(bright upbeat music) - [Lorraine] The governors of Arizona and Sonara meet officially for a final time.

Their views on strengthening ties between the states.

- We have not brought politics into this relationship.

- [Lorraine] New challenges at the border as apprehensions among children and single adults increase.

- I've never seen more dangerous places than we have out here.

- [Lorraine] Plus lawmakers at the State Capitol struggle to pass a budget.

- Our state legislature is essentially on vacation for two weeks.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Arizona 360" I'm Lorraine Rivera.

Thanks so much for joining us.

This week marks what could be a turning point for Arizona's neighbors, Sonora, Mexico when voters elect a new governor.

Outgoing Governor Claudia Pavlovich made several trips to Arizona during her time in office.

In her final meeting with Governor Ducey last month, the two leaders signed a memorandum of understanding to help improve Sonora's water future and monitor air quality along the border.

An unprecedented time given that port restrictions continue due to the pandemic, escalating violence due to the election and looming over it all remains trade a $30 billion relationship between Arizona and Mexico.

Issues we discussed when I sat down with the two governors during their last official visit.

- One of the things that I'm most proud of is Arizona's reputation with Mexico, our prosperity and partnership, our economic trade and development.

So I think there's many things and accomplishments that we can point back to that have made this a prosperous relationship but it really would not have happened, this reset and revitalization that we've been able to have without Governor Pavlovich leadership.

(Governor Pavlovich speaking in foreign language) - [Narrator] The proudest accomplishment I feel is having built this relationship with a lot of work, effort and mutual trust.

Governor Doug Ducey has sincerely made a big difference because we have worked together really well to make things happen.

This commission has opened many doors when it came to involving education, tourism, entrepreneurs, those have all made this relationship stronger and contributed to a stronger partnership.

- At their last official meeting, the two governors signed a memorandum of understanding, recognizing the impacts of climate change and drafting a plan to improve the water and air quality along the border.

In Mexico, governor served one term for six years.

There will be a new governor in Sonara soon.

What sort of partner do you need to continue this momentum?

- I need a partner that wants to work with Arizona.

A partner that wants to model themselves after the example of Governor Pavlovich and a governor that wants to work on behalf of their people.

We have not brought politics into this relationship at all, we have really worked on productive, next steps, figuring out ways that we can work together and I think on every front, on every initiative that we put forward, we've got metrics that demonstrate success and things headed in the right direction.

Governor Pavlovich mentioned the memorandum of understanding that we signed today and that's gonna be a continual focus on water management innovation and I think there's much more that we can do on that front as well, but Arizona's arms are open, we want to work with our neighbor and we wanna continue the Arizona-Mexico Commission in the spirit that Paul Fan and founded at 62 years ago, saying that the good Lord made us neighbors so let us be good neighbors.

- [Lorraine] I then asked Governor Pavlovich about the extraordinary year given the global health pandemic and getting vaccines into Mexico.

(Governor Pavlovich speaking in foreign language) - [Narrator] It has been a complicated year because we have never experienced a pandemic like this one.

Such a strange virus and such strange behavior.

The first thing we did was communicate with businessmen, the communities, academics to make everyone understand that things were going to be on hold and that later on, there would be a reopening little by little but the main priority was health.

The numbers tell us everything.

And I am very happy because thanks to the work that was done, we were able to learn from how Arizona handled the pandemic.

- [Lorraine] Outside of the pandemic, the state of Sonara has experienced another crisis.

Levels of violence not seen since the late 1990s.

(Governor Pavlovich speaking in foreign language) - [Narrator] I believe that it is very important to keep our population informed and that we have to do so with a good communication strategy.

The problem is focused on the city of Guaymas at this time.

And we are working with the federal forces to attack this issue.

I would tell them to visit.

It is a very beautiful state with beautiful beaches.

And the truth is that we have worked hard to make them feel confident in being able to travel.

We have improved the roadways, which is one of the achievements of the Sonara-Arizona Commission.

