Southwest Border

Republican lawmakers are backing plans to spend $40 million from state coffers to reimburse local governments for border security and immigration enforcement as Arizona continues to wait for hundreds of millions in federal reimbursements that both Republicans and Democrats are relying on to balance the state budget.

Heith Janke, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix office, said Patrick Gary Shlegel fled from Border Patrol agents after they tried to stop his truck for suspected human smuggling closer to the U.S-Mexico border.

A man who authorities say was involved in a smuggling operation was shot Tuesday in an exchange of gunfire with the U.S. Border Patrol and after firing at a federal helicopter near the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said.

It’s been a year this week since Trump reentered office and issued a slew of Day 1 executive orders on immigration, bringing into question everything from asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, to whether people born in the U.S. are guaranteed citizenship.

In a post, the State Department called Mexico’s progress on border security “unacceptable.” Meanwhile, Mexico’s president is calling on the United States to do more to stop the flow of firearms into her country.

Arizona is considering pumping water from a desalination plant on the Gulf of California to boost its water supply, but would need buy-in from Mexico.

Arizona U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton is one of the congressional representatives who introduced the bill after threats from President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration says it’s deported more than 600,000 people in the first year of its aggressive deportation campaign. And, a whole lot of them have gone to Mexico.

Nearly a year after launching the initiative to publicize arrests and drug busts in Mexican states near the border with the United States, authorities have also seized more than 7,000 firearms and 600 kilograms of fentanyl.

Alexandra Markovich was born in Ukraine — the country is still entangled in a hard-fought war against Russia, one of the world’s premier military powers. But, she never imagined there would be much overlap between her work here in the Southwest.