Luis Carrasco's favorite stories of 2014

Daniel Neyoy Ruiz might not be fleeing the wars in Central America that led many to the doors of Southside Presbyterian Church more than 30 years ago — but to his family, the situation is no less desperate.

The Mexican immigrant, along with his wife, Karla Neyoy, and his son are set to receive sanctuary today unless U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials decide to let Neyoy Ruiz remain in the country.

In 2011, he was driving to work when he was stopped on Interstate 19 by a state Department of Public Safety officer because his car’s exhaust was emitting smoke. Unable to prove he was in the country legally, Neyoy Ruiz was handed over to the U.S. Border Patrol, and has been in removal proceedings since then.

Two months ago, he was given 60 days to leave the country, something Neyoy Ruiz said he is not ready to do.

“I can’t leave,” he said in Spanish inside the meeting room of Southside Presbyterian. “I’m going to fight until the end, for my family. Because if I give up, what’s going to happen to them?”

The church was the birthplace of the sanctuary movement in the early 1980s. While the circumstances of those leaving their countries of origin are not completely the same today, there are still some clear parallels, said Sarah Roberts, a member of Southside Presbyterian’s decision-making body.

“The previous history of sanctuary was for many Central American refugees who were fleeing wars in Central America and fleeing for their lives,” Roberts said. “People coming to the United States now are fleeing serious economic situations in Mexico and Central America. But also there is violence, there is extortion, and people pressured into gangs.”

Roberts said church leaders agreed unanimously to support the family, a stance the Rev. Alison Harrington supports unwaveringly.

“We are a church that deeply values families, and don’t believe they should be torn apart,” she said. “And so I’m willing to stand in solidarity with this family in order to prevent that from happening.”

Unless ICE officials change course, the family will begin living inside the church this afternoon. The family’s attorney, Margo Cowan, said she is confident the situation will be resolved quickly.

She cited the push by President Obama to have the Department of Homeland Security prioritize its use of resources regarding deportations and to focus on immigrants who have criminal records.

“Daniel is the kind of man that the president spoke of when he said we shouldn’t be tearing families apart,” Cowan said.

Neyoy Ruiz and his wife came the United States 14 years ago. They settled in Tucson, and their 13-year-old son is a U.S. citizen. Neyoy Ruiz has worked in construction and has paid taxes since 2005, he said.

“The only thing I ask is that I’m allowed to work. Let me be with my family. I’ve never done anyone any harm — on the contrary, I’ve contributed,” he said. “It’s not just me; it’s a lot of people that are in the same situation — fathers, mothers, brothers. That’s something that the government has to see.”

The Department of Homeland Security dropped off close to 200 immigrants — mostly women and children — at the Tucson Greyhound station this week, leaving them to find their own way to cities across the country to report to immigration offices there.

While such releases are not new, the number left here at the same time has put a strain on local immigration advocates and has customs and bus line officials working on a plan to accommodate the unexpected influx of travelers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona is processing 400 people, mostly families coming from Central America and Mexico who were apprehended in South Texas and flown here over the weekend, officials said.

To process the surge of crossers from Texas, the Border Patrol is turning to all available resources at its disposal, said Daniel Tirado , Border Patrol spokesman for the Rio Grande Valley Sector.

In the first six months of the fiscal year, Border Patrol agents in that sector detained more people than Tucson did all of last year, with an average of more than 600 apprehensions a day.

In comparison, Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents have detained about 61,000 border crossers during the same period, with 18 percent coming from a place other than Mexico.

About 100 agents from other sectors, including Arizona, have been sent to Texas to help.

Border Patrol agents in less busy sectors are processing people by taking their biographical information and completing a file online And the Rio Grande Valley Sector is flying apprehended immigrants to other sectors where they can be processed.

The first flight was to El Paso on May 7. Four days later, the second one arrived in Tucson and the third landed here last week, not including those who arrived over the weekend.

The border crossers flown to the different areas of the border are prescreened. The first flights to Tucson were men traveling alone, Tirado said.

Because there’s limited bed space for families, women who pose no security risk are released with their children. They must provide the address of their U.S. destination, and they are required to report to a local ICE office near t hat destination within 15 days.

Tirado doesn’t know if there will be any more flights, but if agents continue to see the influx in Texas, “those resources available by all means will be utilized,” he said.

Tirado couldn’t provide a per-flight cost estimate.

A group of about 30 people waited at the station late Tuesday, many thrusting their bus tickets at volunteers as they tried to figure out layovers and departure times to unfamiliar destinations across the country, including Maryland, Alabama and Florida.

Shortly before 8 p.m., two unmarked white vans dropped off about 40 more people in the Greyhound station parking lot.

ICE officials said they are working out a process with Customs and Border Protection to make sure each family is able to place a phone call to make travel arrangements, to provide them sack lunches and work with bus stations to help accommodate the influx.

“Unfortunately, we do not receive prior notice and are unaware of when ICE plans to drop off individuals at our terminal,” Lanesha Gipson, spokeswoman for Greyhound Lines Inc. said in an email. “However, we are currently working to establish protocol with ICE in which they inform us of drop-offs several hours in advance to ensure we have the resources to accommodate them once they arrive at our terminal.”

For the last eight months, ICE has released large numbers of families at the Tucson Greyhound station while they await their immigration court date, but not in the volume seen this week.

