The Institute is a cooperative program between the New York Times Company and various organizations for the benefit of their student members. Candidates must be student members of either the National Association of Hispanic Journalists or the National Association of Black Journalists or may be enrolled at a historically black college or university.

The next Institute in 2010 will be held May 16 to 31 at Dillard University in New Orleans for students who are members of the National Association of Black Journalists, or who are enrolled at a historically black college or university that is represented by the Black College Communication Association. The postmark deadline to apply for the May Institute is Feb. 27, 2010, and students will be notified whether they have been selected no later than March 27, 2010.

The next Institute for student members of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists will be held in January 2011 in Miami. (The January Institute alternates between Miami and Tucson.)

(For either Institute, students who wish to attend but may have academic conflicts should contact the director of the Institute, Don R. Hecker, hecker@nytimes.com, to determine if special arrangements can be made.)

Applications should be sent to PO Box 2690, Times Square Station, New York, NY 10108.

Students are competitively selected by a panel of journalists at The New York Times. Applicants must submit an essay of up to 500 words on why they want to be journalists; six published writing or editing clips, or portfolios of their work if they are submitting visual material; and a completed Institute application form.

Graduates of the Institute have interned at or now work at some of the most prestigious news organizations in the United States, including The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe and, of course, The New York Times itself, along with many other newspapers and news organizations.

Supervised by veteran journalists from The Times, The Boston Globe and the Times Company’s Regional newspapers in a newsroom environment, the students cover events in the cities where the Institutes are held. At previous Institutes, the students’ work has explored issues across the entire spectrum of American life. They have interviewed a Presidential candidate, covered Presidential speeches and explored a variety of national political issues. And they have spotlighted the plight of the homeless in wealthy communities, shown the challenges to immigrants both legal and illegal, and produced dozens of other stories that give voice to both ordinary and extraordinary people.

Application form:

New York Times Student Journalism Institute in New Orleans (May 2010)

La Pilita Museum (Amanda Portillo/NYTI)

While sitting at a picnic table near the entrance of La Pilita Museum in the Barrio Viejo neighborhood of Tucson, Fred Leyva, a museum volunteer, reminisced about a nearby house.

“That belonged to my mother’s godmother,” he said. The house is now a law office. Other homes in this neighborhood have also been turned into businesses. Part of Barrio Viejo is now the location of the Tucson Convention Center.

If people ask where he was born, Leyva replies “the TCC,” he said, chortling.

Leyva’s family has deep roots in Tucson, dating to the 1880s, when his family migrated from Sonora, Mexico. The house he pointed out across from the museum was built in the same era. A retired state worker, he has been volunteering as an oral historian for the museum’s “Barrio Memories” exhibition, one of nine elders from Barrio Viejo who volunteered to share their memories.

La Pilita Museum sits in an old adobe building just southwest of downtown Tucson. The museum’s program director, Joan Daniels, said the “Barrio Memories” exhibition was typical of the museum’s programming. The museum’s greater mission is to celebrate and maintain the history of both Barrio Viejo and the city of Tucson, she said.

In addition to oral histories, La Pilita offers historical photographs, showcases artwork and has a self-guided walking tour.

Fred Leyva inside La Pilita Museum (Amanda Portillo/NYTI)

The tour takes visitors through local landmarks, like the Carrillo Gardens and Elysian Grove park. A shrine, EL Tiradito, on the north side of the museum, is a National Historic Landmark. It honors a folk hero who died bearing the stigma of a sinner, and it is said that those who light a candle in his memory are granted a wish.

After urban renewal planning and development started in the 1960s and 1970s, much of the area Leyva once called home was demolished to make room for places like the Convention Center. Other structures, like La Pilita, now serve as a reminder of the past.

“Even though it was a very poor neighborhood, the people were very, very close, and we looked after each other,” Leyva said.

He recalled a period when landlords came by and told his mother they were raising the rent from $25 to $35, something she could not afford. His family tried to convince the landlords that they couldn’t pay the increase, to no avail. The family eventually had to leave.

Moving day still resonates with him.

“December 23, 1956, just before Christmas,” he said, nearly rising from his seat, and jabbing the air with a pointed finger as he emphasized each word.

