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- [00:01]
Casey Grove
Alaska Public Media's every little bit recognizes people who go above and beyond to strengthen our community in Anchorage and south central Alaska. I think if someone wants to start a community event, they should just go for it.
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Shelby Herbert
I believe in serving your neighbor.
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Casey Grove
Love one another. There's always something that you can do wherever people meet one another's needs. All of us are enriched by that. Do you know someone doing good in your community? Nominate them at alaskapublic.org Littlebit.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
We trusted the process, trusted the government, trusted the courts because we filed the paperwork.
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Casey Grove
Soldotna man reckons with his family's deportation From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Friday, February 27th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, the Alaska House passes a ban on AI generated child sexual abuse material.
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Shelby Herbert
Anything that has generated obscene material of minors will be criminalized to the same level as if it were a real child.
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Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly.
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Eric Stone
The PFD application is open. Just a small amount of your PFD will help share local news and stories about Alaskans with Alaskans across this great state. When you choose a Alaska Public Media through pick click, give.
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Casey Grove
It's been about a week since federal Immigration Customs Enforcement agents descended on a Soldotna home to deport a mom and her children to Mexico. In the days since, community members, faith leaders and state lawmakers have all jumped into action to support the family amid their uncertain future. KDLL's Ashlyn O' Hara reports.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
It's close to midnight in Soldadna Safeway lobby and Alex Sanchez Ramos is between shifts of his two jobs, still in his first work uniform. His wife, Sonia Espinosa Arriaga, is on speakerphone calling from Mexico.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
I said that it was very difficult to watch just sitting there in the car. And she thought that as long as you take in to pack some things, she started getting a little bit of hope. It felt like it was just her going because why would they put a kid, children in handcuffs and detain them like that?
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Ashlyn O'Hara
And ICE spokesperson says the agency kept them together at the mom's request up until ICE handed the oldest son off to a state jail in Anchorage to be processed as an adult. Arriaga and her two younger sons were put on a plane and deported.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
And that's when she realized they were recently led and Alexi was gone.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Alexis is the oldest son who was
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
18 and she didn't understand where he was or where they went. And they told her he'll be here later on and totally misleading the whole time.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
As of Wednesday, Alexis remains detained in ICE's Tacoma, Washington, detention center, according to ICE's detainee locator database. It's unclear what awaits him. Sanchez Ramos, a lifelong Alaskan and US Citizen, says it all started with an immigration hearing his wife missed on January 13. Two days later, a letter arrived with a deportation order. The couple contacted their lawyer, who outlined steps to rectify the error. They thought they had everything squared away.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
We trusted the process, trusted the government, trusted the courts, because we filed the paperwork. And when your attorney says, don't worry, it's going to be okay because file the paperwork, this is what's going to happen. Because that's what happens in her, in her case. And you know from her experience, obviously.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Espinosa Arriaga and her three sons arrived in the United States in 2023 seeking asylum from cartel violence and domestic abuse. While their asylum case moved forward, she and her two older sons got work authorization cards. The youngest, Matias, is five years old, a kindergartner. Faith leaders told reporters they have no criminal records. The couple met in Soldadna. Sanchez Ramos gravitated toward Espinosa Arrillaga's funny personality and awesome laugh.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
Una risa bien bonita mien tene sun.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Espinosa Arriaga points out his good looks and positive attitude at work, and she says he got along with her kids. Their deportation has outraged friends, co workers, acquaintances and strangers across Alaska. Susan Knabholtz, a former Kenai Peninsula Borough School District teacher, remembers one of the boys from her class.
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Shelby Herbert
It just makes me sick to think
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Casey Grove
that all of a sudden all of
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Shelby Herbert
that was just pulled out from under them.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Knabholtz was one of more than 100 people who gathered at Soldadinus Christ Lutheran Church last Friday to support the family. Faith leaders think this is the first time ICE has ever detained children in Alaska. As Of Wednesday, a GoFundMe for the family had raised more than $15,000 for legal fees and to help Espinosa Arriaga and her kids start over in Mex. The couple says they're grateful state lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee met to review ICE's detention of minors in Alaska. One immigration law expert told the committee she was shocked at how quickly the family was deported.
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Shelby Herbert
As I understand the facts, this family didn't have an opportunity to contest the removal order against at least one family member because they were so swiftly and abruptly deported from the United States.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Elora Mukherjee directs the Immigrants Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.