A handful of local volunteers with Casa Mariposa have visited the station every night.

They provide food, phone calls and often put up families overnight when they are unable to get bus tickets.

The group, already operating at capacity, was overwhelmed with the sudden increase of immigrants left at the station.

“We think this is the right thing for ICE to be doing; we think they should be releasing people. But we just feel they could release them in a more respectful and responsible way,” said Daniel Wilson with Casa Mariposa.

Jimena Díaz, consul of Guatemala in Phoenix, said her office was trying to find out what was happening Wednesday and had started to reach out to local churches and nonprofits to ask if they could help the families arriving at the bus stations.

“In general, immigration through Arizona has decreased, except for women and children. The same thing is happening in Texas, but the number there is much greater,” she said.

“We don’t know what’s happening. It can be that they are told that if they come with children they are likely to be released for humanitarian reasons,” she said.

Art del Cueto, president of the local Border Patrol union, said when agents ask people they just apprehend why they are coming, they often mention they heard about amnesty.

“It’s always been our issue, as agents, any time there are rumblings about amnesty it increases the flow,” he said.

Paula Briseño Rodríguez waited for her daughter and granddaughter at the Greyhound station Tuesday. She had been released on Monday along with her 3-year-old son and spent the night with Casa Mariposa volunteers.

She had been traveling in a group that also included two nieces, ages 7 and 4, when they were detained by Border Patrol on Saturday. Immigration officials contacted the girls’ parents in Florida before taking them from her, she said.

Although she has a brother in Delaware who is a permanent resident and said he would try to bring her into the country legally, she said she couldn’t wait any longer.

“One comes here because it’s hard in Guatemala. I left seven children to come here and try to do something,” she said. “One earns 50 quetzales (about $6) a day. You have to eat, so you’re left with 20. How much is that in a week?”

While the dream of a better life pushed many across the border, the fear of violence is also a concern.

“I was talking with a woman from Honduras who said they (gangs) killed three of her relatives on the same day,” said Briseño Rodriguez. “Another man told me you can’t open a small business anymore because they’ll threaten you to get money and if you don’t pay they’ll kill you or kidnap your child.”

Concepción González and her two daughters, ages 7 and 6, also spent the night with a Casa Mariposa volunteer.

González said she was in an abusive relationship that ended when her husband abandoned them. The memories brought her to tears.

“My husband would mistreat me and beat me,” she said. “I came here to start a new life. I just want to work, to better myself for my daughters because I’m their mother and their father.”

Until last year, Tucson was the busiest sector in the country. At its peak in 2000, more than 600,000 people were arrested.

Back then, San Diego Border Patrol agents came to help here because they had experience dealing with high flows.

The difference, said del Cueto, is that Tucson remains a busy corridor. He said the agents being sent to South Texas are still needed here.

About 120,000 people have been apprehended in the Tucson Sector in the last two fiscal years. The sector still leads the country in the amount of marijuana seized. Last fiscal year, agents seized more than 1 million pounds, compared to about 800,000 pounds in the Rio Grande Valley sector.

“The Arizona border is still very much porous,” del Cueto said. “There are still areas where we have no fence — areas like the reservations where it’s like open fields.”

With her camera pushed between the metal slats of the border fence near the Sasabe port of entry, Pachynne Ignacio stared into her viewfinder, intent on capturing her new perspective on the border.

“I’d never seen the fence, and it’s just like, wow, it’s actually real and it’s a problem down here,” said the 16-year-old Sells native. “It just makes it feel much more real than it does at home.”

Ignacio was part of a group of 23 youths, ages 12 to 18, at a National Geographic photo camp in Arivaca this week. The free camp ended Friday with an exhibition of the students’ work at the Arivaca Community Center.

Participants had the opportunity to learn about photography as they traveled throughout the region, from the fence at Sasabe to the ghost town of Ruby and its abandoned mine filled with bats.

The project was borne out of Jason De León’s wish to give back to the community that has become his second home as his time doing research in Arivaca comes to an end.

Since 2009, the assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan has led groups of students through the Sonoran Desert to study unauthorized migration.

“This town has done a lot for all of us on a personal level, so this was just a way to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts,” he said. “A way to provide these young kids with the opportunity to do something special.”

Manuel Grijalva, 12, said he was enjoying the camp and had taken pictures of animals, which is what he wanted to focus on. The Sasabe native had nothing but praise for his teachers.

“They’re doing a good job. They’ve taught us how to take photos up close and from far away. They showed us about angles, everything,” he said.

While the technical aspect of photography was important to the instructors, a group that included National Geographic photographers and editors, it was the medium’s ability to tell a story that they wanted to explore.

“We really spend a lot of time looking at every picture and looking on two levels,” said camp director Kirsten Elstner. “We’re looking at composition and light and why these pictures are interesting to look at.”

Elstner is the founder of Vision Workshops, a nonprofit group that organizes the photo camps in partnership with National Geographic. For the past 10 years, the group has put on camps throughout the United States and internationally, with the goal of helping young people tell their stories through photography.

“The idea behind this is to get youth perspectives on issues that are important to everyone,” Elstner said. “In this case it’s what it’s like to live in this community, the border area and immigration.”