Leyva was less angry than nostalgic. His family had lived in the house for over 50 years. He believes the rent increase came because the landlords knew urban renewal plans were in the works for the area.

“They really thought they were going to get big bucks for the property, which of course didn’t happen,” he said. “Most of the homes in the neighborhood were condemned. I don’t think they made that much money.”

La Pilita is situated where the entrance to Carrillo Gardens was before the 1900s. In the last century, Barrio Viejo and other nearby neighborhoods, Barrio El Hoyo and El Jardin, were tight-knit Mexican-American communities.

When people stop by La Pilita, Leyva answers questions and shares his opinions about how the neighborhood’s history has unfolded.

Perhaps the most common question is “What is a barrio?” Leyva said. He describes it as the most familiar areas of one’s neighborhood. He also explains when various homes and buildings were built, based on their styles of architecture.

And what does he think of how the neighborhood has changed?

Leyva said he wished the city had restored older buildings and made the area more of an old town. To him, the Tucson Convention Center is “just one big block of cement.”

“It’s lost a lot of intimacy,” he said.

Leyva does like how some parts of the neighborhood have been gentrified, with offices and upscale homes. He laments that people no long know each other the way they used to but says he is grateful to take part in La Pilita’s exhibition.

“From time to time I just love to just walk through the neighborhoods and just try to remember things,” he said. “Families and friends.”

“Barrio Memories” runs through Jan. 29.

Leyva points out a house in the neighborhood with strong family ties- Audio

Leyva, on he likes to remember his days in the barrio- Audio

Though tags hang from every chime, they are not for sale.

Each is a “Ben’s Bell,” a token of kindness inspired by a family’s tragic loss.

In March 2002, 5-year-old Matthew Packard and his 2-year-old brother, Ben, were playing with a friend when their mother, Jeanette Mare-Packard, noticed Ben’s cough. Soon after, his airway closed and Ben was unconscious.

“It all happened in the course of a few minutes,” Mare-Packard said. Ben died March 29 of croup, just short of his third birthday.

While running a year later on a river trail in Tucson — where many artists display their mosaic tile work — the idea of making ceramic chimes popped into Mare-Packard’s mind.

“Like many grieving parents, I had an urge to want to do something in honor of my child,” she said.

Hundreds of Ben’s Bells were originally distributed throughout Tucson, waiting in random locations with a note for whoever found the bell to take it home and promote kindness.

Almost seven years later, the project has evolved beyond Mare-Packard’s wildest dreams, shifting from a coping method to a pay-it-forward-style symbol of community and kindness.

The operation moved from the Packard’s garage into a studio near the University of Arizona campus, and the volunteer base expanded from the original group of friends to include college students and other community members who stop by to shape and paint the ceramic pieces.

“The pieces are a symbol of community within itself,” said Colleen Conlin, Ben’s Bells’ studio manager.

Large “belling” distributions happen twice a year — on the anniversary of Ben’s death and on a secret date in the fall. At those times, hundreds of bells are dispersed throughout Tucson for unassuming citizens to find.

The giving doesn’t stop there. Every week, a different Tucsonan is chosen to receive a bell via nomination. Ben’s Bells receives hundreds of letters every week.

Dea Salter, a retired supervisor for the Tucson School District, remembered when a principal she worked with was honored with a bell hung on the school fence. “He was over the moon for the longest time,” she said.

Salter sat in one of the studio rooms painting a ceramic flower red on Sunday afternoon with other members of the Church of the Painted Hills in Tucson. They had come to volunteer as part of a service project with the church, but Salter said it was much more than that.

“There’s nothing like giving back to the community,” she said. “And this is kind of therapeutic.”

New York City recently got belling therapy. On Sept. 11 last year, 600 Ben’s Bells were distributed throughout the five boroughs to help bring joy to a city on the anniversary of a devastating day.

Bells have made it to almost every corner of the world. Argentina, France, Australia and South Africa are few of the other countries that have been “belled.”

For 15-year-old Elizabeth Martinez, the bell-making process is a form of global kinship.

“I’m always happy to hear the bells,” Martinez said. “It’s like the wind carries the kindness all over the world and it connects us all.”

The meeting will outline cuts to several agencies, including Access Tucson, said Mark Kerr, an aide to City Councilor Steve Kozachik. The cuts will affect fiscal 2010, which ends on June 30.