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Shelby Herbert
This is not what due process requires. This is not what the constitution allows. This family should have had an opportunity to be heard on whatever claim the US Government, the executive branch, is making against them.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Mukherjee says there are lawful reasons to miss an immigration hearing like misdirected mail or medical emergency in Mexico. It's been violent since the Mexican government killed the head of a powerful drug cartel on Sunday. In messages to kdll sent via TikTok, Christopher, the Middle son, says he's scared and that he misses his girlfriend back in Solana. Here he is in one video thanking people who have reached out.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
Why are you here? Thank you so much.
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Casey Grove
You guys help me so much.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
I just went go back to my man.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Sanchez Ramos says his goal is to bring his family back to Alaska. Their attorney couldn't be reached for comment, but is challenging the family's detention in federal court. For now, Sanchez Ramos is trying to do what he can for Alexis in Tacoma and says he's trying to renew his passport to visit the others in Mexico.
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Alex Sanchez Ramos
And so empty without Sonia there and the children. And I miss him so much.
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Ashlyn O'Hara
Now he goes home to a yard with a melting snowman he built with Matthias in a quiet house. Reporting in Soldotna, I'm Ashlyn o'. Hara.
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Casey Grove
The Alaska House unanimously passed a prohibition on AI generated child sexual abuse material today. The bill is a longtime priority for a conservative Homer lawmaker. But as Alaska Public Media's Eric Stone reports, lawmakers vastly expanded the scope of the bill just before passing it, including provisions that would severely limit children's access to social media.
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The bill started with a simple to update state laws against child sexual abuse material, what used to be called child pornography to cover images created with artificial intelligence. Homer Republican Representative Sarah Vance brought the bill forward.
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Shelby Herbert
Currently, in statute, you have to prove the harm of an actual child. And what this bill does is says that anything that is generated obscene material of minors will be criminalized to the same level as if it were a real child.
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Casey Grove
And it had broad bipartisan support. Here's Representative Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. You know, the bottom line is, is that that AI is moving forward at lightning speed. Alaska is behind the curveball.
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We, we really need guardrails as quickly
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as possible to protect children first and foremost. But all of us, all of us. Thanks to a series of amendments from Democratic Anchorage Representative Zach Fields and one from another majority member, the bill that passed the House expanded rapidly. The newest version also makes it a crime to create AI generated sexual images of adults. Here's Fields. I agree with the underlying bill. I also don't think that perverts should be able to create obscene sexual material about a 19 year old. But another addition to the bill drew some significant bipartisan pushback, an expansive package restricting children's use of social media. And it covers a lot. Anyone under 18 in Alaska would need permission from a parent or guardian to sign up for an account on a social platform, and they'd have a 10:30pm social media curfew by default. It would also prevent platforms from advertising to minors or using any algorithm to feed them content based on who they are or their interests. Field says it's a public safety issue. He points to the recent arrest of a legislative State staff are accused of enticing and exploiting children via Snapchat, and he says it's an effort to reduce social media's company's influence on children. I think the fundamental question with this amendment is do parental rights supersede the rights of predators and do parental rights supersede the right of multinational corporations, which, as we have heard, knowingly target children with addictive destructive algorithms? Fields says he takes inspiration from a similar proposal in Utah. More than a dozen states have passed versions of what Fields proposed, though some have faced significant legal challenges from the tech industry. The idea drew criticism from across the political spectrum. Some lawmakers raised privacy issues like how do you tell if someone is over 18 and that they're someone's parents? Others said the restrictions could be easily bypassed. Representative Dan Sadler, an Eagle River Republicans, said he was worried the broad package of regulations could lead the bill to stall as it heads to the Senate. If I could cast a single vote, make all these things happen to be law and be effective, I would do it in a heartbeat, twice if I could. But I fear that this is such a large issue that imperils bogging down the rest of the good work that's in this bill. And it wouldn't be the first time in 2024. A bill that would have required pornographic websites to verify users ages stalled in the Senate after House lawmakers added restrictions on children's use of social media. But Vance, the original sponsor, says she's not too worried. She was one of a chorus of House lawmakers on Friday who called on the Senate to fine tune the bill before passing it into law. Reporting in Juneau, I'm Eric Stone.
