 in the process of being deported now, even though he was willing to fight and die for this country, a 13-year-old girl in the Los Angeles area reported her father being taken away right in front of her. And so I think you're gonna see more and more of that. This White House is in chaos right now. The White House, there's no leadership at the White House. Because of that, there's a lot of chaos on so many of these issues. And the country knows that, and this is why there's so many people here, because people feel like there's a lot of unrest. Thank y'all. My name is Emilio Castro. I am the superintendent of schools for the Edgewood Independent School District. What a fantastic turnout. Thank you for being here this evening. We wanna begin by honoring one of our board of managers, Estela Camacho, who was able to join us here tonight. Estela, thank you for joining us here this evening. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Once again, welcome to Memorial High School. Buenas noches, damas y caballeros. Bienvenidos a la preparatoria, Memorial. Gracias a todos por estar aquí esta noche con nosotros. Thank you all for being here with us this evening. Tonight is a very special night because we have an opportunity to engage in a public conversation that can lead to real change, not only here in Edgewood ISD, but in the great city of San Antonio. Here at Edgewood ISD, we have a vision statement that says, for every child, excellence and success in life, Edgewood Proud. We're fully committed to that vision statement, much like our congressmen who's fully committed to children, to education, and the greater good of all things San Antonio and Texas. Congressman Joaquin Castro represents the Texas 20th Congressional District and serves both the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. First elected to Congress in 2012, Castro was 2013 Co-President for the House Freshman Democrats and now serves in the House Democratic Leadership as Chief Deputy Whip and member of the Democratic Steering Policy Committee. Castro is also the founding co-chair for the Congressional Pre-K Caucus and the US Japan Caucus and the Congressional Caucus on Asian. He's been called a rising star in the party by the Texas Tribune and one of the top 50 politicians to watch by political. Castro also held from San Antonio and graduated from Stanford University in 1996 and earned, and from Harvard Law in 2000. At the age of 28, when I was still in diapers, Castro was elected to the Texas legislature while a state representative, Castro created the Trailblazers College Tour, personally raising money to send some of our students to the nation's best institutions of higher education. He also founded Essay Reads, San Antonio's largest literacy campaign book drive, served over 200,000 books to our young people in San Antonio schools and shelters across the city. To honor and express that gratitude, San Antonio grandparents and other family members have also been honored by Congressman Castro as part of the annual Families Helping Families Campaign and Dinner Awards. During his time, Congressman Castro is sought to build what he calls the infrastructure of opportunity for great public schools, great universities and a sound healthcare system to enable all fellow citizens to pursue the American dream. Without further ado, please help me welcome Congressman Joaquin Castro. Thank you. Thank you. How's everybody doing this evening? All right. Well, it's wonderful to be with you. I'm Joaquin Castro and I'm very proud to represent many, if not most of you. I'm sure there are a few folks who are not from our district here, but most folks in the 20th congressional district, which is the main San Antonio district in Bear County. The reason I say that is because, you know, you may know that we have parts of five congressional districts in Bear County. And I say mine is still the main one because it was the one that for years was represented by Henry B. Gonzales from 1961 to the late 90s. And then after that, by Charlie Gonzales, his son, and when Charlie retired, when Charlie retired, I took over in January of 2013. And I'm very proud to represent it. And after redistricting in 2011, the district actually covers a big part of the west side of town where we are now, a chunk of the south side of town, but then almost all of Northwest San Antonio. So it is actually an odd butterfly-shaped district that covers a really diverse area in our city, both what you would consider inner city area, but then also suburban area. For example, we have a part of Holodas and part of Great Forest also. And the other four districts, of course, have great representatives. We've got Henry Cuellad, who goes from Laredo, his hometown, up to San Antonio. Lloyd Doggett, who goes from Austin to San Antonio. And then also Will Hurd, who's got the largest district in Texas, 24% of the landmass of Texas. No, Will's, Will's, come on, come on. It's much too early to be, come on. Will represents the area from San Antonio all the way up to El Faso. And so we've got a variety of different representatives. Lamar Smith, Lamar Smith represents, now, I actually get along with Lamar. His views in mine are sometimes quite different. I sometimes joke with Lamar and say, I can't believe that you and I were born in the same city and grew up in the same city, right? But Lamar represents Olmos Park, Olma Heights, up through the Hill Country, into Austin. And so a big chunk of Texas also. I am now in my third term, and most of all, proud to represent y'all and represent San Antonio in the U.S. Congress. So I'm just gonna talk for a little bit, and then we'll go till about 8.30 with your questions. After that, I'll be glad to say hello to folks, stick around and say hello to folks after we've taken questions. So let me just talk a little bit about what I consider to be, and actually, before I do that, I should say my dad and my step-mom are here. So I wanted to acknowledge them. And my dad actually taught at Memorial High School for, I think, about 10 years, right? And 26 of