Kerr said two council members suggested cutting financing for nongovernmental agencies to balance the budget.

Sam Behrend, executive director for Access Tucson, said that the group had already used a large part of its budget, and that cuts would leave the station scrambling.

“If it passed we wouldn’t see a penny at all,” he said of the cut.

Repeated efforts to reach council members about the proposed cuts were unsuccessful. The City Council meeting will be at 2 p.m. at the Leo Rich Theatre at the Tucson Convention Center. The meeting will include a presentation of the cuts, followed by a discussion.

Access Tucson was created in 1984 and serves as a public forum featuring local shows on music, arts and politics, Behrend said. It also provides a place for members of the community to create media and attend classes.

The station receives 80 percent of its financing from the city, Behrend said. The other 20 percent comes from fundraisers and grants, and from classes offered to the public.

The city finances Access Tucson through a $1.38 monthly cable tax, Behrend said.

Helen Soule, director of the Alliance for Community Media, a national advocacy group based in Washington, said that financing of public access stations has been cut nationwide.

Behrend said Access Tucson had already seen its budget cut by the city recently.
In December 2008, the middle of the last fiscal year, the city cut the station’s financing by 10 percent, and in July 2009, part of the current fiscal year, Access Tucson’s budget was cut by 15 percent, Behrend said.

If the proposed cuts are passed, Behrend added, the station will consider all its options, including adopting a model to operate with fewer employees. Access Tucson has 11 full-time and three part-time employees.

Jana Segal, a Tucson resident, has used Access Tucson’s services for about 13 years. She has used equipment to make short films, and her children have taken some of the station’s classes. She said she hopes the financing cuts are rejected.

“It will be just a crime” if there are cuts, Segal said. “One of the good things about Tucson is Access Tucson.”

The reason for the shortfall: The agency invested almost 40 percent of its $12 million budget — $4.8 million — in an “appropriate mix” of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, certificates of deposit and other investments and lost $1 million in fiscal year 2008-09, said Dan Duncan, a United Way spokesman.

United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona gives 29 organizations $884,400 quarterly in unrestricted funds for programs like housing and education. It owes about half that amount to agencies including the Pima Council on Aging, the Tucson Nursery School Infant Toddler Center, Chicanos por la Causa Inc. and the Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona Inc.

The losses forced United Way to take money out of its investments to cover certain expenses. Duncan could not elaborate, as he was not familiar with the details surrounding the organization’s investment practices.

Twenty-eight charities have been waiting since October for $392,500. One organization, the Tucson Nursery School Infant Toddler Center, which was in financial turmoil, received $7,500. The amount was half of the $15,000 promised.

United Way’s goal is to pay all charities by the end of the fiscal year, in June. It is working on sending partial payments by the end of the month, Duncan said.

Amid the financial trouble, the organization’s chief financial officer left his position in July. The position wasn’t filled until November.

Tillie Arvizu, vice president of Chicanos por la Causa, an organization that leads various assistance programs statewide, said her agency hasn’t been affected in the short term because it is a large organization.

“I’m sure it’s hurt small organizations because they have smaller budgets,” Arvizu said.

She did say Chicanos por la Causa depended on about $30,000 from United Way to pay for a housing consultant.

“We do need the money, but we are not in danger of closing our doors,” she said.

Arvizu said the board chairman of United Way of Tucson, Ronald Sable sent an e-mail message saying that the organization was having problems with cash flow, and that this was creating a domino effect, but that the message was “vague.”

This is not the first time United Way of Tucson has faced challenges over its financial practices.

A few years ago, a company owned by the wife of a United Way board member, Steve Banzhaf, was awarded a $115,000 contract to do event planning and marketing for the organization. At the time, some questioned whether awarding the contract to a relative of Banzhaf, who led the United Way’s human resources committee, was appropriate.

“We went through a competitive bid process as our policies require, and she was the successful bidder,” Duncan said.

United Way policy requires that a contract of that size have at least three bids, which is how many Duncan said the organization had. In addition, Steve Banzhaf was not involved with the process of awarding the contract, he said.

“The important piece here is that we followed our bid process,” he said, adding that United Way filed everything on its taxes.

“We clearly disclosed everything,” Duncan said, “so we weren’t trying to hide it.”