- Governor Ducey, the pandemic, port restrictions the surge of immigrants, the policy shifts when it comes to immigration, all those things affect this $30 billion relationship.

How does it move forward following this year?

- I think first and foremost, we wanna make sure that we finish the race around the pandemic that we get the vaccine out as far and wide as possible in terms of our relationship, our reputation with Mexico the fact that Arizona was chosen as an ambassador state to pass the USMCA and to advocate on behalf of it, I think when you look at the wins that we've had like bringing Lucid Motors to the state of Arizona while benefiting Sonora with the world-class supply chain, can be a real model to North American free trade going forward when Mexico is prosperous and Arizona and the United States are prosperous.

It not only helps the people of our respective countries, it makes for a more peaceful country.

And I think with the pandemic we saw how supply chains could be interrupted, how manufacturing could just stop on a dime and the idea of repatriating businesses and distribution to our state, to our region is a real opportunity for us, before the pandemic came, our economies were booming, we just met with a young woman just before we came for this interview, Jocelyn Rivera born in Hermosillo educated at the UofA, she's headed to Washington DC to receive her master's and then on to Oxford in bio engineering.

So it's a real inspirational story of how good relationships and the prosperity and focus on education and trade can benefit all of our citizens.

This relationship is very unique.

Languages factor of course have been, two governments you have to navigate.

How has it worked during this time?

- Well, I would say it's worked very well.

We both speak the same language and that's the language of opportunity and understanding.

And the fact that not only Claudia and I along with Sergio and Angela have built a relationship, our teams, our administration, our directors and cabinet members, all know each other, all know their peers in the other administration and that idea of communication and collaboration, can go a long way to solve problems before they happen and also to maximize opportunity.

And that will really be the story of Claudia Pavlovich's six years as the leader of Sonora has been rebuilding of the Arizona-Mexico Commission - Governor Pavlovich, Governor Ducey, my thanks to both of you.

- Thank you Lorraine.

- Thank you Lorraine.

- On June 6th, Mexico's historic mid-term election will see voters determine the outcomes of 15 gubernatorial races, 500 congressional seats and more than 20,000 state and local offices.

But it's been a violent election season with nearly 90 candidates murdered nationwide.

Professor Javier Osorio with the UofA School of Government and Public Policy offered insight on what's causing the upheaval.

- There's a combination of factors of driving the exponential increase of violence in Sonora.

One of those is certainly the turmoil of the election.

There's a lot of violence overall across Mexico related to the election.

This is something that we have witnessed but in addition to that, we also seen a combination of violence related to drug trafficking and the disputes of different cartels in Sonora that just combine these two forces to explain the overall increase of violence in the neighborhood state.

- So what are the criminal syndicates trying to accomplish?

Is it gaining control over political actors?

- It could be a combination of things.

So why ways on probably purely political motivation of rival parties trying to get ahead of the election, but when it comes to cartels, there's an increasing opportunity for cartels to control local level offices either majors or police chiefs at the municipal level to impose their criminal governance.

Basically what they want is to be left alone.

So the government doesn't mess with their activities and business opportunities, it's not that they're trying to impose a political agenda, we don't have that type of politically oriented cartels as we have another other groups in Latin America.

But in this particular case, we have the opportunity for criminal groups to put their men or the women in leadership positions or the municipal level.

- Very recently, Governor Pavlovich, who will leave her office in June, very recently she was with Governor Doug Ducey.

They talked about the strength in trade and relationships across the border.

How does this affect those types of business relations?

- Well, definitely the violence on the Mexico side Sonora, really affects business and social relations with Arizona.

We have a very important partner in terms of communications, transportations, trade, but also families live on both sides of the border.

They're gonna be affected by it.

- Our communities directly along the Arizona-Sonora border at risk given what's happening in Mexico when it comes to violence.

- Yes, unfortunately that is the case.

Given the dual nature of the electoral political nature of violence, as well as a criminal nature.

We've seen, as you mentioned at the beginning of the concession, we've seen an unprecedented escalation of violence that are now affecting communities in closer deeper way.

