that meant that I couldn’t, uh, pay for—for for college, and I didn’t have access to in-state tuition, all this stuff, and the scholarships that, originally, were given to me, they’re like, "You—you can’t earn them again."

GILGER: Yeah, yeah.

PATIÑO: And I, that’s like I heard about the Dream Act. I talked to a lot of my teachers and friends who—who were there Republicans, because it was a lot of Bush Republicans. Um, and I was like, "Oh, they’re going to pass it." Like, they’re like, "Oh, this makes sense, like, don’t worry about it. You’re going to get fixed. You got to focus on your studies."

GILGER: Yeah.

PATIÑO: And it’s been now almost 20 years, and I’m still in the same place. Uh, and I’m just like, what happened?

GILGER: What happened? So, I mean, that’s my last question, because the—the perennial conversation, right, around DACA is that it, you know, it—it’s not the answer. The answer is comprehensive immigration reform, this very elusive thing in American politics forever. Do you have any hope at this point that that or anything like it will happen? I mean, like Mark Kelly, our senator from Arizona, has been calling for that, is calling for it again. But I mean, what do you think about that at this point, 20 years in?

PATIÑO: Um, I have my mom’s and my dad’s hope. Uh—

GILGER: Uh-huh.

PATIÑO: —because I’m like, logically, it doesn’t make sense. Like, we have a president who ran on mass deportations. Uh, you have ICE and the DHS department saying, DACA is not confer you lawful status, and even if you have DACA and if you do nothing wrong, you could still be deported. Uh, you have Congress who never works and doesn’t pass any bills, and for the last 40 years cannot tackle any big issue like immigration reform.

But I still believe that there’s a path forward. Uh, and I’m probably until the day I die, I’m probably going to believe that there’s a path forward for this mythical unicorn of immigration reform because I have had conversations with people who have been arduous and staunch as like, "No, you should be deported and," and then we sit down, go through them, and they’re like, "Oh no, you’re like a human being, like, you’re okay."

GILGER: Mmm.

PATIÑO: "Oh, your—oh, your parents must be okay because they raised you." And I’m like, it’s, most people are like—like me, like it’s just about getting to know individuals. And my concern now is because of social media and also AI and all this misinformation and all these online trolling that we’re not able to have those conversations to see each other as humans.

GILGER: Mhm, mhm. All right, José Patiño, vice president of education and external affairs at Aliento, joining us, a DACA recipient himself. José, thank you very much for coming in, appreciate it.

PATIÑO: Thank you.

GILGER: As temperatures warm up and school lets out for the summer, lots of families are looking for indoor places to go. But for some families, especially those with kids with developmental disabilities, those indoor places can be challenging. That’s where our next guest and her nonprofit come in. Melanie Isaacs is the founder and chief inclusion officer at Pal Experiences. The group makes videos of places—from museums to sporting events to restaurants—in an effort to help make them more accessible for families who’d like to go. Isaacs spoke with my co-host Mark Brodie more about this, and they started with how she describes her organization.

MELANIE ISAACS: Yeah, we are a not-for-profit, and we partner with venues to make them more accessible and inclusive for guests with developmental disabilities. So, just as a ramp helps a guest who moves differently, our tools are designed to support guests who are processing spaces differently.

MARK BRODIE: And one of the things that I think is particularly interesting about what you do is, you’re not asking necessarily the places that you are, you know, showing folks about, you’re not asking them to change anything about their space or what they do or how they do it. Yours is mostly like a preparation for potential visitors, right?

MELANIE ISAACS: Exactly. Yeah, it’s — the real tool is knowing what to expect. Uh, so there’s a lot of power in foreshadowing. So, we make videos, that use video modeling, which is a decades-old technique commonly used in behavioral therapy. And it helps decrease anxiety by showing guests what to expect before they go.

So, you can be at home and you can watch this video that shows, you know, where you’re going to park, what security is like, what’s the crowd like, will I smell popcorn? You can learn all of this information ahead of time. So, there’s less anxiety-provoking surprises once you’re there. Um, you know what to expect and you can plan accordingly as a family.

