WASHINGTON – Border officials apprehended the most migrants at the southern border in at least 22 years last month, presenting a new challenge for the Biden administration’s plan to end enforcement of Title 42 just weeks from now.

The 221,303 migrants stopped in March brought the total for the first half of fiscal 2022 to more than 1 million, according to the most recent data from Customs and Border Protection, putting the U.S. on pace to break last year’s record of 1.66 million apprehensions.

It comes as Arizona lawmakers continue to push back against the White House plan to end Title 42, the pandemic health rule that let officials turn asylum seekers away at the border, amid fears that the administration will not be able to handle the subsequent surge in migrants.

“The Biden administration was wrong to set an end date for Title 42 without a comprehensive plan in place,” Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said earlier this month, as he introduced a bill to delay that move. “We need a secure, orderly, and humane response at our southern border and our bipartisan legislation holds the Biden administration accountable to that.”

But one advocate said the CBP numbers are misleading, since Title 42 often leads to repeat encounters with migrants who try to cross the border again after being turned away. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, said there is no longer a legitimate health-policy reason to keep Title 42, which endangers the health and safety of asylum-seekers who are stopped.

“The use of Title 42 is an attempt to tread water in the middle of a hurricane, rather than going to shelter,” Reichlin-Melnick said Wednesday. “We have seen how Title 42 has made the border more chaotic. It has massively increased the number of people who are crossing the border over and over and over again.”

Title 42 was invoked by the Trump administration in March 2020 as a response to the then-new COVID-19 pandemic, at the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It allowed officials at land borders to turn away any asylum seeker in an effort to reduce the spread of the disease.

Immigration advocates criticized the regulation, which they said did little to protect public health while exposing migrants to violence and unsanitary conditions in makeshift camps on the other side of the border. They pushed President Joe Biden to lift the policy when he took office in January 2021, but he did not do so and the number of migrants expelled under Title 42 has grown since then.

“This is a bipartisan failure over the course of many years to fix our humanitarian protection system, but instead politicians have simply tried to double down on turning people away,” Reichlin-Melnick said.

The administration defended the use of Title 42 as a health measure, despite the waning pandemic. But the CDC announced this month that the regulation was no longer needed, and the Homeland Security Department set May 23 as the date to stop enforcing the rule. It will continue to enforce Title 8, which allows DHS to start removal proceedings against migrants who do not have a legal basis to stay in the U.S.

As it made the announcement on Title 42, DHS unveiled a plan to handle the expected surge in new asylum cases that calls for new detention facilities, shifting agents as needed to handle migrants, streamlining the asylum-processing system and working with other countries to reduce migrant numbers.

But in filings in an unrelated court case last week, CBP said the number of migrants apprehended in March far exceeded the agency’s capacity to hold them, which is maxed out at 31,715 migrants at the current time.

Republicans blasted the administration’s plan, which they said would overwhelm border agencies, and Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich joined two states that sued the administration to keep Title 42 in place. Critics said the change will only accelerate the increases in migration that have come under Biden.

“These nearly unprecedented levels of illegal immigration are not the result of circumstances beyond the control of President Biden and his administration,” said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, in a statement released Tuesday. He accused the administration of adopting policies “to open our borders and encourage mass migration.”

Even some Democrats have raised concerns. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., is a co-sponsor of the bill with Kelly to delay lifting Title 42, and Arizona Democratic Reps. Tom O’Halleran of Sedona and Greg Stanton of Phoenix are co-sponsors of a companion bill in the House.

Their bills would extend Title 42 for 60 days, to give agencies more time to develop plans to process migrants who otherwise would have been turned away.

But Reichlin-Melnick said that while apprehensions are higher than they have been in 22 years, the number of successful border crossings is actually lower than it was in 2000 when CBP said it caught approximately 35% of migrants. Today, that number is up to 83%.

“In some ways, Title 42 was a bit of a distraction,” he said. “For the last eight years, we have been trying to deter our way out of fixing our humanitarian protection system. President Obama put in place family detention, President Trump put in place family separation, remain in Mexico and then Title 42 and President Biden has kept Title 42 in place.”

Gov. Doug Ducey has declared a state of emergency in response to the Tunnel Fire in Coconino County that has currently burned more than 20,000 acres and has 0% containment.

“Our team is on the ground working with first responders to monitor the Tunnel Fire in Coconino County,” Ducey said in a press release. “As strong winds fuel fires across Arizona, we are doing everything we can to keep Arizonans safe.”

