Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

Arizona voters approved in-state tuition for undocumented students. The state left implementation to chance.

After Arizona voters approved a 2022 ballot initiative granting in-state tuition to undocumented students, the state put no ...
AZCIR

Patients file grievances, experts want reforms at Arizona State Hospital

This project was funded in part by support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. Isaac Contreras lives alone and he says it’s making him sick. He’s got a room and a bathroom to himself, but the ...
AZCIR

Dozens of people died in Arizona sober living homes as state officials fumbled Medicaid fraud response

Arizona officials acknowledged that a fraud scheme targeting Indigenous people with addictions cost taxpayers $2.5 billion. But they haven’t accounted publicly for the number of deaths tied to the ...
AZCIR

“504 plan” disability protection favors students at Arizona’s wealthier, whiter schools

Get AZCIR’s latest investigations and updates delivered straight into your inbox, for free. PHOENIX—When two police officers found Dante Butzberger sitting in a walk-in closet at his family’s ...
AZCIR

Groundwater regulation weaknesses exploited by industrial-scale agriculture

ELFRIDA, Ariz. — Elaine Bailey stood at the microphone at the Sunsites Community Center in southeastern Arizona, voice shaking as she described the massive scale of new agricultural development next ...
AZCIR

Arizona’s Hualapai Valley now a ‘de facto transfer basin’ for out-of-state investors and corporate farms

Get AZCIR’s latest investigations and updates delivered straight into your inbox, for free. When controversial Las Vegas developer Jim Rhodes abandoned plans for a sprawling community near the ...
AZCIR

Arizona gave families public money for private schools. Then private schools raised tuition.

Get AZCIR’s latest investigations and updates delivered straight into your inbox, for free. Last year, Arizona became the first state in the nation to offer universal school choice for all families.
AZCIR

Despite renewed attention, pregnancy and childbirth still deadly across Arizona

Get AZCIR’s latest investigations and updates delivered straight into your inbox, for free. It had been six weeks since Danielle Lerner delivered her second child via cesarean section in April 2019, ...
AZCIR

Arizona school data shows uneven distribution of ethnic groups

PHOENIX — Two decades after Arizona helped pioneer the charter school movement, enrollment data show the schools don’t match the school age demographics of the state and, in many cases, their ...
AZCIR

Experts warn of radicalization pipeline as Sedona wellness communities, anti-government groups share space

SEDONA—Natural light filtered through New Age tapestries covering skylights at the Ultimate Light Mission community center on the outskirts of Sedona, softening the afternoon sun as the woody ...
AZCIR

Arizona asset seizures net $200M in past five years

Get AZCIR’s latest investigations and updates delivered straight into your inbox, for free. Civil asset forfeiture laws let Arizona police seize tens of millions of dollars in cash and property each ...
AZCIR

God-given rights: The nationwide spread of the ‘constitutional sheriff’

Get AZCIR’s latest investigations and updates delivered straight into your inbox, for free. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Against the background hum of the convention center, Dar Leaf settled into a club ...