MARK BRODIE: I’m curious about the phrase you just used there, "no surprises there." How significant is that for potential visitors to a place that you’re looking at, you know, maybe someone who has sensory issues or or some other kinds of kinds of anxiety issues?

MELANIE ISAACS: Yeah, definitely. Um, one of the first things I found when I started this organization was doing research was 70% of families with autism are socially isolated. And that’s looking at one diagnoses out of hundreds that our tools serve. You know, but we really wanted to understand why. Um, what makes it hard to go out? And every person is completely unique. But some of the most common challenges for families are anxiety over new experiences, sensory overload and challenges with communication. So, each of our Pal tools addresses one of those, um, obstacles.

MARK BRODIE: And most of the places that you have, I don’t know if you call them reviews or or made videos of, previewed maybe is the way to say it, are, you know, museums or, you know, sort of amusement places, aquariums, places that people would go. I’m particularly interested in the fact that you made a video about an urgent care center, which I would imagine for a lot of people, whether or not they are on the autism spectrum or they have anxiety issues or sensory issues, like that’s a kind of can be kind of a scary anxiety-inducing place for just about anybody.

MELANIE ISAACS: For sure. Yeah. And you’re right, we have a lot of fun experiences in our network, but we’re getting more and more requests from families for places you have to visit, you know, the grocery store, the dentist, the urgent care. And most people get a little — a little anxious when they have to have these experiences. So, um, all of our tools are based in evidence-based best practices to support people with disabilities. But we use universal design, which means that it’s built for some, helpful to many.

MARK BRODIE: Trying to make videos of places where people have to go, I would imagine that’s a pretty big undertaking, because, you know, every bank looks different from another, every grocery store is laid out a little bit differently. Like that seems like a pretty heavy lift.

MELANIE ISAACS: It is. There’s no shortage of potential partners. Um, but with our videos, we try to focus on those core elements. You know, we’re going to park the car, we’re going to get a cart, there will be other people there, the light might be different. We try to focus on some of the things that are more, consistent across experiences and then highlight those sensory inputs, and then those kind of expected behaviors and, you know, typical procedures.

MARK BRODIE: So, I’ve got to ask about your background because, based on on some reading, it sounds like this was not the direction that you thought your career was going to be taking you.

MELANIE ISAACS: That is definitely true. Yeah, I fell in love with the ocean at a young age, and I’m from Wisconsin, so that was through aquariums. So, I was on this trajectory studying marine biology, working at an aquarium. But I met a family leaving work one day on the train that changed my whole life.

When you work someplace like an aquarium, you know, folks can be pretty curious. And a father and a son approached me, and the dad started asking me about sharks and what we fed them. And as we’re chatting, his son was getting more and more excited, you know. At first, he was rocking a bit, then flapping his hands, eventually jumping up and down.

So, I asked him what his favorite part of the aquarium was, and he never said anything. But his dad quickly interjected and said, "Oh, we can’t go. Um, my son has autism." And they got off the train at the next stop, and I spent the rest of the commute, you know, just sad. You know, here was this family that clearly wanted to go have an experience and felt like they couldn’t.

And I started thinking about the word accessibility and how massive it is. Both of my uncles had muscular dystrophy, so I was always really aware of physical accommodations. But this family didn’t need a ramp to access the aquarium. They needed — they needed something else completely.

MARK BRODIE: And how did you sort of go from that conversation and thinking about how, you know, there’s sort of different kinds of accessibility to doing what you’re doing now and really trying to help folks sort of get a sense of what to expect when they go to a particular place?

MELANIE ISAACS: Yeah, so it was a big shift. Um, I was working on my thesis at the time and I switched from, you know, cephalopod behaviors to tools to support kids at the aquarium. So, I learned a lot along the way and really tried to identify those main, um, challenges faced when going somewhere new. And found that there is so much power in foreshadowing and previewing and modeling. So, we started with a video and of course, we’ve refined over the years, but there’s nothing like a video to foreshadow what’s going to come next, and it’s been amazing to see the impact it has for kids, for adults, for families.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. Well, so you mentioned that the videos have maybe evolved a little bit over the time you’ve been doing them. I’m curious in what ways, like what kind of feedback have you gotten from from viewers to say maybe, "Hey, could you could you maybe do this?" Or, "Maybe if you change the way you do this slightly, that could that could make this more effective."