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Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, an unlikely trio becomes a crowd favorite at this year's Iron Dog snowmachine race.
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Rob Hellstrom
I think all of us thought we were a little too old for the adventure racing, but we liked the riding. When we got the opportunity to come here, we couldn't pass it up.
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Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us.
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Shelby Herbert
I'm Shelby Herbert, a reporter with the Alaska Desk. That's a joint reporting effort from Alaska Public Media and kuac, where I work in Fairbanks, and other public radio stations in Anchorage, Haines and the Illusions. It allows us to connect to the issues happening in communities all across the state. You can hear our stories during The Morning News, Alaska News nightly or online at AlaskaPublic.org the Alaska Desk is only possible with the support of grants and listeners like you. Thank you.
- [11:41]
Casey Grove
Crews are about halfway done removing a colossal drilling rig that toppled over on the North Slope. State on scene coordinator Kimberly Marr says the first focus was on spilled fluids and now they're also dismantling the structure.
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Shelby Herbert
Right now there's ice roads that have
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Amy Bouchettes
been constructed in place that heavy equipment can work from. And so as of this afternoon, they've
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Shelby Herbert
removed about 47% of the rig.
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Casey Grove
Mar, who works for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, spoke Thursday. The rig is called Doyon 26 and nicknamed the Beast. It was as tall as a 15 story building and fell a month ago while it was in transit. Mar says the salvage operation is on track to be finished by spring breakup. She says slightly more than half of the estimated 4,600 gallons of diesel and hydraulic fluids that spilled have been recovered so far. The site is six miles northwest of the community of Noixit. Marr says it's about 500ft from streams.
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Shelby Herbert
Fortunately, this happened while everything is very
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Amy Bouchettes
frozen and so we will be continuing to monitor the site, delineate the contamination and put tactics in place to minimize any potential of contamination hitting any waterways.
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Casey Grove
ConocoPhillips expected to use Doyon 26 in its exploration of the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska. It is continuing that work with other equipment. Earthjustice attorney Ian Dooley filed a lawsuit over the work in the reserve. He says the rig accident is emblematic of the problems people in New Exit have had.
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There's a lack of safety, there's a lack of oversight, there's a lack of accountability that is going along with the oil and gas projects that are occurring in this area, and there is at least some deep concern by community members that their safety is not being duly considered.
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The cleanup is a joint operation of Doyon Drilling, federal and state agencies, the North Slope Borough and the Inupiat community of the Arctic Slope, a tribal government representing Newiksett and seven other villages, The Matanuska Susitniboro School District, like others around the state, is facing a budget shortfall and making some tough decisions about what to cut. So far, the proposed cuts include closing three schools ahead of next school year. But as the Matsu Sentinel reports, that's not going to be enough to make up the roughly $23 million gap. And there will likely be more cuts on the table, potentially to staff and programs. Separately, the union for school bus drivers in the Mat? Su is set to strike Monday amid an impasse in contract negotiations. The Mat? Sumi Bouchatz says similar to other districts, Mat? Su schools have suffered from stagnant state funding and declining enrollment. But unlike other parts of the state, the Mat? Su borough's population isn't shrinking.
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Amy Bouchettes
Matsu isn't necessarily losing population. Right. It's we always hear that they're gaining population. But one, let's remember that a rising population does not necessarily translate to a rising population of people ages 5 to 18. But really the difference here is, is that how Mat Su is losing students is to other school districts, as those students enroll in homeschool correspondence programs run by those other school districts. And so students who live in Mat Su don't have to enroll in Mat Su school district. They can enroll in those other districts homeschool programs. And they do.
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Casey Grove
Gotcha. So as you reported@ Matsusentinel.com, there are some schools that are slated for closure. Tell us about those schools.
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Amy Bouchettes
Why?
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Casey Grove
Are those the ones that are being proposed to be closed? And then are there other cuts as well, kind of on the table?
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Amy Bouchettes
Yeah. So this week the school district announced that Larson and Meadow Lakes elementary schools, which are both near Wasilla and Glacier View School, which serves Kids Kindergarten through 12th grade in Glacier View, are being targeted because district officials say they have falling enrollment and that they are schools that can have their students sent other places in. Specifically in the case of Larson and Meadow Lakes, that's a little bit less true for Glacier View. Certainly Glacier View's enrollment is falling, but sending your kid some other place when you are in Glacier View is a big deal. And so those kids will have to be bused 40 miles to Sutton Elementary School or if they're secondary students, into Palmer for Palmer Junior Middle School or Palmer High School.