The Tunnel Fire is located 14 miles northeast of Flagstaff along U.S. Highway 89. It began April 17; the cause is unknown but currently under investigation, according to fire officials. 

Windy conditions caused the fire to rapidly spread. It is located in an area with dry grass and brush, with scattered Ponderosa pine. There were 179 firefighters working on the fire as of Wednesday.

The state of emergency will assist impacted communities with the resources needed to respond to and recover from the fire’s destruction.

The state of emergency directs $200,000 from the state’s general fund to the director of the Arizona Division of Emergency Management. Ducey signed the declaration on Thursday.

“We pray for the safety of the responders and firefighters in Northern Arizona, and are thankful for their dedication to protecting the lives, pets and property of Arizonans,” Ducey said in a written statement. “Our prayers are with the residents affected by the fire and we encourage everyone in the area to follow the guidance of fire officials, stay safe and respond to any evacuation notices. We will continue to monitor the situation and deploy additional resources as necessary.”

The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office began evacuation operations in the Timberline–Fernwoo areas north of Flagstaff along Highway 89 on April 19.

More than 200 homes are threatened, according to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office. A shelter has been set up at Sinagua Middle School for those affected by the evacuations, and the Coconino Humane Society is available for evacuated animals.

U.S. 89 remains closed in both directions between mileposts 425 and 445 north of Flagstaff, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation. There is no estimated time of reopening.

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that voters cannot determine the fate of a flat tax proposal that Republican lawmakers and Gov. Doug Ducey championed last year.

Arizona’s constitution broadly lets voters refer new laws to the ballot, and that’s what happened to the $1.3 billion tax cut package that legislators approved in 2021. However, such referrals are not allowed for laws related to the “support and maintenance” of state government, and the Supreme Court said Thursday that the income tax cuts fall into that category.

That means the November ballot measure won’t happen.

The court ruled in a legal challenge brought by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, which advocates for lower taxes and less government spending.

Under the tax plan, Arizona will shift to two income tax rates: 2.55% for people who earn $27,272 annually and 2.98% for those who earn more than that. Legislative budget analysts estimate those cuts will reduce state revenues by about $1.3 billion annually.

And if state tax revenues hit certain thresholds over the next few years — $12.8 billion in 2022 and $13 billion in 2023 and subsequent years — lower rates will phase in, ultimately hitting the 2.5% flat rate that was initially proposed. The earliest that can happen is 2023. (Budget analysts said last month that the state is on pace to shatter those marks.)

Education advocacy groups immediately set out to force a public vote on the tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit wealthy Arizonans. The median household income in Arizona is about $62,000, which will realize a tax savings of $42 under the new proposal. The benefit of the tax cut skyrockets as income increases: Households making at least $500,000 will save $10,000; those making at least $1 million save nearly $45,000; those making more than $5 million will save nearly $350,000 a year.

The tax cuts themselves came in response to, and were designed to blunt the effect of, the Invest in Education Act on wealthy Arizonans. That measure, which voters approved in 2020, imposed a 3.5% surcharge on income greater than $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for couples, with the money directed to public schools to increase teacher pay and boost overall funding. However, a judge ruled in March that the voter-approved school spending is unconstitutional, and the state Supreme Court is all but certain to uphold that ruling.

The education groups, campaigning under the name Invest in Arizona, spent last summer gathering signatures to put the tax cuts on hold until voters decided their fate this year. They submitted more than 215,000 signatures to force the election.

Children’s Action Alliance and The Arizona Center for Economic Progress, both of which were part of the Invest in Arizona coalition, denounced the ruling.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision makes one thing crystal clear: Arizona’s highest court is stripping the rights of everyday Arizonans, in an attempt to protect the rich,” the groups said in a written statement.

They also accused the court of undermining Arizona voters, who have for decades used the ballot box to increase funding for public schools.

“Contrary to longstanding precedent, our court system now openly rules in favor of the rich and not those they are truly meant to serve,” Children’s Action Alliance and The Arizona Center for Economic Progress said.

And Rebecca Rios, the Democratic leader in the Arizona Senate, called the Supreme Court’s decision “a slap in the face.”

“A true Democracy should have no problem allowing this to go before the voters of Arizona,” she said in a press release. “Republicans continue to attack our schools, teachers and students, despite a majority of Arizonans making it clear time and time again that they want meaningful investments in our public schools.”

Rios’ counterpart in the House of Representatives, Rep. Reginald Bolding, said Ducey hand-picked a stacked court in order to do the bidding of Republicans, whose disregard for voters has been “has been off the charts” this year.