The business relationship between United Way of Tucson and the event planning company, Monsoon Marketing, ended three years ago. Lori Banzhaf, the owner, had no comment when contacted Sunday.

Sable, the regional United Way chairman, said the community could still have faith, despite the current shortfall.

Duncan said the organization was working with two financial consultants — Beach, Fleischman & Co. and Devries & Associates — to figure out where things went wrong and to ensure they don’t go awry again.

If this is true — if the large cats really have disappeared from the landscape — why are representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expected to announce Tuesday whether they will designate a protected habitat for jaguars in this country?

Environmentalists argue that if the territory of jaguars, an endangered species, is given special protection, it will help build the large cats’ population in this country, drawing jaguars that are more prevalent in Mexico and Central and South America.

But the Fish and Wildlife Service decided in 1997 that giving jaguars a protected habitat was “not prudent,” because they were already scarce in this country.

Once an animal is put on the endangered species list, federal law requires that the agency create a plan to rebuild the population and declare its environment as critical for survival. But the service can forgo those steps if it determines the habitat will not help preserve species, the law says.

Officials reopened the matter in 2007, after two environmental groups — Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for Biological Diversity — sued the federal government and asked Fish and Wildlife to reconsider its initial decision.

“Like all imperiled animals and plants, jaguars need their homes protected,” said Michael Robinson, a conservationist for the Center for Biological Diversity. Since “critical habitat has shown to be extraordinarily successful,” he said, it’s “not surprising” that the jaguar population did not improve.

The government was forced to reconsider its decision after federal Judge John M. Roll ruled against the service’s original decision that the designation of critical habitat for the jaguar was not practical. Roll concluded that the service didn’t use “the best science available.”

The agency, Robinson explained, did not consider the breadth of land the jaguars once roamed here. Historically, jaguars have lived in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere in the southeastern United States.

Now, few if any jaguars roam locally, and much of the habitat that is truly critical for the species’ survival is in Mexico and Central and South America, Fish and Wildlife officials said in court documents.

Attorneys for the service could not be reached for comment.

The lack of jaguars in the United States is hardly in dispute. There have been only four sightings of the large cat since 1996, and Fish and Wildlife representatives contend that these individual jaguars are simply using the area for foraging and not as a permanent habitat.

The jaguar last sighted — a male cat nicknamed Macho B by officials of the Arizona Game and Fish Department — was caught last year in southern Arizona and fitted with a tracking collar. Soon after, he experienced kidney failure and was euthanized. No other jaguars are known to live in the United States.

Fish and Wildlife officials were originally expected to decide by Jan. 8 whether to give jaguars a protected habitat, as designated by Judge Roll in March. But the service asked for an extension until Tuesday to coordinate with its national branches and finalize its decision on a recovery plan.

The delay “didn’t seem to make too much sense,” Robinson said. “They had a long time to meet this deadline.”

Rows of bike forks fill a stand from floor to ceiling at Bicycle Inter-Community Action and Salvage, an education and recycling center for bicylces in Tucson. (Samantha M. Sais/NYTI)

“It’s a complete sensory overload, which is a good thing,” said Casey Wollschlaeger, a mechanic at the cooperative, Bicycle Inter-Community Action and Salvage, known as Bicas.

At Bicas, people of all ages and walks of life can learn to fix their bikes, use the space to make repairs and purchase parts.

“By teaching them how to fix their own bikes, people feel more empowered,” Wollschlaeger, 30, said.

She remembers lifting a 4-year-old girl to reach a wrench on the wall to help her fix her first bike. The girl kept running outside to tell her father about what she was learning.

“She was so thrilled to learn how to fix her bike without her dad,” Wollschlaeger said.
“It’s really important for little girls to have access to tools and work on their own.”

The bike co-op caters to people of various incomes and offers a work exchange program where patrons can help in the shop in exchange for use of the space. Working in the shop costs clients $4 an hour but no more than $12 a day, and the used parts go for $1 to $5.

“It’s fantastic to work on my bike and get parts for dirt cheap,” said Carl Mitchell, 48, a bricklayer from Tucson. “I come down here for everything. I can’t find another place like it.”