Now, people who have absolutely nothing to do with these criminal activities, they get killed as bypassers or as criminal groups, mutate their enterprises, they get a little more into extortion kidnapping and that affects the host communities (faintly speaking) - Vice president Harris recently announced she will visit Mexico following the June 6th election, many people wonder, should the U.S. be doing anything?

What do you say?

- Hopefully the visit of U.S. Government authorities will help warmup relations but there are other important issues of the Mexican diplomatic service have me putting on the agenda for these binational relationships and as to the way the arms straights of us to Mexico, and that is something that the us has been pushing off for decades with actions taking serious concentration.

And these Mexican administration has been very forcibly putting that responsibility on the U.S. on the agenda.

The drugs are flowing from Mexico to the U.S. but guns flow from the U.S. to Mexico.

And that is something that needs to be addressed.

- What is your estimation on what happens after the June 6th midterm election?

Does it slow down for a while or does it continue at its current pace?

- I don't think so.

One of the reasons we know about the drivers of violence in Mexico is that political stability matters are more.

There are corrupt agreements, either tacit or implicit between criminal groups and those in power positions.

And every time you have an election, the entire political configuration changes all the power dynamics shifts, the previous agreements that you have or probably are no longer in place, and in that period of transition, we might see an escalation of violence.

And this is pretty much the nature of workers.

You don't know the outcome, you don't know who's going to win, but whoever wins is going to be in power and new agreements, new set of rules and new policy security policy will have to set in place to hopefully try to bring the violence down.

But most likely that's one or two that political instability is going to drive violence.

- And with respect to arms trafficking you're saying that guns are not permitted in Mexico.

So the U.S. is supplying this.

- Yes, I mean that's unfortunately part of the reality that in Mexico, the army has the monopoly of selling guns.

So if you want to purchase gun legally, there's only one shop to go and go shop with the army.

Unfortunately, there's so many thousands of illegally smuggled weapons from the U.S. into Mexico.

Unfortunately, even government efforts to create gun running projects to trace these networks of trafficking has totally failed.

Actually, the Obama administration had a big scandal that one of the weapons that ATS model to Mexico was used to kill U.S. law enforcement agents in Mexico, right?

This is how the things fired back but there's a huge responsibility that is increasingly part of the agenda by national agenda, the flow of guns and the U.S. has many challenges to address that because of political, ideological cultural issues in the U.S. and probably will make it very difficult to address in terms of the binational emissions.

- Okay, Professor Javier Osorio from the University of Arizona, thank you.

- Thank you very much.

(upbeat music) - This week, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would end the migrant protection protocol program, which forced migrants to wait in Mexico while awaiting a court date in the U.S.

It's unclear what Ending the Program also known as Remain in Mexico means for the current surge at the southern border.

In Southern Arizona, the border Patrol Chief John Modlin, says less than 5% of migrants detained, claim asylum.

I recently spoke with him at the Tucson Sector headquarters.

- Right now Tucson Sector is experiencing an incredible flow of cross-border traffic, they had the vast majority of which is single adults that 85% of what we deal with is single adults, since the beginning of this fiscal year, we've had about a hundred thousand encounters of people coming across the border and that's all demographics.

That's single adults, that's unaccompanied children.

I think one of our biggest concerns right now is the unaccompanied children.

We've had well over 9,000 so far and that makes this year fiscal year 21 the record for Tucson Sector as far as the unaccompanied children crossing the border.

- What has changed that suddenly so many children crossing the border into Arizona?

- Well, from what we can gather based on post arrest interviews, it seems as though there's a majority of people that are crossing that have the perception that our laws changed with the change in administration.

Obviously they have not, the border is still closed, we're still enforcing the same laws that we always have but the perception has changed.

- In many cases, we see things like large groups very north of the border, people in the back of trunks or squashed into vehicles, how does it happen that they're able to cross the border and make their way so far Modlin?

- So, what you're saying is we are seeing some large groups like you're talking about but the large groups basically give up right on the border.

They cross the border and just turn themselves into the first border patrol agent that they see.