them in the Edgwood District overall. And we grew up all over the west side of town, and I think my mom was coming tonight, but I don't see her here. I'll acknowledge her when she comes. I don't think my brother's coming, so you don't have to worry about confusing the two of them. And so there are basically two parts of this job, y'all, and then we'll take questions. The most basic part is that when somebody calls you for help in your district, you should be there to help them out, if you can, right? And so that's what actually Henry B. Gonzalez, way back when, was very famous for, was that even people that fundamentally disagreed with his politics, and there were a lot of people in San Antonio, especially at the time, that disagreed with his politics, I think everybody at least respected the man because he tried his best to help people when they called. Without asking whether you were a Republican or a Democrat, whether you voted for him or not, whether you liked him or not, if you called and asked for help, he had instructed his staff to do everything they could to be helpful, right? Sometimes people call and there's just, there is literally nothing that we can do to help. You need a lawyer to do it or something else, but I've given my staff the same instruction, and I think that they've done a great job of it. And so since I took office, I think we've recovered about $8 million for folks who have been seeking VA benefits, for example, veterans, that's probably about 6 million of it. But then other claims with the federal government, for example, Social Security claims, battles with the IRS or the IRS got something wrong. Folks have called about passports when relatives are stuck abroad and they need help getting a passport. We've helped service members who are trying to get, stays extended because they have a family member that's sick. So you can imagine the things that interact with the federal government. That really is your most fundamental job is that when a constituent calls you, that you're there to help. And I found actually that the things people remember most about your service, oftentimes aren't even the votes that you take on legislation, although those are obviously very important, it's when you are able to help them out or you came through for them in a certain way or you spoke at their son or their daughter's graduation or their school, people will often remember those things. So that is the most fundamental and basic part of this job. And we try hard to do it well. I'm sure that we've not done it perfectly, but we continue to try to improve what we're doing. So whenever we have failed, please let us know and we wanna try to correct ourselves, right? The second part of the job is the part that is often in the news more and in the headlines more. And that's the legislative part. It's both voting on your bills, voting on bills that come through Congress and then pushing your own legislative agenda. And so we've given out a pamphlet, I think, a handout where you can get information on the legislation that I've been pushing on a variety of subjects. I serve on the Intelligence Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, so much of my work comes through those. But I've also been involved in education stuff, some healthcare stuff, so you can take a look, a full look at what I've been working on. And then along with that, besides your own legislation, it's how you vote on major pieces of legislation and other pieces of legislation that come in front of the Congress. And quite honestly, I think when people think of Congress and part of the reason there's so much energy right now is because people are wondering what are those bills gonna look like, for example, on immigration, on the Affordable Care Act, on education, right? Now regardless of where you stand on those issues, I think right now people are wondering, we've got a new president, you obviously have a new Congress every two years. You know, what is this Congress with this president? What kind of legislation are they gonna be putting out? Sometimes, you know, you hear the stories on, let's take the Affordable Care Act. The Republican majority just came out with its plan, I think late this afternoon or early this evening, for its replacement, repeal, I suppose, replacement of the Affordable Care Act. I have not seen it yet, so maybe if one of you has read it, we can have a, you can fill me in, because I haven't a chance to look at it. But whether you agree with the ACA, you disagree with the ACA, I think everybody agrees that that's gonna be a big issue in this Congress and with this president, right? And so with that, y'all, Tony's gonna explain how we'll get started on the questions. Did every, first of all, if anybody that wanted to submit a question, if you wanted to submit a question, there's still time, please send us a question and we're gonna pick them randomly, so that everybody basically has a random shot of getting their question answered. Oh, here they are, all right? So y'all can see that I'm picking them at random. And I hope all these questions make sense, too. All right. All right, well, somebody's jumping to the heart of the matter here. Trump and Putin hacking, how long before we know the investigation results? I mentioned earlier that I serve on the Intelligence Committee. And so we are in the eye of the storm, y'all. The House has an Intelligence Committee, the Senate has an Intelligence Committee. There's only so much I can say without being let away in handcuffs, all right? So I'm gonna try to be as, I guess, as forthright as I can. The first thing is I have supported an independent commission to fully investigate what's happened. And the fundamental question that I believe all Americans deserve an answer to is this. Whether any Americans conspired with the Russians who interfered with the 2016 presidential election in the United States, right? And there are investigations going on in both chambers now. Now remember, Democrats don't have a majority in the Congress, they're in the minority party. So