Bicas also supports local artists who often stop by to pick up parts for sculptures and other art pieces. Every year, Bicas holds a bicycle art auction, which draws community members from all parts of Tucson and raises money for the group

A recent partnership with Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest has allowed Bicas to offer services to recently arrived refugees.

In the bike world, language is not a barrier, Wollschlaeger said. “It’s easy when you’re working with bikes; you just point at the bike and you go over the language.”

Bicas members say the co-op promotes sustainable and independent transportation for all people.
“We get people who need a bike to get to school or use it as their primary method of transportation to get to work, even homeless people who need a bike to look for work,” said Kristin McRay, 26, a mechanic at Bicas.

The co-op offers eight-week bike-building classes. The session that starts Jan. 12 is sold out, and clients are encouraged to sign up now for the March session.

McRay, whose hands and apron were smudged with bike grease, said she’d seen more people in the shop since the economic crisis began.

“More people come here to learn how to do things by themselves,” McRay said.

Bicas had a crisis of its own last year when its rent almost doubled. Eventually the Arizona Department of Transportation, which owns the building, decided to keep the rent the same. Bicas had a lot of community support during that time, McRay said.

“We’ve been around for 20 years,” McRay said, “and we would really like to look forward to another 20 years.”

The one-story building, surrounded by plants and flowers and with a “Jesus Saves” sign on its property, was the backdrop to the Saturday shooting, which took place at 8:51 p.m. A man got out of a dark SUV and shot the two men, one in the stomach and the other in the right wrist, then fled the scene, the South Tucson Police said Saturday night. The suspect is still at large.

The man shot in the stomach was outside the shelter, and the man shot in the wrist was on the patio, said Detective Bryce Gardner, of the South Tucson Police Department. Neither man’s name has been released.

Jon Wayne Lewis, who has lived at the shelter for six months, said the victim shot in the stomach was in his early 20s and had been referred to the shelter.

Roy Tullgren, executive director and pastor of the mission, said that before the shooting, there had been an altercation between the victim shot in the stomach and the man in the SUV. The victim shot in the stomach underwent surgery Saturday night, Tullgren said.

But the police said it seemed that the incident was random and involved no altercation. The man in the SUV asked the men on the shelter’s patio for a cigarette and then opened fire, Gardner said.

The man shot in the wrist was described by Lewis as an older man who had been at the shelter for a couple of days. Lewis said the “scariest thing about it” was that the man was just standing outside the shelter when he was shot.

Lewis said he was in the sleeping area of the shelter when he heard five gunshots; he initially thought that someone had fallen to the floor. He then saw several people running into the shelter from outside.

The man shot in the stomach came into the shelter and told another guest that he had been shot, Lewis said. The guests were able to lay the man on the ground and help him until the paramedics arrived on the scene.

Lewis said Tullgren, the pastor, had offered counseling to anyone who needed it.

Phillip Matthew, an employee at the shelter, said violent episodes were not common there.

“First time I’ve seen this happen in the 10 years that I’ve been involved with the agency,” Matthew said.

Stan Hamnett, program director of Gospel Rescue Mission, said the nondenominational shelter has 101 beds. People who want to stay there must present a photo ID and a tuberculosis card, he said.

When the weather gets below 40 degrees, the shelter allows additional people to stay on mats on the floor, Hamnett added. However, when the weather is nice, and if the beds are filled, the shelter turns people away.

“Anyone can come by here,” Hamnett said. “We don’t ask anyone any questions.”

Tullgren said he was not sure if the shelter would change its policies because of the shooting.

Fernando Pascal, right, of Oaxaca, in Nogales, Mexico, after his deportation hearing. (Daniel Woolfolk/NYTI)

The day before, his hands were restrained, handcuffed and chained to his waist and feet as he sat in a large courtroom 60 miles north in the U.S. Surrounding him were 69 other immigrants charged with illegal entry or re-entry into the country and other misdemeanors.

Federal Magistrate Hector C. Estrada called the migrants up in groups of seven, their chains clinking as they walked to join their lawyers at the front of the Tucson courtroom. Estrada asked a series of questions about whether they understood the charges, their rights and possible penalties.

“Si, señor,” they answered in unison.

Estrada then asked each of them for a plea.

“Culpable,” each person responded in Spanish, one at a time. Guilty.

