The study, titled “In the Shadow of the Wall: Family Separation, Immigration Enforcement and Security,” was conducted at migrant shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border and addresses the following questions:

• Who are the more than 400,00 people deported to Mexico each year?
• What do they experience during their journeys?
• How do immigration enforcement programs operate and are there notable differences between authorities’ stated practices and people’s experiences?
• What are the standard practices and potential problems with costly immigration enforcement programs?
• What is “security” and how are specific programs related to immigration enforcement helping to achieve this goal?

Below is a rundown of news coverage on the study:

Report calls for focus on family reunification in immigration reform (Cronkite News, March 28, 2013)

Immigration report highlights deportee family separation (NBC-affiliate KVOA in Tucson, March 28, 2013)

Report: Most Deportees Have Deep US Ties (Arizona Public Media, March 28, 2013)

Mexican deportees likely to try to enter US again, UA-led study says (Arizona Daily Star, March 29, 2013)

Informe revela la dura realided de indocumentados (Univision, March 29, 2013)

Tight border discourages migrants from going home (Arizona Republic, March 29, 2013)

The study was also cited in The New York Times on March 27 in a story about U.S. Senators visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Ariz.

The Associated Press report on the study was picked up by the Las Cruces Sun-News, the Mohave Valley Daily News, the Vanguardia in Coahuila, and KTAR Radio in Phoenix.

The McClatchy Newspapers report was picked up by the Denver Post and the Nuevo Herald in Miami.

An EFE report was published by El Nacional in Caracas, Venezuela.

– SC–

The shuttle, piggy-backed to a special 747, came into Tucson over Vail at 1,500 feet and then took a slow S-curve over the city, passing just above the University of Arizona mall and the Cherry Ave. garage, where the Tucson Sentinel reports, Kelly and Giffords watched the shuttle.  s

“That’s my spaceship,” Kelly reportedly said.

Responding to a Feb. request from US Attorney General Eric Holder, the Inspector General under Michael Horowitz laid the blame for the operation, which allowed thousands of weapons into Mexico on a dysfunctional operation at the ATF office in Phoenix, Ariz.

Two of the weapons were discovered nearby the shooting death of Border Patrol officer Brian Terry. Although FBI analysis was unable to confirm if the 7.62mm bullet that killed Terry came from one of the assault rifles found at the scene, Terry’s family believes that the justice department should be held “accountable” for his death.

Breuer, an Obama appointee and the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, is cited in the report for not alerting his superiors in 2010 to flaws in a program similar to Operation Fast and Furious that was started during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Two justice department officials have left in the wake of the investigation.

[The Inspector General's report on Operation Fast and Furious]

(Reuters) - Relatives of a U.S. Border Patrol agent whose murder in the line of duty was linked to a botched U.S. operation to track guns smuggled to Mexico on Monday called for accountability for the government officials who approved the program.

Agent Brian Terry was shot dead in the Arizona borderlands in December 2010. His death was linked to a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, sting operation dubbed “Fast and Furious,” which allowed weapons to slip across the border to Mexico.

 [Read More]

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“Local candidates and their supporters continue to walk a fine legal and ethical line when it comes to election-season campaigning.

The latest instance involves T-shirts emblazoned with the City of Nogales seal and urging residents to re-elect Vice Mayor Olga Valdez to the city council. Valdez’s son, former Mayor Louis “Louie” Valdez, wore one of the shirts last Tuesday as he campaigned for his mother outside the polling place at Challenger Elementary School.

The questionable T-shirt comes on the heels of a city-funded campaign-season ad campaign in the local Border Eco magazine that promoted Valdez and fellow incumbent candidates Esther Melendez-Lopez and Cesar Parada – along with Mayor Arturo Garino and the other three sitting councilors – as members of “A government you can trust.” (Read more)

You can contact Cacho here.

“Liz Gutfahr, a 30-year employee of real estate developer Rio Rico Properties, won the Democratic primary for Santa Cruz County treasurer on Tuesday, giving her a clear path toward assuming the office currently held by Caesar Ramirez.

“My election went great. I’m very happy that I had the support of the community,” Gutfahr said of the unofficial results that, as of Thursday morning, showed her with 44 percent (1,775) of the votes to 34 percent (1,375) for Ramirez, who is in the midst of a four-month suspension for failing to rectify his accounting with the county’s bank statements.

“I never thought I was going to win,” Gutfahr said. “I was hoping I was going to win, of course, but it was a tough race.” (Read more)

For more information, you can contact Cacho here.

“It was a rocky start for the Nogales High Lady Apaches volleyball team when it lost to the Douglas Bulldogs 3-1 in Tuesday’s season-opener.

“I’m very pleased with our girls coming out and performing the way they did,” Douglas coach Carlos Chavez said. “I’m just happy we came away with this victory tonight.”

Tuesday’s match was the first time during Chavez’s three-year tenure as coach that the Bulldogs beat the Lady Apaches, he said. “It shows some of the hard work that the girls have put in.”

However, it wasn’t a total wash for the Lady Apaches, Nogales coach Chris McKim said. “I was definitely pretty pleased by our ball control and our serves. There really weren’t too many mistakes made by either side. It was just a lack of the ability to put the ball away.

“Both teams played really conservatively tonight,” he added. “A couple of my girls should be swinging a little more aggressively. They should be able to put a ball away.” (Read more)

For more information, you can contact Cacho here.

“The popularity of early voting and an overall low participation combined for a relatively quiet day at polls around Santa Cruz County on Tuesday.

In all, local voter turnout in the Arizona primary election was 25 percent, according to unofficial results reported by the County Elections Office as of Thursday morning. Of the 23,472 registered voters in the county, 5,865 cast ballots in the election. And with 64 percent of those ballots cast by early voters, traditional votes trickled in slowly at the 17 polling stations set up for the county’s 24 voting precincts.

At the Challenger Elementary School polling station in Nogales’ heavily populated Monte Carlo neighborhood, only 66 ballots – six of them provisional – had been cast by 12:40 p.m.

Poll inspector Gina Huerta, who was working her first election at Challenger, said the turnout paled in comparison to what she had seen while working the polling place at St. Andrew’s Church in past years.

“Usually by 9 a.m. we had this number of ballots,” she said. (Read more)

For more information, you can contact Cacho here.

“Felipe Fuentes, who has served as county assessor for the past 14 years, was effectively handed another four-year term in office by local voters.

Fuentes took 2,653, or 67 percent, of the votes cast in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, according to unofficial results. His lone opponent, G. Alfonso Ochoa, won 1,303 votes, or 33 percent.

Fuentes faces no competition in the general election.

He expressed disappointment with the poor turnout on Tuesday, but “Besides that, it turned out, especially for me, pretty good.

“I would like to thank everyone. All the ones that took the time to come out and I hope in November we get a better turnout,” Fuentes said.

Ochoa, a 55-year-old Nogales resident, had tried to convince voters that it was time for a fresh face at the assessor’s office. He expressed surprise at Tuesday’s result.

“I expected to win, but I’m just very surprised,” he said.” (Read more)

For more information, you can contact Cacho here.