And you see that a lot in other places in Rio Grande Valley, in Del Rio, Texas, we don't see that very much here.

That's a very small percentage of what we're dealing with.

The vast majority of the people that cross here are doing everything they can to avoid apprehension.

So they're actively evading apprehension, you've probably seen, we released a lot of photographs through social media.

The vast majority are wearing camouflage from head to toe and moving in very small groups generally in groups of one or two in order to try to task saturate our ability to apprehend them.

- Can you put tasks saturate into layman's terms for someone like myself?

- Yes, what I just mean is that there's a finite number of border patrol agents out there.

And if there's a group of a hundred that are giving themselves up, then one or two agents can potentially deal with that group and get that group onto transport and get them back to our facilities and get them processed.

It also takes a single agent to apprehend a single person out there.

So, it's just numbers.

If we have X number of agents in the field, X number of people cross individually, then it takes that many agents to apprehend that many people.

Some of the photos that I've seen have been in areas that the agency refers to as the West Desert for example the AutoNation.

How is it that groups are able to cross there so easily?

- Yeah, well they're south of the nation.

There is no, or there's very limited infrastructure border infrastructure.

So a lot of it is what we refer to as Normandy barrier basically, it's sort of a K rail that's built to design vehicles or built to prevent vehicles from crossing the border.

People can just step over it or go right under it.

- Further, east for example in Cochise County I've had ranchers who tell me that the construction stopped and that there are actual groups of people who will just funnel through that.

Is that what you've seen?

- [John] Yes.

- What becomes of those areas?

Can you put additional manpower temporarily?

- Yeah, so that's exactly what we do.

We try to address those issues with personnel, with technology.

- Have there been instances where you see children in some of these very remote and treacherous terrains?

- So fortunately children, not so much.

Most of the children are giving themselves up as soon as they cross the border now and anywhere out there is treacherous.

This is of all of all the border I've worked in, I've been in the agency more than 25 years, I've never seen more dangerous places than we have out here.

- According to the Pima County medical examiners office, last year, 220 sets of human remains were recovered in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise Counties.

A 62% increase compared to 2019 the medical examiner's report cited record heat and drought as factors.

In addition to increased apprehensions, modeling also says his agents are seizing more hard drugs along the border.

Traditionally, the hard narcotics have gone through ports of entry for example, but you're saying that field agents are serious.

- Yes, so we are seeing an increase in hard narcotics, probably about at least an 80% increase from where we were last year this time in hard narcotics, mostly fentanyl.

And you know, it's certainly with the costs obviously there's a lot of profit to be made in hard narcotics and much easier to transport then than the old days of 50 pounds of marijuana strapped to someone's back much easier to put a couple of kilos of fentanyl or methamphetamine in a backpack and cross that way.

- Because you've been in the agency for 25 plus years.

What are you seeing differently from the smugglers?

They're charging more, they're making better promises?

- Yeah, so I think that the smugglers are charging more.

I think that the other thing that we're seeing is the introduction much more of a technology with the smuggling.

You know, there's been some very high profile cases of people that came into this area to smuggle migrants out of the area and were recruited through social media applications, things like that.

And then even the migrants that are crossing the border using GPS and cell phone technology to aid that trip, that is something that we haven't experienced before.

- You have that situational awareness yet somehow people are able to get past.

- Yes, absolutely.

I mean, what we're not doing is standing on the border shoulder to shoulder, stopping with the ability to stop everything that crosses.

The people that are smuggling migrants across the border have spent years doing this.

They spend all day watching us and determining where to move people across the border.

- And when you've got something like 90,000 square miles it's going to happen that someone gets through.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- All right, Chief Modlin thank you.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Lawmakers at Arizona's Capitol haven't been able to reach a deal on a budget.

So late last month, they agreed to take a break.

House and Senate lawmakers adjourned until June 10th.

In response, Governor Ducey vetoed more than 20 bills sent to his desk and said he would not sign anything else until a budget gets passed.

For analysis into what has some lawmakers on the fence, we turned to "Arizona Capitol Times" reporter Julia Shumway.