The defendants are being prosecuted through Operation Streamline, a zero-tolerance program the Border Patrol started to quickly convict and deport all illegal border crossers detained in a designated zone. In Arizona, this includes the Yuma and Tucson sectors, which cover more than 350 miles along the border.

Those who are caught — even first-time offenders — go through federal criminal court proceedings instead of civil deportation proceedings. This reduces their time in the court system from months to less than a day.

The Tucson sector prosecutes more immigrants than any other Streamline participant, and federal officials say they aim to increase the Tucson program’s prosecutions by 30 percent in the next year, to 100 cases per day from the current 70. About 26,000 people are expected to be prosecuted through the program in Tucson this year.

Operation Streamline began in December 2005 in Del Rio, Texas, and Yuma, Ariz., and expanded to include Laredo, Texas, a year later. Tucson joined the operation in January 2008.

The Laredo sector aims to “show prosecution” for every single border crosser, said Jason Darling, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Laredo. He would not comment on what the selection criteria are for Streamline defendants.

In the 2008 fiscal year, federal prosecutors handled 70,000 immigration cases, nearly double those in the previous year, according to a report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an independent research organization at Syracuse University. The exact number of Streamline cases was unavailable, and the Border Patrol did not provide statistics as of press time.

Raymond Kondo, assistant chief of the U.S. Marshal Service in Tucson, said a typical Marshal’s Office turns in 30 to 45 people a day.  His office processes anywhere from 220 to 330 per day, a number boosted by the amount of Streamline cases, he said.

The Streamline process took about three hours to adjudicate all 70 defendants from initial appearance to sentencing, Kondo said. “That process typically takes two to three months in a regular felony prosecution,” he said.

Defendants in the Streamline process fall into two categories: Those charged for the first time with illegal entry and those who are facing charges of illegal entry for at least the second time, what court officers informally refer to as “a flip-flop.” Both charges are misdemeanors. The misdemeanor flip-flop charge is also commonly used in plea bargains in which the defendant has outstanding felony charges.

Under federal law, a flip-flop violation is punishable by up to six months in prison; felony convictions can carry much longer terms.

Miguel Alberto Lopez was charged with a flip-flop on Jan. 5. His wife and family, all U.S. citizens, sat in the audience as he was sentenced to 35 days at the Corrections Corporation of America detention center in Florence, Ariz. The conviction will bar him for applying for legal entry into the United States for five years.

“It’s very hard to watch,” said his wife, Maria Jesus Lopez, wiping away tears. “Just because they’re not born in the U.S., we have to suffer.”

She was born in Phoenix. When she and Miguel got married five years ago, they planned to get him a permanent resident card, or green card, but she said they never got around to it. The green card’s filing fee is $355 filing, but as she had no job, Maria Lopez was stuck spending on essentials.

This wasn’t Miguel Lopez’s first encounter with deportation proceedings. In 2008 he was sent back to Mexico under the Border Patrol’s “catch and release” program, in which illegal immigrants are caught, fingerprinted and deported.

“He tried coming back on Monday,” she said, “but now he’s gone again.”

The quick turnaround that characterizes Streamline makes it difficult for defense lawyers, said Heather Williams, the first assistant federal public defender for Arizona.

“We have no more than 30 minutes to get to know our client,” Williams said. For some, the 15 to 30 minutes is enough to understand the process, she said. But not everyone understands so quickly.

The American Civil Liberties Union put out a fact sheet in July that said the number of illegal immigration prosecutions more than quadrupled during the Bush administration, while prosecution for other federal crimes decreased.

Buck Rocker, a federal prosecutor in Tucson, did not respond to an interview request.

“It’s a travesty and a parody of what we consider to be due process,” said Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith, coordinator of the Binational Migration Institute of the Department of Mexican American and Raza Studies at the University of Arizona. If Streamline continues, “What are we to think?” she said. “That they won’t do it for other crimes?”

In the courtroom last week, each defendant wore a wireless headset to listen to the translated proceedings. Up to two interpreters and 17 lawyers were available to represent the 70 illegal immigrants.

Juveniles, those who don’t understand Spanish or English, and those with serious medical or mental problems are not prosecuted through Streamline. It’s up to the judge to identify such detainees in their courtrooms.