when you're in the minority party, you can't create a special commission or an independent commission on your own. Usually that's either, that's the Congress that would do that or the majority that would do it. And so far, Republicans have not agreed to create an independent commission, certainly have not agreed to create special prosecutor or special counsel. So in terms of when we will know, the answer to be quite honest is unclear. But I can say that it's ongoing, it's moving. I have been critical of the fact that I think there's a big gap between what the Congress has been told or the committees have been told. And I can't speak for the Senate committee, only the House committee. What the House committee has been told and the information that is actually known to our intelligence agencies, right? So I hope that the investigation will move at a brisk or pace that it has moved so far. But here's the point in all of it and why it matters. There, we can't let any nation or any group of hackers get away with interfering with our elections because if we do nothing and we let it go, including letting the investigation go, then you can be assured that somebody's gonna do it again in 2018 or 2020 or 2024 or some point after that. And there is a real danger. And remember, there are many countries who are sophisticated enough and capable to achieve that. What is also disturbing to me, and I think I was surprised when I heard this, but it's the truth, there is no federal law and hardly any state laws that I know of, but certainly no federal law that requires the states and counties who administer our elections to have any level of even basic cybersecurity protections. Think about that, y'all. Now, whether you're Republican or Democrat, I think all of us together can agree that that's a problem. So that's not just for the presidential race, that's for congressional races, it's for city council races, for state legislative races, for the bond issue, for everything, literally there is no law that requires the state of Texas or Bear County or Nebraska or New York or any other place to have even a basic level of cybersecurity protection. So I have said that in the future, we need to lay out, work with the states, right? To lay out at least some fundamental level of cybersecurity protection that is expected for the people that are administering, the systems that are administering our elections. Now, let me tell you where you get into a little back and forth on that, right? Look, the states oftentimes don't like the federal government to tell them what to do, right? Including on the elections. They don't, you know, they get very, very touchy when they feel like the federal government is saying you gotta do this. And so, I think 48 of the 50 states, from what I understand, actually work to some degree with the intelligence agencies, the justice department, to try to protect their voting systems in 2016, right? But there were a few states that didn't do that at all. And some states cooperated more than others, right? So basically right now, the FBI or whoever's responsible says, hey, we're here if you need us. We're here to counsel you to help you to protect your systems if you wanna come approach us. But there's no requirement on the other end that there actually be these protections. So at a minimum, even if you said, hey, I don't want the federal government to do that, then the states ought to do it, right? The states and the local governments ought to do it. So, all right, y'all, the next question. There's three of them here, so I'm gonna answer, I'll answer one of them, right? That says, will you please work to get Bannon out of the White House? All right, all right. Yeah, I mean, yeah, y'all, I mean, look, I've said very clearly that I disagree with, particularly with Steve Bannon. Steve Bannon is basically a senior advisor over there at the White House. He was the head of Breibart News before that, before going into the White House. After Paul Manafort, I believe, who was the campaign manager for Donald Trump during the election. Sometime around early summer, I think, he had to step down, and then at that point, Steve Bannon pretty much took over. So right now, it seems as though there was an executive order signed that allows Steve Bannon to be part of the National Security Council, right? Which I've said that I disagree with and that he shouldn't be part of because it over politicizes that role. And so I've expressed my disagreement in a strong way. Traditionally, presidents have a lot of leeway to hire who they want to hire. So what you're seeing now, although I disagree with it, basically, the president can hire Steve Bannon if he wants. That's not a position that has to be confirmed. You'll notice that he didn't go through the Senate for confirmation. He's not in that role, right? But I agree. I thought that the hire was very troubling and I'm still troubled by it. All right, y'all. I'm trying to read it. That's a, make sure there is an apple to apple comparison between ACA and Donald Trump's or the Republican proposal on your website as soon as possible. We'll do that. We'll set it up. All right. And I imagine that there will be some questions in here about the Affordable Care Act. So why don't I address that right now, right? So the Affordable Care Act is about seven years old now. It's been around since then. The state of Texas before the Affordable Care Act had the highest percentage of people who had no health insurance at all, right? 