MELANIE ISAACS: Yeah. Um, I think the first one, I got so excited, you know, it felt like it was an hour long. Um, so we’ve really adjusted things there. Um, so now we keep them about 5 minutes, um, and we use a technique in behavioral therapy called video modeling. So, we’re always starring an individual with disabilities in our Pal videos. And this is a behavioral therapy technique where you feel inspired and, uh, motivated and more confident if you can identify with who you’re watching.

MARK BRODIE: All right. That is Melanie Isaacs, founder and chief inclusion officer at Pal Experiences. Melanie, thanks so much for the conversation, I appreciate it.

MELANIE ISAACS: Thank you.

LAUREN GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger. Coming up, a White House correspondent with Arizona ties enters a new phase of life.

But first, the Arizona Education Association has announced its 2026 Educators of the Year Awards, and our next guest is one of them. Kaitlin Moriarty teaches third grade in the Cartwright School District. She started there teaching kindergarten about eight years ago, and her path to the classroom is shaped, in part, by her own experiences as a student. My co-host Mark Brodie spoke with Moriarty earlier and asked what she sees now in the classroom and how her third graders are doing.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: My third graders definitely had strengths and as well as struggles this year. It’s really rewarding to work in third grade because you see from the beginning of the year, they’re kind of early childhood, and then they grow and mature. So it’s really cool to see that.

I think what I’ve noticed the most is they don’t really know how to socialize with each other as well as before, because I think a lot, there’s a lot of screen time, maybe not playing outside as much as in the past. So I definitely have to kind of teach how we will all play together and more of those social skills than in the past per se.

MARK BRODIE: Well, and third grade’s also kind of an interesting, as you reference, a transition time. It’s sort of traditionally when we hear that students stop learning to read and start reading to learn.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes.

MARK BRODIE: Is that still pretty much the case?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes, that’s still pretty much the case. There are some students who struggle and are not on grade level. But I think that is an issue that we’re seeing across the country in any school, any classroom.

But yes, it's reading to learn. So, we’re kind of looking in the text for still the main idea, key details, but also context clues, inferencing, kind of deeper thinking like that.

MARK BRODIE: Sure. So, how has your childhood impacted your decision to become a teacher and sort of how you go about doing your job?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Well, so my mom was a teacher, so I kind of got a front-row seat to how she conducted her classroom. She was a kindergarten teacher.

MARK BRODIE: Was she your teacher?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: No, she was not my teacher. She went back to school when I was in middle school, and so that was really cool to see that. And then she got her master’s after that.

So helping out in her classroom when I was older was definitely a learning experience for me. And then my childhood, I had some really great teachers, and I also had a really bad experience. I had a first-grade teacher who made me cry every single day.

MARK BRODIE: Oh my gosh.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: So I actually was pulled out of the classroom after she made me stand in front of the class and tell everyone why I told my parents she was a bad teacher. So my mom pulled me out of school the next day, and I was homeschooled.

So that was kind of a traumatic experience, and I told myself I never want to be that teacher to any child, because I don’t want to make someone afraid of me or feel bad about who they are. Because at the time I was struggling to read, and I was struggling in math as well. So that definitely was a formative experience.

MARK BRODIE: Wow, that sounds traumatic.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes, it was traumatic.

MARK BRODIE: My goodness. So, you mentioned that you struggled with reading and math. You have something called dyscalculia, is that right?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes, yes.

MARK BRODIE: And this is basically like, if you think of what dyslexia is to reading, this is basically that for math?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: A little bit. It gets mischaracterized as that, but it’s when you transpose numbers. About 3% to 7% of the population has this, so it’s easy to put it in with something else. So, originally I had reading, writing and math for special education, but I was able to exit the reading and writing.

But I still do struggle with math concepts, and I have a working memory deficit as well. So storing things into my long-term memory has always been a challenge for me, especially testing.

I would really struggle with exams, so I had to stay after school a lot in high school. I had really great teachers that were willing to do that and tutor me, so I was really able to reach where I needed to go, but that is definitely a challenge for me.