In Nogales, Mexico, the day after his hearing, Pascal, who was deported that morning, was sitting outside a shelter. He described his experience with the U.S. court as “confuso.”

“They caught us hours after we crossed,” he said in Spanish. “We then sat in court with those things in our ears, and now I’m here.”

He dusted himself off and rose to join a pickup basketball game at a court near the shelter. As he walked away, he was asked if he would try again to cross the border. He nodded yes.

Talena Brown, 17, first took meth four years ago. After undergoing inpatient treatment, she has been sober for two years, she says. (Daniel Woolfolk/NYTI)

“I liked getting high,” she said. “I thought it was fun. And that was what it was about.”

Arizona is No. 1 in the nation for high school methamphetamine use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though in most states, the average number of teenagers using meth is about 4.4 percent, Arizona is 8.6 percent, the CDC said.

“I’ve seen that kids have begun to use harder drugs more frequently, more quickly in the development of their issues and addictions,” said Mary Specio-Boyer, director of community health for Cope Community Services, a nonprofit behavioral health organization in Tucson.

Seizures of methamphetamine in 2009 in Arizona totaled 1,190 pounds, almost double the amount in 2008. The majority of that comes from illegal laboratories in Mexico, said Ramona Sanchez, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Phoenix. Arizona shares about 350 miles of border with Mexico.

Meth brought over the border from Mexico has become increasingly common as the police have shut down illegal laboratories in the United States. There are so many fewer labs in the States that local meth-lab raids by the DEA have fallen as much as 92 percent.

Sanchez said that much of the disappearance of labs in the United States could be attributed to restrictions imposed on the sale of pseudoephedrine, which is found in Sudafed and used as a key ingredient in meth. The 2005 amendment to the federal Controlled Substances Act required pharmacies in Arizona and elsewhere to place the medication behind the counter.

Methamphetamine is especially easy to get in Tucson because the city is right between the border and Phoenix, creating a major distribution center and a convenient pit stop for methamphetamine dealers.

“We’re kind of a stop along the way,” Specio-Boyer, the community health director for the behavioral health center, said. “So we do tend to be more highly impacted by substances such as methamphetamine that are coming up through Mexico.”

The federal government has designated Tucson as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HITDA, Specio-Boyer said.

“A lot of the kids are able to get it because it’s really prevalent in our communities,” she said.

Brown said she was introduced to the drug by visitors to her mother’s home who were meth dealers. She said her mother “blames herself a lot for my addiction, which annoys me, because I knew what I was doing.”

When she first tried the drug, she had never seen a meth pipe. “I had no idea how you did meth,” Brown said. “I just knew I was never gonna do it; it was bad.”

But after a friend lit the pipe and held it for her while she took her first hit, she recalled, she let out a cloud of smoke and thought: “I want more. Do it again.”

In eighth grade, Brown said, she used her math textbook as a surface on which to crush meth crystals into lines.

Sanchez said the price of meth in Tucson today is $80 to $100 a gram, depending on purity and availability.

Jane Irvine, director of community outreach and education for the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, said that officials thought “prevention programs were particularly important for youth.” By reaching teenagers before they try methamphetamines, Irvine said, members of the Arizona Methamphetamine Task Force anticipate that teens will be less likely to start using drugs.

But public programs outlining the dangers of meth weren’t enough to persuade Brown to say no to the first hit, Brown said. Methamphetamine results in the release of endorphins in the brain, giving users a feeling of intoxication. Continued use can result in severe dental and brain damage. Withdrawal from the drug also plunges users into depression, making it particularly difficult for people to stop taking it.

Brown’s mother, Shannon, said that she began to realize her daughter was becoming more angry and more violent. Shannon Brown said she also began to notice that the meth she kept at home was disappearing. It was she who finally started the process that led to Talena’s treatment, and her own.

Talena Brown agreed that the drug was easy to get. Each day she was using, she said, she could get an “8-ball,” equal to three-and-a-half grams of meth, for free from people she knew who were dealers. She used the drug in the morning and again at night.

She also said she could still pick up a meth pipe at any time.

“I know personally where I could still go today to get it, even though people have moved,” she said. “There’s new people.”

But after having completed a month of residential inpatient treatment in Scottsdale, Ariz., and continuing outpatient support, the 17-year-old Brown is proud to say she has been sober for almost two years.