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Casey Grove
Yeah. And I want to ask you about the, the bus situation kind of here more in the near term. But what have you heard from parents about these proposals to close these schools?
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Amy Bouchettes
Well, parents are really upset. You know, closing a school is a really emotional thing. I think anybody who's had Kids enrolled in a school feels an emotional tie to that facility where your children spend all that time. Larson and Meadow Lakes both have special needs programs that people feel very strongly about. Parents from these schools are expecting to participate in the school board meeting this week. There is a Save Our School rally planned at Larson elementary for Monday evening, planned by the Parent Teacher Association. And so folks are really upset about. And teachers and the staff at these schools are really upset about the schools being targeted for closure.
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Casey Grove
And then just so I'm clear on this, is it just school closures or are there other programs or even positions, including teachers? I guess that might be cut here.
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Amy Bouchettes
Yeah. So 23 million bucks is not going to be made up with three school closures. The way math work. The math works on these school closures is actually very interesting. A school costs about $5 million to run, but closing it only saves 1.5. And that's because, of course, the students don't go away. Right. The students are now being sent to another school. The staff in that new school has to be plussed up. The services that the students are using still exist. So between those three schools, you're looking at a $4.5 million savings. Where's the other money coming from? Well, the school district is going to introduce their proposal for the rest of those cuts next week. They basically said, hey, we're going to present on this on Wednesday. We'll see you then.
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Casey Grove
Sounds like the calculus on all of that is still ongoing. And of course, like you said, they're making plans for the next school year. But then more immediately, as we alluded to, there are some transportation issues that may be coming up a lot sooner in that there is potentially going to be a bus strike here pretty soon.
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Amy Bouchettes
So the contract standstill is sort of. It depends on who you ask. The union says that this is about paid cancellation days, wages and professional development, safety, and whether workers must pay out of pocket for additional medical screenings. While the bus contractor Durham says that this is about wages, that the bus contractors are asking too much and over health care premiums, which the bus contractor Durham says that they are doing and that the bus workers want more. So, you know, it's like any contract negotiation. It's very tense and it's a labor issue.
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Casey Grove
That was Amy Bouchettes with the Matsu Sentinel, which you can find@mat su sentinel.com hunting and fishing are deeply rooted in Alaska's culture. Yet when political candidates face off, it's surprising how few of the debate questions focus on fish and game. But this Saturday The Alaska Outdoor Council aims to change that. As KNBA's Rhonda McBride reports, the sport hunting and fishing advocacy group is hosting its first ever governor's debate.
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Eric Stone
The Alaska Outdoor Council's director says this election, more so than others in the past, really matters.
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Casey Grove
They're some of the biggest conservation issues of our lifetime.
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Eric Stone
Also big for Caleb Martin how to handle a debate with 17 candidates rather than wrestle with an unwieldy form, Martin says debate organizers let their members narrow the field based on a survey. They were asked to choose six candidates to appear in the debate. Campaign contributions and social media following were also factored in. The six candidates that made the cut, in alphabetical order, are former state Senator Klik Bishop, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, former state revenue Commissioner Adam Crom, Matt Halila, a podiatrist and business owner former state Senator Shelley Hughes and Bernadette Wilson, a longtime conservative activist. That leaves six Republicans, three Democrats and two independents out of the mix. And Martin says that's okay because the process of selecting the candidates was Democratic.
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Casey Grove
Our real focus right now is to get the outdoor community involved because there's some very, very big issues facing Alaska with the decline in chinook salmon, trawler, bycatch issues, caribou decline, Martin says candidates
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Eric Stone
selected for this debate should not be considered an endorsement. That will come later, he says, and all the candidates have been asked to state their positions in an extensive survey, which will be distributed to its members, including one from former state Senator Tom Bagich, who came less than 1% of a percentage point from securing a spot in the debate. Begich says he'll fill out the survey but is disappointed that the forum will only hear views from a conservative slice of the candidates, which he believes is a disservice to the council's members.
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Casey Grove
If you want to fully inform your members, you should inform them not just of the positions you like, but maybe even of the ones you might be uncomfortable with.
