Green Fields School in Northwest Tucson doesn't have enough money to remain open for the coming school year. The private academy has closed, and the school grounds will be sold off. The school has been losing more than $500,000 each year, records show.
"Green Fields is closing, effective today," said Anthony Marshall, president of the nonprofit school's board of trustees.
Details: http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/…/bankruptcy-closes-green-fi…/
Pima County to lease juvie center for migrant stop-over; Comic court results for Ducey's TUSD tax hike; plus more local news in the TucsonSentinel.com email update - https://mailchi.mp/tucsonsentinel/070819_migrants
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Asylum seekers freshly released from federal custody may have a new place for respite in Tucson as Pima County is set to lease an unused section of the juvenile detention center to Catholic Community Services.
Under the plan, the county will fund some remodeling work and cover utility and upkeep costs while the nonprofit social service group manages the center as a temporary stop for migrants. Backers of the proposal emphasized that the center is "a vacant dorm" and that "thi...s is not a jail" to detain families seeking asylum. The county will seek repayment of some project costs from the federal government.
For the last several months, Catholic Community Services, supported by an army of volunteers with help from city and county officials, has used the former Benedictine Monastery in Midtown as a waypoint for nearly 10,000 people. Most have been traveling as families —nearly all from three Central American countries — who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum, and were then traveling to sponsors in cities across the United States.
However, the owner of the monastery plans to develop the historic building, and has asked CCS to vacate the center by July 26. With that deadline approaching, city and county officials began seeking out a new place for the agency to process migrant families, offering medical triage, food, travel arrangements, and a place to sleep before they travel further.
In recent weeks, the agency and local officials settled on the juvenile detention facility, which has three units that are vacant and can accommodate up to 300 people, said Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry. Officials released details about the project on Monday.
Learn more about the plan: http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/…/pima-county-lease-juvenile…/
With scant public notice, federal immigration officials are relying on databases run by foreign police and militaries to check whether migrants crossing the United States border have gang affiliations, which would allow officials to detain and eventually deport them.
The information is being provided through a new “fusion” intelligence-gathering center in El Salvador that is funded by the State Department and works in tandem with the Department of Homeland Security.
But legal... experts and human rights advocates say the government has kept the use of databases at the border largely secret, subverting potential challenges to the reliability of the information in them. An attorney in Texas recently discovered that her Salvadoran client had been falsely accused of being in the MS-13 gang based on intelligence from the center. The man was jailed in a maximum-security facility for violent criminals for six months, and his two children were taken away.
Government attorneys, pressed repeatedly in court to provide evidence, eventually dropped the allegation of gang membership against him without explanation.
http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/…/immigration-officials-use-…/
Told ya so: Demonstrating the acme of futility, the Legislature discovered again that it has no Wonder Twin powers to make the Arizona Constitution disappear. Slamming bills into law without public comment doesn't help.
Read the full column from "What the Devil won't tell you" writer Blake Morlock: http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/…/legislature-duceys-cartoon…/