The students didn’t waste any time, taking 4,000 photos on their first day of camp Monday. As they clustered near the border Tuesday morning, some already had taken hundreds of shots.

Fortunately for them, instructors said, they had good students.

“They’ve taken a lot so far, and we’ve been going through them at night, but they have been really listening,” Elstner said. “When you’re looking at the edits, you go, ‘Oh, this person really paid attention to our lesson today.’ ”

Participants said the camp was a great experience. They met new people and had a lot of fun, and even though the towns they came from — Sasabe, Amado, Arivaca, Sells — were close geographically, many of the young people knew little about their neighbors before this week.

And for several of them, photography was something they would keep doing beyond simply taking snapshots and selfies.

“Being able to capture moments is what’s really cool about this,” Ignacio said as she looked to the border and the kids gathered around the fence. “This is going to stay here forever, but the people won’t.”

ORACLE — The contentious debate around immigration made its way to this small Arizona town as protesters hoping to block an anticipated bus carrying Central American children briefly clashed with immigrant-rights activists.

Protesters lined up along the road leading to Sycamore Canyon Academy, which was recently identified by Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu as the place where the federal government planned to send a group of immigrant minors Tuesday.

Babeu, who was called out by activists for inciting the protest, said all he was trying to do was provide information to the community, something he said the federal government hasn’t been doing.

“If you’re going to send unaccompanied juveniles to another state and another jurisdiction, there’s legitimate concerns that other members of this community have about public safety and public health,” Babeu said. “My concern from a law enforcement perspective is I don’t have an understanding of who these people are.”

Activists rebuffed the sheriff’s claims that the community had anything to worry about from the busload of immigrant youths.

“We don’t believe in that kind of fear-mongering, that now we’re going to be installing gang members down there who are going to knife us in the middle of the night,” said Frank Pierson, head of the parish council at Saint Helen Catholic Church. “They’re trying to scare people into a turnout.”

At the height of the demonstration about 80 people gathered at the protester camp while another 50 people joined the immigrant-activist group. The bus was a no-show.

Signs reading “Take them to the White House” and “Busing illegals go home!” were raised by protesters, along with American flags. Country music blared from a pickup truck and small, plastic stars identifying the wearer as a Junior Deputy for Sheriff Joe Arpaio were passed out.

While the opposing groups originally set up several miles from each other, about 10:30 a.m. a small contingent of immigrant supporters attempted to walk through the protester camp followed by mariachi musicians.

As Ruben Moreno of Mariachi Luz de Luna played “The Star-Spangled Banner” on his trumpet, some protesters and supporters sang along, bringing a brief moment of unity between the groups before isolated shouting matches continued to erupt among the crowd.

Organizers from both sides kept their more vocal members in line and soon protesters and supporters were milling about, keeping a wary distance from each other, before dispersing.

Many protesters said they were worried about gang members coming into the area or that the young immigrants would bring disease. Others said their problem wasn’t with the children, but with government policy in dealing with an influx of immigrant children from Central America.

“I care what these kids are going through,” said Mercy Huss, a native of Tucson. “I think it’s a crime what these politicians are enabling and facilitating by inviting these kids. They put them in the arms of these coyotes who bring them here.”

Huss said that although she understood that immigrants are mostly escaping difficult situations in their home countries, the United States was not equipped to meet their needs.

“I don’t want anybody to suffer, but the world is full of suffering people. We can’t take them all in,” said Huss. “Our ship is sinking, our kids are starving, we’ve got families in crisis, we’ve got people out of work — what do we say to them?”

Activists on the other side of the issue said the country should welcome the immigrant children with open arms and recognize that the situations in their home countries are hard to understand for most Americans.

“We don’t know, we’re spoiled. We don’t know what it’s like to be persecuted, to witness the death and destruction that these people have seen,” said Steve Brown, a Vietnam veteran from Oracle. “These are parents looking for a better life and safety for their children. I totally sympathize with their plight.”

As protesters gathered Tuesday, the Border Patrol released new numbers on immigrant families and children apprehended during the latest fiscal year. From October through the end of June, 55,420 so-called family units have been caught at the Southwest border, a nearly 500 percent increase from the 9,350 detained in the previous fiscal year.

Most of the apprehensions occurred in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

In Tucson the number increased to 3,117 as of June, compared with 2,130 during the same period last year.

Low-wage immigrant women workers in Tucson are often overworked, abused, underpaid and labor under unsafe conditions, according to a report by the University of Arizona’s Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program.

The report is based on interviews and surveys filled out by 90 women, mostly from Mexico, working in jobs that are part of the “underground economy,” or workplaces that are exempt from most legal protections.

Almost 60 percent of the immigrant women surveyed were in the country legally. Most respondents were employed as domestic workers in private homes or as caregivers.

Many of them said they were not asked to fill out a W-4 or provide proof of legal authorization to work, and almost half were paid in cash or by personal check. Some women also reported abusive practices that ran from salary withholding to violent treatment.

Among the stories shared by the women interviewed were cases of caregivers who were working with the elderly and had to be on-call 24 hours a day, six days a week, for $250, or cleaning hotel rooms for a little more than $3 per room.

Arelina Lopez, 28, said she was making $7 an hour selling raspados and initially had no problems with her employer, who hired her even though she knew Lopez was not legally authorized to work.