25% of adults, 25% of children with no health care coverage. The Affordable Care Act has helped to reduce that. It's still high. It's still around 18 or 19%, but Texas, the percentage of uninsured people has been reduced. That reduction has happened despite the fact that the governor and the legislature have refused to expand Medicaid, which would have covered about another million Texans. The federal government was willing to pay for about 90% of the expansion and was gonna require the state government to pay for in 2017, they would have had to pay for about 10% of that, right? And still the governor said no, the legislature said no, so that expansion didn't happen. So I have said that I believe that the Affordable Care Act for Texas has helped people get insurance and overall has been a good thing. Now, now that's not to say that people don't have critiques of it, right? And to that I've said this, that any bill that you pass, especially a bill that's that large, right? I wasn't in Congress back then, but it was a large bill. Any bill like that that you pass, whether it's on healthcare and education and finance, whatever it is, any bill like that is not gonna be perfectly written. You're gonna find once you put it in practice that you need to go back and at a minimum tweak it or otherwise make changes to it to improve it. But part of the problem over the last several years in Congress is that there's basically only been mostly only one approach, which is instead of working to change anything in it or really improve it, the approach has been just to scrap it completely, right? Just to repeal it. There have been like, I think 60 or 70 votes by now in the Congress to just repeal the Affordable Care Act, right? Now, what's problematic for me is that if you're gonna repeal it, okay, I disagree with that, but if you're gonna repeal it, then what is your replacement plan? Because remember, 20 million Americans, including many Texans, were able to get health insurance through the ACA because it came online. But even if you're somebody who was working, you're not one of those 20 million people who was able to get insurance. In other words, it didn't change your life in that way, right? Then if you were somebody who gets your insurance through your employer, for people who are getting their insurance already through their employer, what it did was offer certain provisions that were extremely helpful to people, right? So that's when we hear, for example, about the lifetime cap provision. Remember, those of you who hopefully never had this problem, but it used to be that insurance companies could put a lifetime cap on your benefits. So you would have these people that would get chronic illnesses or even sudden illnesses like cancer or have a stroke or a heart attack or something that kept them in the hospital and incurring medical bills for a long time. So what would happen is that eventually, they would bust through that cap and after that they were done. You weren't covered anymore. So you had a lot of people that were basically having to either sell their car or sell their house or move in with relatives or with parents or in some other way were financially basically devastated by that lifetime cap provision. So like I said, the GOP plan just came out, but watch for that one, right? What happens to the lifetime cap? The second part is the pre-existing conditions part. It used to be that if you had some ailment, right? Let's say you were diabetic, right? Because diabetes is a big problem in San Antonio. If you're diabetic, then the insurance company could either deny you coverage for pre-existing condition or put you in what was called a high-risk pool, right? Where you were paying a very jacked up price for your healthcare coverage. So a lot of people were either denied coverage and couldn't get it or they were paying a very, very, very astronomical amount for very bare-bones coverage. That was another provision that we gotta watch out for and I think most Americans, I know most Americans, because I've seen the polls on it, most Americans and most Texans agree that on the lifetime caps, the pre-existing conditions, we should all fight to protect those things. The third one is for students mostly, those of you who may be in your early 20s or have kids that are in their early 20s. It used to be that after the age of 21 or 22, they basically got cut off. They could no longer be on a parent's insurance policy, right? Like if you were a parent, you're getting insurance through your work, you can name them as part of your insurance policy. Well, they would get cut off in their early 20s with the Affordable Care Act. It allowed parents to keep them on until they're 26. So it basically allowed you to keep your kids on longer, right? So what I'm saying is, look, there's gonna be a lot of things to watch as the Republican majority proposes their changes to the Affordable Care Act, right? As much as I didn't like it, they won majorities, they won the presidency, they won the House, they won the Senate, right? At that point, you get to propose your policies and you get to present them to the country. But as they do that, you gotta be sure to watch these different things because if these things start to fundamentally change, I think we're gonna have a lot of folks in San Antonio who are basically devastated by that stuff. If people lose their healthcare coverage, if you reimpose this pre-existing condition clause, if you cut back on the age where students can stay enrolled on the policies. The other part to watch, of course, is the CBO score or the Congressional Budget Office score. What's gonna be the cost of any new plan, right? In the past, over the past several years, there had been this approach where you would try not to add to the deficit, for example. And now, I'm wondering whether they're gonna stick to that approach and not do anything that drives up the deficit or whether that will be abandoned as a strategy. So that's on the ACA. If we have some more questions on it that are different from what I just answered, then I'll be glad to answer them. All right, this is, your resolution of one month ago could lead to Trump's impeachment. Are you concerned that Mike Pence is his successor? All right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, here's what I said, y'all. Here's what happened, okay? And I know that the opinions may vary in this room about this travel ban that the president issued the executive order, right? So, the president got inaugurated on January 20th, and the following weekend, basically, he issued an executive order that was a travel ban