- So right now our State Legislature is essentially on vacation for two weeks, they were unable to pass the budget when they wanted to by the end of last week and decided that people had vacations plans, so they were just going to take them and go into recess.

And so a number of lawmakers are out of state and others are trying to work with each other and find a way to reach an agreement so they can return at some point in June and pass a budget.

- Now, the governor has also, I mean, he's part of this because he said "Don't send me anything unless you're ready for budget."

So where is he in all the stalemate because there is some concern that some issues are not being addressed?

- Right, the governor last week right on Friday, heading into Memorial Day weekend decided to veto all 22 bills on his desk.

These included some bipartisan measures that had taken a full session to work on and they included some really partisan bills like one's banning critical race theory or preventing election officials from sending out ballots to people who hadn't requested to vote by mail that Republicans really wanted to pass and that his Republican base really wanted to pass.

And so essentially the governor has made almost everybody in the legislature mad at him at the same time that he needs to get at least Republican lawmakers to agree to his budget plans.

- When it comes to numbers between Democrats and Republicans the chambers are pretty close, so what's the likeliness of actually getting what they need to get done June 10th when they return?

- It's going to be very difficult.

So this year, the legislature is the smallest margins it's ever had in both chambers, there are 16 out of 30 senators are Republicans, and 31 out of 60 House members are Republicans.

Essentially, that means that every single Republican lawmaker down here has veto power of his or her own, and so if a single one of them doesn't like this budget plan or anything else and with the budget we know that Democrats are not going to support this plan because it includes a massive tax cut that primarily benefits the wealthiest Arizonans.

It means that every single Republican is able to make demands and sometimes conflicting demands which is why we're still in this stalemate.

- I've been following your work and as I understand it, just because you're a Republican in the state legislature, doesn't mean you're going to vote with fellow Republicans, correct?

- Correct, so we have, it kind of runs the gamut and we see this with our budget issues in particular.

There are a number of Republicans down here who looked at this proposed budget that would spend $12.8 billion and said, "No I'm a Republican that's way too much spending cut the fork."

You have others who are also Republicans in the same party who looked at this budget and the tax cut and said that's cutting way too much in taxes.

We need to spend more on education on roads, on various other priorities.

And so they haven't come to an agreement with each other.

- The flat tax seems to be the one key issue that really caused this most recent division.

What's the likeliness of these lawmakers reaching a budget by the time they have to, which is at the end of the month?

- Anything is possible.

But given that it is June, they only have until June 30th to pass the budget and they're not any closer this week than they were last week or the week before, it's starting to seem possible that we could be here in another few weeks asking whether they're going to pass the budget or whether we'll face something like a government shutdown.

Something the state hasn't really had to fear for over a decade.

- And according to your work, it's possible that that could happen if they don't reach that budget by June 30th.

- Yes, it's entirely possible.

It's also possible that even if they don't reach a budget the governor finds a way to...

The governor and the legislature compromise on something like a skinny budget or stop gap funding just enough to keep the state running while they continue trying to work on the full budget during a special session.

- Okay remind us since we've not seen this before, what's likely to happen if there is a government shutdown in the state of Arizona?

- If there's a shutdown, it would be a lot like what you see at the federal level, where we've seen federal government shutdowns several times over the past decade, and essentially all state employees who are considered not non essential, all state services that are considered non essential would stop.

You may not get your state parks so they would be closed, you would probably still have police and state troopers on the road, but a lot of other services would be delayed.

State employees wouldn't be getting paid.

- Arizona's already in the national spotlight because of the audit that is currently ongoing.

Can it really as a state have for this when it comes to the optics of government?

- That's a decision that lawmakers and the governor will certainly have to keep on their minds is they're trying to negotiate their budgets.

- Alright.

Julia Shumway, "Arizona Capital Times," reporter, thank you for your work.

- Thank you.

(air whooshing) - That's all for now, thanks for joining us.

To get in touch, visit us on social media or send an email to arizona360@azpm.org and let us know what you think.

We'll see you next week.

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