She said she saw several women stop by the business looking for her boss, claiming she owed them money. Eventually her employer stopped paying and strung her along with excuses until she was owed $900.

She told Lopez to take a week off and they would call her to pick up her check. They never did. When a member of the law clinic she had gone to for help called her employer, they were told Lopez had been fired because she was working illegally.

Ultimately, the employer paid what was owed, but Lopez believes none of the women who she had seen looking for her boss were ever compensated.

Stories like Lopez’s are the reason why the report was prepared, said Nina Rabin, associate clinical professor of law at UA and co-author of the study.

“The report is an effort to try and bring that to light, to let people know what it’s like for these women,” she said. “Particularly because so often they are working in places that are unseen, in private homes or very small-scale employment settings.”

Although Rabin admits the number of survey participants was small, their responses reflect the results of larger studies that have found the same patterns in metropolitan areas across the country.

“I would have hoped that some of it would have been somewhat better in Tucson, since we think of ourselves as an immigrant-welcoming city and as a progressive place,” she said. “It was somewhat disappointing to see it’s the same here as anywhere in the country.”

The report includes a series of recommendations at the state and local levels to improve conditions not only for low-skilled immigrant workers, but for the larger, low-wage worker population, as well.

While the report praises Chapter 17 of the Tucson City Code, which prohibits workplace discrimination and broadly protects workers, it proposes that the city expand enforcement, pass a domestic workers bill of rights, set minimum-wage requirements for all employees, and increase the minimum wage.

Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said that, while he is open to starting a discussion on raising the minimum wage — and potentially creating a registry for domestic workers, along with a place where they could receive aid — it is with worker education that any change should begin.

“Many of these women are in a situation where they don’t know what their rights are or how to get to them,” Rothschild said.

The mayor said the public, private and nonprofit sectors should come together to give low-wage workers access to that knowledge.

“That looks like the most critical need, because a lot ... are things that are going to be hard to change. But if people can individually come in and point out the issues, then the law can begin to deal with them.”

Rabin said that while lack of information is definitely a real issue, so is fear of coming forward to seek it out.

For women working illegally, the fear of deportation is clear on its face. But even for women who can legally work, many are in mixed-status families, and are not willing to take the risk.

“It’s also a tough employment situation right now, and people don’t want to lose their jobs, whether they have papers or not,” she said.

The report, said Rabin, is intended as a first step.

“A number of the local recommendations are very doable. With community support, they could gain some traction and continue to set Tucson apart as a place that’s more sensitive to the needs of low-wage and immigrant workers.”

Rosa Robles Loreto spent Saturday night surrounded by friends and supporters who helped keep her spirits up as she entered day 38 of her sanctuary stay at Southside Presbyterian church.

She is the second immigrant to seek refuge this year at the Tucson church after being threatened with deportation, and one of three sanctuary cases in Arizona since May.

Accustomed to having her time filled with work, her family and church activities, the 41-year-old mother of two said being confined inside the walls of the church brings good days and bad.

Days when she spends her time in tears, wondering if it’s all worth it, and days when she is filled with hope and the thought of keeping her family together inside the country is all that matters.

For now, she said, there are more good days than bad.

“I knew when I came in here that I was coming in to fight. Yes, it’s hard, but I have faith and I’m moving forward,” Robles Loreto said from inside the small room she shares with her husband and sons.

Robles Loreto entered sanctuary on Aug. 7, a day before a deportation order against her took effect. Her lawyer’s request that the government grant her a stay of removal was denied.

Originally from Hermosillo, Sonora, Robles Loreto has lived in Tucson since 1999 with her husband Gerardo Grijalva and their children. In 2010, she was pulled over by a Pima County sheriff’s deputy over an incorrect lane change.

When the deputy discovered she was in the country illegally, he called Border Patrol and she spent two months at the Eloy detention center.

Memories of being detained help her put the current situation in perspective. Inside the church, she is with her family and surrounded by people who care about her, she said, a far cry from when she was in Eloy.

“All of that gives me strength to keep going, this is nothing compared to what I went through,” she said.

But as in Eloy, what weighs heaviest is the sense of uncertainty. Although she’s sure that her case will be resolved, she can’t help feel the creep of desperation — if this will end, when will it end?

All she can do right now is wait. The last time she heard from the government was when they denied her petition to suspend her deportation order.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave a similar initial response to Daniel Neyoy Ruiz, who was in sanctuary at Southside Presbyterian from May 13 to June 9. ICE eventually granted Neyoy Ruiz a one-year stay.

But although the the Robles Loreto and Ruiz cases are similar — both would seem to fall under the Obama administration’s guidelines that immigrants with no criminal record and strong community ties be low-priority targets — advocates said there are other factors in play.

“Granting a stay is highly discretionary, and that discretion gets swayed with what’s happening politically,” said Sarah Launius, an immigrant rights activist involved in the case. “This is as much a legal intervention as trying to engage with the political reality that we’re in.”

That reality includes a lack of action on the part of President Obama, who recently delayed any executive decision on immigration until after the midterm elections, along with anti-immigrant feeling.

Robles Loreto said she has read internet comments about her case that have affected her, but she said the negative reaction has been small compared to the support she has received.

On Sept. 2, the Pima County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that asked the federal government to close her deportation case and last Tuesday Councilman Steve Kozachik sent a letter supporting a stay of deportation.