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Eric Stone
But how do you effectively juggle 17 voices in a debate? James Brooks, a political reporter for the Alaska Beacon, says that's a good question with no easy answers.
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Casey Grove
I was just at a forum that had all but two of the Republican candidates, and giving each candidate 30 seconds to answer doesn't really allow people to dive into policy, doesn't allow you to touch more than the surface.
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Eric Stone
Over the years, Brooks has covered dozens of debates and political forums and says in this year's governor's race, debate hosts like the Alaska Outdoor Council have to weigh some difficult trade offs.
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Casey Grove
As a private group, they're allowed to invite whoever they want to it. I do think that the most informed debates, the most informed panels are going to be those that present a variety of issues, brooks says.
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Eric Stone
The candidates invited to this Saturday's forum have mostly similar views on the budget and the permanent fund dividend, with the exception of clickbishop. So the focus on fish and game issues may help some of the candidates pull away from the pack. And while hunting and fishing policy rarely gets a lot of bandwidth in most candidate debates, Brooks says this political season is shaping up to be different, with a myriad of issues that put access to land, fish and game in the spotlight. In anchorage, I'm Rhonda McBride.
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Casey Grove
Three men with Minnesota roots became unlikely crowd favorites in this year's Iron Dog snowmachine race. It wasn't from setting any course records. The trio raced for the non competitive Ambassador team. But as KOM's Quinn White tells us, something else set the trio apart from the rest of the field.
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Quinn White
It's hard to miss the white haired riders in the Iron Dogs Ambassador class
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Paul Dick
got the name of the three old guys, which we are capable of that name.
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Quinn White
That's 75 year old Paul Dick, 1/3 of the group known as the Three Old Guys. His partner, 68 year old Rob Hellstrom, says their racing days are behind them, but they couldn't resist one more chance to be on the trail together.
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Rob Hellstrom
I think all of us thought we were a little too old for the adventure racing, but we liked the riding. When we got the opportunity to come here, we couldn't pass it up.
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Quinn White
Rounding out the trio is 72 year old Rex Hibbert. When it comes to long haul snow machine expeditions, Dick says this isn't their first rodeo.
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Paul Dick
A few years back we went from me, us three, me and Rob and Rex went from Minnesota up to Churchill and they thought that would be that was kind of fun. So maybe we'll go another trip.
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Quinn White
After circling Canada's east coast, Hallstrom says they headed north.
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Rob Hellstrom
When we rode up to Alaska here it was almost entirely off trail. Up the Mackenzie river, through the Richardson Mountains, down the Porcupine River. Really enjoyed it, but very physical, lots of trail breaking. We lost a lot of weight on that trip. 39 days on the trail with thousands
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Quinn White
of miles already under their belts, the three old guys thought the Iron Dog would be something like a leisure ride.
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Rob Hellstrom
It didn't quite go like that. Turned out to be a little more than we thought it would be.
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Quinn White
This year's race was marked by a series of storms that swept through the region with fierce winds, bitter cold temperatures and deep snow.
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Rob Hellstrom
We've got a lot of miles in together, so we know how to. We know what needs to be done. It's just not getting any easier.
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Quinn White
Taking it slow and steady, the three old guys arrived in Nome after a week on the trail. A post celebrating their arrival drew over 3,000 likes. Dick says their Facebook page, 3 Old Guys Ride Across North America, started in 2022 as a way to keep their families up to date on their adventures. Now, over 50,000 people follow the page.
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Paul Dick
I don't know how that got so blowed out of proportion, but it sure did. You know, that people, I think a lot of people, they kind of, they feel sorry for us. I think when you go in someplace, they say these guys are a bubble off, you know.
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Quinn White
Dick says this will be the three old guys last ride together, probably.
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Paul Dick
I got a caller ID on my phone, and if it rings, I'll. From here, I don't know. Yeah, you want to go to Nome? Yeah, we want to go here. So we don't know. So we might have to have a divorce, you know, it won't be a muddy one, but it'll be a divorce, you know.
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Quinn White
Reporting in Nome, I'm Quinn.
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Casey Grove
And that is all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Ashlyn o' Hara in Soldotna, Eric Stone in Juneau, Liz ruskin and Rhonda McBride in Anchorage, and Quinn White in Nome. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newslaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde. Kirsten Dobroth is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Have a great weekend.