MARK BRODIE: So besides the tutoring, how did you work to overcome that when you were going through school?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: I was placed into special education in fourth grade, and then I had really great special education teachers that were able to figure out my learning style. I had pull-out special education, so I was in a small learning group of about six children.

And then in middle school, I did something called expeditionary learning. I went to a charter school. So I had a great experience there. Expeditionary learning’s pretty much hands-on learning, and then from there I went to the public high school, and I just had a really great special ed administrative person as well as teachers that would work with me.

MARK BRODIE: So, how have you taken those memories and sort of the lessons that you learned going through school, dealing with your own learning differences, and how do you apply those now that you are in front of the classroom?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: I think understanding kids for who they are first and forming relationships first matters the most due to that first-grade experience. I wanted to be understood as a person, not just as a student who couldn’t read. So being a teacher who’s going to get to know a student is important to me, building a safe community environment is really important to me.

So, that’s what I focus on first, and then I can get to academics, as well as just making sure their basic needs are taken care of. So, always having snack in the classroom, I’m a really big proponent of that.

I like to keep cold waters in my classroom in the fridge, so my class will always be like, “Do you have a cold water? Can I get a water?” And I’m like “Sure, yeah.” So, you know, just making sure that their needs are met so that they can learn the best that they can.

MARK BRODIE: So, in terms of the academics, are you able to use sort of the teaching to also get to know your students, in addition to making sure there’s snacks and water and talking to them during lunch and things like that? Like, are you able to sort of use your lesson planning to achieve that?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yeah, that’s actually a great question. This year I really tried to lean into that. With AI, we made decodable stories. So based on their interests, what they would talk to me about at lunch or maybe a social situation that was going on at the playground that they needed kind of guidance working through, I would create that decodable story using AI and then pass that out and we would talk about it and read it.

So, they’re working on a reading skill or a phonics skill, but then they’re also getting a social skill as well embedded in there.

MARK BRODIE: What does it mean to you to win this award?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: I was not expecting to win this award, but I’m really excited and I am proud of myself. I am happy that I’m being recognized for the work that I do, because a lot of my life I feel is this job. I pour a lot of my heart and soul into my profession.

I would like to have more free time outside of the profession, but it is what it is. So just seeing, being recognized for the hard work that I’m doing in the classroom as well as outside the classroom is really important to me.

MARK BRODIE: Based on the timing of this, like was school out already when this was announced? Like are your students aware of the fact that you won this?

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Yes. So, I told my class I might win this award, and they were like, “Well, let us know, good luck.” And then over the weekend I won the award, so I brought it in on that Monday and they were very excited, and I let them touch it or hold it. Things like that.

Some of them were like, “I want to be a teacher, I want to be famous.”

MARK BRODIE: [Laughter] That’s fantastic. Excellent. All right. That is Kaitlin Moriarty, a third-grade teacher in the Cartwright Elementary School District, also one of the recipients of the Arizona Education Association’s 2026 Educators of the Year Award. Kaitlin, thanks so much for coming in, and congratulations on the award.

KAITLIN MORIARTY: Thank you so much for having me.

GILGER: Good morning. It is The Show on KJZZ 91.5. I’m Lauren Gilger.

Vaughn Hillyard is a born-and-raised Arizonan who has made a name for himself covering President Trump. Today, he is senior White House correspondent for MSNBC. But it all began for him at Thunderbird High School, where Hillyard famously battled his school’s administration over an article they didn’t like.

He’s become well known for covering breaking political news and sometimes clashing with the president. But now, he’s slowing down, at least for the moment. That’s because Hillyard recently welcomed his first son, Hudson, with his husband in April, and he was back in Arizona for his son’s birth. And that is where we began our conversation.

VAUGHN HILLYARD: Getting to be home for it, that has just been everything. Arizona is and always has been, I mean, essentially, the most important, I think, part of my identity and who I am. And getting to be around my family and with my friends back home was awesome.

GILGER: Has it been a little bit of a shock to the system to like, stop for a minute? [Laughter]

HILLYARD: Yeah. I mean, for literally like, the last 11, almost 12 years, I’ve been on the road on the campaign trail. You know, really, it started with the first-ever Trump rally that happened to be in Phoenix in July of 2015. And little did I know what was going to become my own adult journalism career, and that’s been covering the Trump story ever since. It hasn’t changed, and that led me to this job here as a White House correspondent, covering the White House day to day. And to suddenly, you know, shift focus to having a kid, a newborn, and stopping, and it—it required some separation from the news.