Those efforts joined the thousands of letters, signed petitions and emails that federal immigration officials have received from supporters and religious congregations.

“The fact that Rosa is in the situation she is in now should serve as a rallying cry to people of faith everywhere that when our government fails to act with justice and compassion it is our responsibility to hold them accountable and to intervene,” said Southside pastor Alison Harrington.

Robles Loreto said she’s grateful for all the help the community has given her, and that while things may be difficult now, Tucson is where her family has made their home and she’s not ready to give up.

“I can’t imagine life anywhere than here,” she said.

Wanting to be a part of history and to join the celebration in Arizona, Robert Gordon, 71, and Stephen Kraynak, 67, became one of the first same-sex couples to get married in Tucson.

“It’s a validation by the state of Arizona that we’ve been waiting for since we moved here,” Kraynak said. “We never thought Arizona would beat the state of Ohio in terms of marrying same-sex couples, but here it is happening today.”

The couple, who have been together for 16 years, moved to Tucson from Columbus almost four years ago .

Dressed in matching guayaberas, Gordon and Kraynak tied the knot Friday outside Pima County Superior Court, part of a wave of same-sex couples who wasted no time getting their marriage licenses after Attorney General Tom Horne said he would not fight the landmark decision yesterday morning  striking down the state’s gay marriage ban.

Pima County Superior Court Clerk Toni Hellon said about 65 marriage licenses were issued Friday by 6:30 p.m., which is double the usual number on any given day. The court will not keep a breakdown of same-sex couples seeking a license because it is discriminatory, she said.

Hellon said her office also received several telephone calls from people who were disgruntled with the new law.

For some couples who rushed downtown Friday, the sudden end to years of waiting seemed unreal.

“Coming down here, we weren’t really believing that this was going to happen,” said Kristin Gunckel. “Even walking in we were going, ‘Do you think they’ll really do it?’ ”

Gunckle and her partner, Marcy Wood, have been together for 22 years and said they have been fighting for their right to get married for a long time.

“In 2004 we lived in Michigan and were there when they passed a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. We campaigned against that and it was a real heartbreaker,” Wood said. “So to be here 10 years later, just a decade, able to get married is astonishing.”

Jennifer Shelton said she was excited and overwhelmed as she and her partner, Katherine Harrison, walked out of Superior Court with their marriage license in hand.

The couple, who met 20 years ago and have been together for three, already planned to have a commitment ceremony today, so the timing was perfect, they said.

“It was more about us showing our love for each other, which is why we’re going to have our ceremony,” Harrison said. “I just think it’s amazing that we got this — now we get to pay off each other’s debt.”

Although Harrison joked, Shelton said their previous lack of rights as a same-sex couple weighed on both of them.

“I worried a lot about not being able to see her, or vice versa, if anything were to happen. The things that we own, and just being able to have the same rights as everybody else,” Shelton said.

Many couples at the courthouse spoke of the importance of the legal rights that come with having their unions recognized by the state.

“When my former partner died in the ‘90s in Ohio, I lost about 40 percent of our joint resources to taxes and inheritance,” Gordon said. “Things like that wouldn’t have happened had we been legally married.”

But along with the financial benefits, society’s validation of their relationships was also a motivator.

“People that you talk to anywhere in the world understand what it means if you say you are a married couple,” Kraynak said. “The other possibilities of civil union and so forth just do not carry the meaning that marriage does.”

Christina Koulouris and Carmen Diaz took an extended lunch hour to rush to the courthouse before heading back to work.

Together since 2006, the couple called the occasion history in the making and said they weren’t worried about any backlash.

“People are going to hate and they can hate all they want, but I’m the one that’s happy,” Koulouris said.

Diaz looked forward to being able to take her partner’s last name, while Koulouris said they planned to have a ceremony in March, a large one.

“It’s going to be a big wedding,” she said. “I’m Greek, so it’s going to be a big fat Greek-Mexican wedding.”

Aaron Singleton barely had time for coffee as he rushed out the door Friday morning, so news of the landmark court decision was lost in his morning routine. But his partner, Dustin Cox, soon called to tell him.

“I picked it (the phone) up and he said, ‘Hey — serious question — do you want to go down and get married today?’ ” Singleton remembers. “Sure, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s be a part of history,” he told Cox.

The couple had plans to go to Nevada in the coming weeks, believing Arizona would not allow them to marry in the near future. Instead, they were among the first same-sex couples to get married in Tucson.

Cox spent the hours before the wedding convincing his best friend and business partner to quickly become a minister so she could marry them.

State Rep. Stefanie Mach hastily applied for an online ordination as a minister, enabling her to marry the couple about 3 p.m.

Outside the courthouse, members of Rincon Congregational United Church of Christ, Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson and Saguaro Christian Church gathered in support and greeted exiting couples with applause.

“It was important to us on a historic day to come out as more of a show of support than anything,” said the Rev. Owen Chandler, senior minister at Saguaro Christian. “We wanted to let those that have gathered for this special day know that at least a few religious voices in this community will celebrate and honor this.”

Chandler remained outside the Pima County Superior Court building into Friday night, marrying couples who showed up in the evening. He had officiated at the weddings of 11 couples by shortly after 7 p.m.