“When Arizona voters have a voice, they support deeper investments in public education and an end to unsustainable tax giveaways to an elite wealthy few,” he said. “The response should be to listen and do what the voters are asking, not attempt to change and rewrite the rules until the call goes your way.”

Joe Thomas, who heads the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said the Supreme Court ignored the “clear and strong language” of the state constitution by barring the tax cuts from going on the ballot.

“Today’s ruling is as disgraceful as Arizona’s ranking near the bottom in per-pupil spending,” he said. “It erases Arizona voters and it sends a message to educators and students that the state prioritizes wealthy special interests over public education funding.”

Arizona hovers between 49th and 50th in per-pupil funding and cannot fill more than a quarter of its teacher vacancies. In the past 15 years, state funding per student has increased only 5% when adjusted for inflation.

I’m still committed to getting K-12 funding around whatever (Invest in Education) would’ve delivered.

– Sen. Paul Boyer, R-Glendale

Rep. Ben Toma, a Peoria Republican who championed the flax tax legislation, hailed the ruling for providing “certainty that Arizonans will get this relief at a time when they need it most.”

Republicans have been working to avoid the November referendum on the tax cuts. To do so, they planned a “repeal-and-accelerate” strategy that would have seen last year’s tax cuts repealed — thus canceling the election later this year — and replaced with a package that sped up the implementation of the cuts.

But that was thrown into flux when Sen. Paul Boyer, a Glendale Republican who is retiring after this year, said he would only support the scheme to avoid the November election if Republican lawmakers backed a budget plan that replaces the $900 million or so that Invest in Education would have added to school budgets. The state has a record-busting $5.3 billion budget surplus for the upcoming fiscal year, and Boyer said legislators should “honor the will of Arizona voters and prudently invest $900 million more reliable, repeatable dollars into the programs outlined above.”

Boyer told the Arizona Mirror on Thursday that, although he had tied his call for increasing K-12 spending initially to the tax cut repeal-and-replace, the court ruling ensuring the tax cuts go into effect doesn’t change his demand.

“From my perspective it’s one less thing to worry about. I’m still committed to getting K-12 funding around whatever (Invest in Education) would’ve delivered,” he said.

UPDATED: This story has been updated with additional comments and information.

A bill to allow parents to sue Arizona teachers for “usurping the fundamental right” of a parent in raising their children won approval from state Senate Republicans on Monday and is one vote away from Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk. 

Supporters of the bill said it was necessary to subject teachers to lawsuits in order to bring transparency to schools, which they said have been asking “inappropriate questions” of students. The main impetus for the legislation were student surveys sent out by schools — often aimed at identifying students struggling with mental health during the pandemic — that made headlines in a number of states and locally.

House Bill 2161 by Rep. Steve Kaiser, R-Phoenix, began its legislative life as a more controversial bill that would have forced teachers to tell parents everything a student tells them — including outing them if a student confides in a teacher that they are LGBTQ. 

The bill was eventually amended to remove that language. Kaiser insisted that the bill was never meant as “an attack” on the LGBTQ community, even though it specifically said teachers would have to disclose information about a student’s “purported gender identity” or a request to transition to a gender other than the “student’s biological sex.” It was also drafted by two historically anti-LGBTQ groups. 

The bill in its current form prohibits a school, political subdivision or government from “usurping the fundamental right” of a parent in raising their children, allows a parent to bring a civil suit against any government entity or official that violates the Parents’ Bill of Rights in Arizona law, gives parents the rights to all written or electronic records from a school about their child — including a students counseling records — and requires schools to notify parents before a survey is conducted of students, among other changes.

“I am a hard ‘no’ on this bill,” Sen. Christine Marsh, a Phoenix Democrat and the 2016 Arizona Teacher of the Year, said when explaining her vote on the floor Monday afternoon. She added that the vague wording of “usurping the fundamental right” in the bill will likely lead to many parents filing lawsuits. 

“Anything could potentially qualify for it so we might have a whole bunch of teachers going to court for this,” she said.

Those concerns were also echoed by her Democratic colleagues during committee hearings on the bill who feared that if passed, the bill could see librarians getting in trouble for recommending books that conflict with a parent’s worldview. 

Kaiser, the bill’s sponsor, said in committee that the aim is to have parents involved with the child in that process. 

The bill passed 16-12. Because it was amended in the Senate, it returns to the House of Representatives for a final vote, after which it would go to Ducey for final action.