GILGER: Yes. [Laughter]

HILLYARD: And really some focus on, I think, some of the more, you know, the family part of life that perhaps was not forefront of my working professional career up to this point. And so, really, in a way, it’s been helpful in refocusing that there’s perhaps, you know, chaos domestically and abroad, but ultimately for so many of us, so much of what happens in our own homes and in our own neighborhoods is paramount to the broader stories that I think we as journalists try to try to tell.

GILGER: Yeah. So, I mean, this was a long path, it sounds like, to having a child for you and your husband. You went the surrogacy route, which I understand can take some time and some patience, right? Tell us a little bit about that. I mean, how did you get here? How was this process?

HILLYARD: Right. We actually—it was my husband back in June of 2024, it was the middle of the presidential campaign, and he said, "We should start thinking about, you know, having a kid." And I was like, "We’re in the middle of the presidential campaign. I can’t focus on that idea and that concept right now." And he really like, shepherded and moved the process along on the front end of it. And ultimately, it was—it all made sense, because it is a process.

And we worked with a surrogacy agency in Albany, New York, and they try to find a good match, somebody that could connect with you, that wants to be a surrogate for a desirable family. And they called up and they said, "Hey, so we’ve got a potential match. The issue is she lives all way out in—get this—Tempe, Arizona." And we’re like, "We haven’t even met Laura yet, but like, this is right, the spirits and the fate aligning." And we met her first over Zoom, literally days after the 2024 election, and Laura was an absolutely awesome human being and has been for the last year and a half. She has two kids of her own, and she love pregnancy, and she wanted to help a family like our own that was not able to have and conceive ourselves. And she was a blessing all the way up until delivery, and is going to be a part of our kid’s life for as long as as he lives. And it’s—we’re really—we’re really lucky.

GILGER: That’s amazing. So, yeah, that must have felt serendipitous. You get someone who’s from like, where you’re from, who wants to help out. I mean, talk about that, like, for people who aren’t familiar with surrogacy, like, is that rare? Is that common that you would keep the surrogate in your life, in your child’s life?

HILLYARD: Right. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to go about that journey. I think, though, it’s incumbent upon both sides being transparent of why are you going through this process? What are you hoping for on the back end? And I think those are really important conversations. And luckily, I think more of those conversations are happening, and I think it’s important to note it’s not just same-sex couples. And so, whether it be adoption or surrogacy, I think that there is a conversation that is happening around the country about how can people, you know, create and build families through perhaps once-untraditional means.

The one thing when it comes to surrogacy or even adoption, there is still a lot that can be done at the company, at the insurance level, but also even at the state level. For example, in Arizona, two gay dads, one of us had to select who was going to be mother on the birth certificate.

GILGER: Oh, wow.

HILLYARD: And we had to go through a—get a Superior Court judge’s order to have two fathers be listed on the birth certificate. There is much more that can be done at the state level also on laws regarding surrogacy to make it easier to family-build.

GILGER: I want to ask you another question, Vaughn, about about Arizona. You’re a third-generation Arizonan, is that right?

HILLYARD: Yeah, that’s right. My grandma was Glendale High, my mom Apollo High, my grandpa was Mesa High, dad Tempe High, and, uh, yeah, so— [Laughter]

GILGER: It runs in the desert a little.

HILLYARD: It runs in the desert a little.

GILGER: And you went to Thunderbird, right?

HILLYARD: I went to Thunderbird High School.

GILGER: And then ASU, where I gave you your Outstanding Student Award, right? [Laughter]

HILLYARD: That is—that is accurate. Look at us now.

GILGER: Look at us now. [Laughter] So, I mean, journalism, Arizona, are all very tied up in who you are. I wonder, as you followed the Trump story, as you said, over the last decade or so, I mean, have there been moments when all of those things have sort of aligned for you?