Among those was Stephanie Ludwig, 41, a spiritual services provider at a resort, and Juanita Rountree, 55, who works for a medical manufacturer in quality assurance. The couple have been in a relationship for 10 years, and moved from Flagstaff to Tucson in May.

More than seven years ago, the couple exchanged vows before a minister at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Flagstaff, but they knew the marriage wasn’t legally recognized.

While they exchanged vows and rings for a second time, Ludwig jumped with happiness before they embraced and kissed.

“I feel relieved now because of the protection that legal marriage provides to our lives as a couple,” said Ludwig. Added Rountree: “I feel affirmed that our relationship is recognized by the state, and for the first time in my life I will be able to check ‘married’ in all legal documents.”

The couple went to eat dinner at a downtown restaurant, and in December they plan to honeymoon in Hawaii.

In addition to getting married Friday night outside Superior Court, other couples exchanged vows in courtrooms at Justice Court.

One of those couples was Carolina Samorano, 49, and Sylvia Samorano, 38, who have been together for 17 years raising children and grandchildren. They were married before Judge Jose Luis Castillo.

Tech Sgt. Sylvia Samorano, who is in the Arizona National Guard, said she survived the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy until it was overturned. “Now we will be recognized as two married people with rights,” she said.

“This is a very big and emotional moment for us. There were a lot of tears,” said Sylvia Samorano, who planned on celebrating over sushi, while her wife, Carolina, would eat a wedding-day meal of tacos, rice and beans. A party awaited them at home with their children and grandchilden.

Said Gordon: “I think the last big barrier to equality has fallen.”

President Obama’s announcement Thursday that he would use executive power to suspend the threat of deportation for millions in the country illegally was bittersweet for the two immigrants in sanctuary at Tucson churches — each now faces a very different future in their bids to stay in the country.

At Southside Presbyterian Church, Rosa Robles Loreto listened nervously as her lawyer translated the president’s address. She has been in sanctuary since Aug. 7, with a deportation order hanging over her head.

Across town, at St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, the mood was celebratory. Francisco Perez Cordova would most likely benefit from the president’s action and would soon be able to end his almost two-month stay inside the church.

The difference between Rosa and Francisco is not initially apparent.

Both have been in the country for more than 15 years with no criminal record. Both were detained by the Border Patrol after minor brushes with local law enforcement. Both ended up with deportation orders due to legal misrepresentation.

But Francisco is the father of five U.S.-born children, while Rosa’s two boys were born in Mexico. She found no reprieve in the president’s words.

Among other measures, Obama announced that parents of U.S.-citizen or permanent-resident children may apply for temporary relief from deportation and for work permits. That’s nearly 100,000 people in Arizona, the Migration Policy Institute estimates.

“The most tragic part of that is that Rosa very purposefully, very intentionally, chose not to have her babies here so as not to offend those that would call them ‘anchor babies,’ and so in many ways she did the right thing and now will be punished,” said St. Francis pastor John Wiltbank. “That’s exactly the type of technicality that ought to be fixed in a situation like this.”

At St. Francis, Francisco said he felt happy that his life was about to change, but that he wished the president would do something for all immigrants.

“Maybe I had never paid attention before this, but ever since I came here I realized there are many families that need help,” he said. “I’m glad I’m included, but I hoped there would be more.”

Although Rosa said she was sad that she wasn’t going to be able to go home, it was what the president didn’t say on Thursday that keeps her hopes up for her children.

“They’re what we’re here fighting for,” she said, “for their dreams.”

Obama is expected to officially announce today that he is also expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Under the program, people brought by their parents when they were young and who meet other requirements can apply for a renewable work permit and not worry about being deported. About 32,000 were immediately eligible in Arizona, the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute estimated.

The current age cap will be removed, and the program will be extended to people who arrived before Jan. 1, 2010, potentially benefiting another 40,000 in the state.

Since it was implemented in August 2012, about 21,000 applications from Arizona have been approved; another 4,000 have been accepted as of the end of June.

Waiting for reform

The number of people living in the country illegally has been decreasing, in part because the share of Mexicans — who still make up the largest group — is down.

But even after the president’s executive action, Rosa is part of the more than six million immigrants in the country illegally who will continue to hope Congress passes comprehensive immigration reform.

In Arizona, the unauthorized population is estimated to be between 274,000 and 300,000, down from half a million more than a decade ago. The vast majority, 84 percent, are from Mexico, the Pew Hispanic Center calculates.

About 4 percent of the state’s population is in the country without legal status. Still, Arizona is one of the top five states with the largest share of students in K-12 with at least one undocumented parent, at 11 percent.

In the summer of 2013, the Senate passed a sweeping bipartisan immigration reform bill that offered a path to permanent legal status to many of those in the country illegally, allocated billions to beef up border security, including nearly doubling the size of the Border Patrol, and changed the nation’s legal immigration system to allow more workers to enter the country.

But the measure was never voted on by the GOP-led House, whose leadership insisted in taking a piecemeal approach as opposed to taking up a comprehensive bill.

Sarai Milla, Francisco’s wife and a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiary, said Obama’s actions were a good start, but there was more to be done.

“The president should have done more than what he’s doing now. He’s putting a band-aid on a large wound,” she said. “But Congress has to do something, because they’re supposed to work for the people.”

