Immigration court cases waiting to be heard hit an all-time high of 607,755 in June – 10,031 of them in Arizona – despite the hiring of more judges and a Trump administration directive to expedite cases. Read more»

President Trump threw his support behind a bill that would slash immigration and create a "merit-based" system favoring those who speak English, have higher education and high-paying job offers. It would cut the number of green cards granted in half, and critics called it just another move "to come after immigrants as a whole." Read more»

Democrats are blasting a GOP plan to allocate $1.57 billion to begin construction of a border wall with Mexico, by slipping that language into a critical defense funding bill. But there appears to be little else they can do to stop the funding language. Read more»

Current data on visa overstayers in the U.S. have “gaping holes” that need to be filled, frustrated lawmakers told Department of Homeland Security officials at a Senate hearing Wednesday. Read more»

As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol office buildings Monday, Lauren Klinkhamer stood quietly in Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s office and told staffers, “I don’t want to die.” The Tucson resident fears she would be among the 22 million Americans, and as many as 400,000 Arizonans, who would lose health care under a bill the Senate is considering to replace the Affordable Care Act. Read more»

President Trump’s promised wall along the Mexican border will be more like a “border wall system” of walls, fencing, technology, law enforcement, patrol roads – and 130 miles with nothing but “natural barriers,” a border official said Tuesday. Read more»

The Supreme Court has ordered a lower court to reconsider its decision to throw out a lawsuit that a Mexican family filed against the Border Patrol agent who fatally shot their son across the border. The Texas case may still have a long way to go in the courts, but the outcome could affect a similar 2012 case in Nogales. Read more»

Buried in a Homeland Security memo last week twas a single line saying the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “will remain in effect,” raising hope among the 800,000 recipients. But DHS officials said this week that eliminating DACA is still a very real possibility. Read more»

Arizona's Sen. Jeff Flake was among the Republican lawmakers practicing for a charity baseball game Wednesday when “indiscriminate firing” rang out from a gunman who left five wounded before he was killed in a shootout with police. Read more»

The acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told a House committee Tuesday that while the agency is targeting criminal immigrants as it ramps up enforcement efforts, “no population is off the table” for immigration arrests. Read more»

The House overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to waive polygraph tests for veterans applying for Border Patrol jobs, despite concerns that it could open the door to problem hires. Rep. Martha McSally's bill comes as Customs and Border Protection grapples with President Trump’s plan to hire an additional 5,000 agents. Read more» 1

Receiving Gold Star families – those who have lost a loved one to military service – could be seen as a shift for Trump, who made headlines last year by attacking a Muslim family whose son was killed serving in Iraq. For some like Maria Martin, a Tucson resident whose son, Sgt. Martin Lugo, died in Afghanistan in 2010, receptions are not enough. Read more»

Two Arizona girls competed against 291 other students in the 2017 bee at the Gaylord Convention Center just outside Washington this week. Read more»

House members called on Homeland Security officials to crack down on the “growing problem” of immigrants who overstay their visas in the U.S. "With this year’s number of border apprehensions at a record low, visa overstays are a much, much bigger problem than they have been historically,” said Rep. Martha McSally. Read more»

Nearly 629,000 people who came to the U.S. on a visa in fiscal 2016 stayed after it expired and were still here at the end of the year, the Department of Homeland Security reported. The Center for Migration Studies said that people overstaying their visas exceeded those crossing into the U.S. illegally every year since 2007. Read more»