HILLYARD: Yes. I got into journalism largely out of frustration of how Arizona was depicted in the national media. Right, I think it was so often the voices of Jan Brewer or Joe Arpaio, right, back in the early 2010s, for example, that were always the go-to voices. And nothing against Arpaio and Brewer, it was just the fact that I think so often conversations and media stories were paired down in very simple terms when Arizona and the greater Phoenix community are so much more dynamic and diverse than that.

And so, I think that watching, you know, Arizona become more purple, if you will, over the course of the last decade, I think helped enhance that conversation and lead a lot of people in my own newsroom and also outside of news to be like, "Wait, explain Arizona. Explain who it is to me." Right?

GILGER: [Laughter] What is this place, right?

HILLYARD: What is this place, right? And nothing has been more rewarding. And so, from the 2018 midterms, when Kyrsten Sinema was first elected, to Ruben Gallego being elected, to the fact that, right, Doug Ducey was a popular conservative governor. How can all of these things happen at the same time? And it’s like, well, look, Arizona, it’s full of, you know, there is a good number of natives, what, a third of people actually born in Arizona, but a lot of people that come looking for new opportunities and independence. And I think that that is at the root of its political identity. And so, having the opportunity to help share that story and perhaps why Arizona became such a critical swing state is been really rewarding. I think that that’s—that’s really cool.

GILGER: Yeah, that’s really cool. So, you are at home still on parental leave with your new son. But I’m sure you’re contemplating when you will dive back into politics, to the kind of fast-paced lifestyle you’ve gotten used to. I understand, though, you—you did sort of try to, you know, dip your toes back in. You went to the Correspondents’ Dinner, which turned out to be, I’m guessing, a little bit of a scary, anxiety-inducing place.

HILLYARD: I flew back to Washington, D.C. I am the senior White House reporter for MSNBC, and so I thought it would be good to go. And, of course, that is when the shots rang out.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Vaughn, are you with us?

HILLYARD: Hey, yeah. Can you guys hear me? Um—

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. So, tell us what’s happening on the ground there.

HILLYARD: All right, here outside of the Washington Hilton here right now, and they’re pushing everybody back. We were just inside. I’m not sure if you have a signal of where we are here right now, but we’re on Connecticut Avenue, just outside of the Washington Hilton. We were in the room. We were among a group. We’re—we’re continuing to move. I know, come on.

And I was on the ground for less than 48 hours at that point, and my mother-in-law texted like, "You can come home now." [Laughter] Um, so, dipped—dipped the toes in there, and I think that that it helped, though, you know, again, to that conversation around focus. The news is going to be chaotic, and when I come back, the news will be chaotic. And I think there is something to be said about taking the parental leave, and I’m grateful that my news organization does provide that. I will be back over on the White House grounds and traveling with President Trump soon enough, but then also know that my son Hudson will be home and that’s a—that’s a pretty cool thing that I’m grateful to have the chance to—to now live.

GILGER: I know it’s early days, Vaughn, but do you feel like having had a child now and—and understanding that connection, um, that that’s sort of indescribable thing, do you think that’s going to change the way you view your role as a journalist?

HILLYARD: Yes. And that’s because I’m looking at a generation that will outlive me. And I know that the work that we do is not just about 2026 or the next campaign or the next administration, but we’re talking about the impact of who is going into office that will go well beyond our working time as journalists, you and me, and our time even on this earth. And Hudson and other kids like your own kids, like so many communities near and far, they’re going to be living with the consequences—the good and bad ones. And so, yeah, I mean, it makes you a little bit more impassioned. It’s not just to get through the day or get through the next election or the next administration, but it goes well beyond, decades beyond, what we can even understand in real time.

GILGER: Yeah. All right, Vaughn Hillyard, senior White House reporter at MSNBC, joining us. New dad as well. Vaughn, thank you so much for coming on, appreciate it.

HILLYARD: Thanks, appreciate it.

GILGER: Thanks for listening to The Show’s podcast. The Show is produced by Sativa Peterson, Nick Sanchez, Amber Victoria Singer, Athena Ankrah, and Ayana Hamilton. The Show was created by Jon Hoban, and our executive producer is Amy Silverman. You can find more of The Show and sign up for our newsletter at theshow.kjzz.org. You can also find us on Instagram @kjzztheshow.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

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