Reason for optimism

Tucson attorney Margo Cowan, who represents both Rosa and Francisco, said the president’s action may be an imperfect beginning, but that there was no turning back on immigration reform.

“We’ve already won, and we have to have a sense of that victory. We have to have a sense of the moment,” Cowan said. “This is a tremendous, historic moment.”

Southside Presbyterian pastor Alison Harrington was also optimistic.

“The door has been opened for Rosa. We just don’t know exactly how to get through that door yet, because it’s a very complicated process,” she said. “But we know that she’s going to walk out of this door very soon, back to her family.”

Sandra Yessenia Argüelles Zazueta sits in her wheelchair, patiently waiting for her life to change.

The 20-year-old has taken an eight-hour bus ride from Ciudad Obregon to Nogales, Sonora, her mother and brother by her side, to be first in line at the prosthetics clinic run by Arizona Sonora Border Projects for Inclusion.

Early-morning light floods the warehouse space that the group calls home as Sandra Yessenia is wheeled into the building. She smiles between yawns.

“I’m nervous and sleepy,” she says. “Is that strange?”

She and her mother are led behind one of the makeshift privacy partitions, where they wait for the prosthetic technicians to start working.

Sandra Yessenia is eager to go back to school, to walk into the kitchen and help her mother with dinner, to brush her black hair from her eyes — all the things she did before and that she took for granted.

It has been less than six months since a bacterial condition forced the amputation of her legs at the knees and her fingers all the way down to her hands.

Though her body was broken, she never lost her resolve. She is still the happy young woman who has always taken adversity in stride.

“She’s the one that gives me hope,” says her mother, Sandra Zazueta. “I would cry a lot when it first happened and she would comfort me.”

Sandra Yessenia says she had faith that things would work out.

“Why be depressed if we’re alive?” she asks.

Although Zazueta receives income from her late husband’s pension and her older daughter works, the family still has a hard time making ends meet, let alone being able to afford the prosthetics Sandra Yessenia needs.

Her plight is what the Border Projects for Inclusion was created for.

A true need

The group was born out of a border conference on disabilities in 2008.

Burris Duncan, a professor at the University of Arizona’s College of Public Health, wanted to go beyond the conference and try to leave something more permanent behind.

“We wanted to have medical devices, built by people who use them, and get these in the hands of the people who needed them but couldn’t afford the whole cost,” Duncan says.

After some initial funding struggles, the group was able to hire Francisco Trujillo to run the operation in Mexico and Gabriel Zepeda to begin building all-terrain wheelchairs.

“A lot of people here in Nogales would receive donated wheelchairs from the United States, but they’re not designed to operate in conditions like we have here — the hills, the cracked streets,” Trujillo says.

While the wheelchairs continue to be in high demand, Trujillo says they’ve been surprised by the response they’ve received to the prosthetics program. Since it started in 2013, the clinic has helped more than 100 people.

Three to four more sign up every week.

“There’s a lot of need out there. We launched it a year ago, and it’s just kept growing.”

Easy to despair

Sandra Yessenia is one of dozens who have shown up to the clinic this morning. Many sit in wheelchairs, others balance on crutches.

Most people have already been interviewed by Adalberto Rivera, the project’s resident prosthetic technician, who sits behind a table, handing out number tickets and sorting through patient files.

Among them are an 8-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who is waiting to be fitted with braces and a man who lost both legs in a mining accident.

He is there to be measured for prostheses, and needs to get back to work, he says. Back to normal.

Rivera, 34, knows how easily someone who has lost a limb can fall into despair, especially when economic pressures compound the damage.

He was 23 years old, had a wife and son — a normal life — when he lost his leg in a motorcycle crash.

After a month in the hospital, he was determined to regain his mobility. He learned to use crutches and went to the DIF, Mexico’s family welfare office, to get a prosthetic.

It cost $2,300. He didn’t have it.

But his friends pitched in and he was able to buy a leg, a rigid prosthetic more akin to a steel bar. But at least he was ready to return to his job. Rivera worked at a tomato-packing plant, standing by a conveyor belt all day. The prosthetic became more and more painful to wear.

One night he took off his prosthetic and expected to see sweat pooled in the socket like always, but this time it was blood. His stitches had given way.

“I felt like I wanted to die,” he says. “I asked God, ‘Why?’”

The next day he crammed a sponge and some rolled up toilet paper in the socket and headed back to work. But the fix was temporary.

“I felt like I had a red-hot coal in my knee. It was on fire and I was burning.”

He started abusing drugs and alcohol as he sank deeper into depression.

He told his wife to take their son and go live with her family because he couldn’t take care of them.

In the depths of hopelessness, he asked her to find someone else. They decided to take a break for three months.

Throughout that time, he continued to court her. Drunk and high, he would serenade her and tell her how much he loved her. She would cry and say she wanted him back.

But part of their agreement was that he had to clean up his act.

“The problem wasn’t them, it was me,” he says. “I would tell myself I was worthless, that I was a burden for my family. I was jealous of everyone.

“In short order, I lost my leg, I lost my job, and I lost my family.”

Forever changed

Sandra Yessenia was working to save enough money to continue school. She wanted to study cooking or nursing.

When she woke up that Monday feeling sick and with a fever, her mother took her to see the doctor. She was told it was the flu, given some antibiotics, and sent home.

But the week went on and she didn’t feel better. By Friday, when her family took her to the hospital, a rash had broken out all over her body.

She was diagnosed with dengue hemorrhagic fever, a viral illness for which there is no known cure.

Over the weekend, her condition worsened and she was put on a respirator. Doctors told her mother she might not live through the night.

“She was about to die. They told me she had a 1 percent chance of survival,” says her mother. “She was in septic shock, and they said few recover from that.”

But Sandra Yessenia was tough, and spent three weeks on a respirator. By the time doctors from Mexico’s Social Security Institute examined her and realized it was a rickettsial infection — a bacterial condition caused by a tick bite — it was too late.

Her legs and fingers had to be amputated if she was to survive.

“I thank God she made it,” her mother says. “And she doesn’t hold a grudge against the doctors. Sometimes things happen.”

Through the dark

Sandra Yessenia’s determination and willingness to move forward are rare, Rivera says.

But stories like hers and the selflessness of those who seek to help are what inspired him to do what he does.

After he lost his family, he decided to try and get his life back. Asking only for somewhere to sleep, he volunteered with a program similar to the Border Projects for Inclusion in his native Sinaloa.

He started out doing odd jobs — sweeping, driving, carpentry work — and saw the impact that the right prosthetic could make. The gratefulness and joy that patients expressed were a revelation to Rivera.

Inspired, he asked to become an apprentice with the program and learn about building prosthetics.

He also gave away his own leg to an elderly woman who couldn’t afford one. When he had learned enough, he figured, he would make himself a new one.

He observed, read books, started tinkering.

“When I first got my new leg, I would wear it up and down. If it bothered me, I would take it off and modify it. I would try again, and if it pinched me, I would adjust it, work on it until I was able to walk, able to ride a bike, drive a car, even dance,” Rivera says. “And I’m a pretty good dancer.”

Eventually he took over as head prosthetic technician in Sinaloa, where he spent six years before being hired by the Border Projects.

With the help of material and technicians from Hanger, a national firm — with offices in Tucson — that builds prosthetics and orthotics, Rivera is able to repurpose used parts for the prosthetics that the Border Projects provides.

He also shares his experience with anyone who comes to the group and needs more than physical help.

“People tell me their stories. Couples come in and talk about the problems between them because of a loss of a limb, because the person feels less than other people,” Rivera says. “The solution is to have patience. I tell them that I went through what they’re going through, and I lost everything.

“I don’t want that to happen to them.”

Working together

Along with Hanger, the Border Projects for Inclusion gets support from companies and organizations from both sides of the border, including several colleges within the UA, Rotary International and the Foundation of Sonoran Businesses.

A day at the clinic is full of activity, as students from the university, prosthetists with Hanger and local volunteers do their part to make sure everything runs smoothly and that patients are comfortable, even if it just means making sure there’s enough coffee.

“It’s people from both sides of the border — it’s not just the rich Americans that go down and give to the Mexicans — it’s the Mexicans jumping in and solving it,” Duncan says.

The project was originally housed at a public technical school, but as soon as the prosthetic clinic was launched, it was evident they had outgrown the space. The current location is being donated rent-free by the Nogales Industrial Park, along with utility costs. The program is designed to charge a fee for services, Duncan says, with the goal of at least recuperating costs.

An all-terrain wheelchair, which retails for approximately $900, is offered for $300. Prosthetic legs sell from between $10,000 and $15,000, but thanks to recycled parts from Hanger, families are asked to pay just $400.

Most people just pay what they can, though.

“We want them to pay what they feel they can afford to pay, and then we try to get subsidies to take care of the rest of it,” Duncan says. “Even if they cannot pay, that’s OK.”

Although the group has limited resources, there are big plans for the future, including offering solar-powered hearing aids and building a simple prosthetics shop in Nogales.

“This whole thing has just kind of mushroomed,” Duncan says.

Hope for the future

Sandra Zazueta gently strokes her daughter’s arm, once in a while playfully poking her to keep her busy while they wait.

“I’m afraid I’ll fall. I’m afraid I won’t be able to use them. I’ll have to start from zero,” Sandra Yessenia says as the prosthetists from Hanger flit in and out of the room.

“I’m afraid and happy at the same time.”

Then, suddenly, it’s time.

Volunteers bring in her temporary, half-sized legs, which she will use to practice her balance. Once she’s ready, she will move on to the full prostheses, perhaps next year.

They help her out of the chair and up on her new legs. She sways nervously, but eventually gets the hang of it and stands firm. She takes a few steps and beams.

Soon, it’s time to fit her hands.

Prosthetists attach the bright blue hands and show her how they move as she flexes her wrist. They adjust and trim, tighten and loosen, until Sandra Yessenia can close her hands with ease.

Before long, she is using them to squeeze gauze, to pull down her sunglasses, to run blue plastic fingers through her hair.

She laughs and blows a kiss.

Her life will never be what it was before her illness, and she still has years of therapy ahead of her, her mother says. But seeing her daughter happy makes her share in the optimism and gratitude.

“I thank God that he saved her, and God bless those people that help others,” she says.

Before she leaves, the prosthetists hand Sandra Yessenia a plastic water bottle to hold. She smiles, and everyone laughs as she tries to unscrew the cap.

“Maybe not just yet,” she says.

But soon.