for seven Muslim countries, people coming from seven Muslim countries. And, you know, we can talk about the policy and you disagree or disagree, but let me describe what I did first, right? So, he issues this executive order with his travel ban, right? There were people at the airports that were being detained, sometimes separated from their family members or sent back to where they came from, including people that were green card holders. In other words, people that had a legal right to be in the United States. The people that were born here, everybody got, a bunch of different people got caught up, right? So, what happened was, I think that was on a Friday. I wanna say it was like on a Friday that he issued the executive order. And on Saturday, I believe, there was a district court, a federal district court that issued a stay. So, in legal parlance, a stay is basically a freeze. It says we're gonna put a freeze on the policy that you just enacted until the courts have a chance to sort out whether it stands up constitutionally or statutorily, right? So, the court put a freeze on his action. After the court put a freeze on his action, CBP, Customs and Border Protection, issued a letter that basically said, we're gonna keep doing what the president has asked us to do, right? In other words, we're gonna basically ignore what the court said. So, my resolution asks for an investigation into whether the president ordered CBP to ignore the court's order, to disobey the court's order, right? Now, whether my resolution is successful or not, the inspector general, those of you that have ever worked in the federal government, you know, or even state government, you know, the inspector general can investigate on his or her own. The inspector general is looking into this issue. So, my resolution says that if we find that the president, if we find that the president told CBP to ignore the court's order, right, then the Congress, as a warning to the president, should censure the president. And then I'll be honest with you, after that I said, look, if you censure the president and you're sending a signal over there for him not to disobey the court's, because that is fundamental to our American system of government. We have checks and balances. We have separation of powers, right? Nobody is supposed to just wave a magic wand and ignore the court's, think about it, y'all. If you're a president and you ignore the court's, then how does anybody disagree with you? If they can't get a different ruling, right? How does anybody challenge you? There's no way to challenge you. It really is a significant, a significant threat to American democracy. So I said, so, you know, I know some people were saying, hey, you know, look, if he doesn't want, you ought to impeach this guy, right? Look, nobody, none of us runs for Congress because nobody runs for Congress and says, man, I want to run for Congress because I want to impeach a president, right? I mean, nobody does that, including myself. But I said, if the president does it again after you've given him a fair warning, then you really have no choice but to move to remove the president from office. Y'all, I will say that it looks like so far since that one episode, it looks like the administration is obeying the court orders now and complying with the court orders. I know there was another travel ban that was issued, a revised travel ban. Again, I haven't had a chance to look at it. We may be able to talk about it. Some more questions? Okay. This was another question on the travel ban, so we just did this one. We're actually asked about the revised ban, but I haven't seen the revised ban. I need to look at it. All right, let me see. I teach across the street and we have a diverse group of international students, both documented and undocumented. I lose sleep at night wondering if ICE agents are going to come onto campus to detain students. I want to know what are the guidelines ICE is using to detain students? All right. That's a great question. First, so that y'all know where I stand as your representative. Let me tell you where I stand and then I'll specifically answer this question. I believe that a lot of the fights and the chaos that you see with respect to immigration policy right now stem directly from the fact that Congress failed to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill over the last few years, all right? So in 2014, the Senate passed SB744, I believe, which had two anchors to it. It had a border security anchor. In other words, there was more resources for manpower, for basically for everything, for customs, for all of that stuff, border security, right? And then the other part of it was a path to legalization or citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. So those were the two anchors, right, of that bill. It passed in the Senate with a bipartisan vote, had about 68 votes, I think, and then it got to the House and the Speaker of the House at the time, John Boehner, instead of putting it on the floor for a vote, he refused to put it on the floor for a vote, even though at the time it looked like it had enough Republican and Democratic votes to pass in the House also. And the President, of course, would have signed it, President Obama at that time, all right? And let me tell you why he didn't put it on the floor for a vote, all right? Who's heard of the filibuster here in the Senate? Who knows? Most people know the filibuster, right? Well, who's heard of the Hastor rule in the House? All right, fewer folks, a few, but fewer folks. This will help you understand why there is a lot of gridlock in Congress when you talk to people, right? So here is the Hastor rule, which is less known than the filibuster, but very important. The Hastor rule was adopted in the 1990s, started under Newt Gingrich, actually. You remember the contract with America and everything in the 90s. So the Hastor rule is an informal rule, it's not written down anywhere, but it's very powerful. And it says this, it says that the Speaker of the House will not put on the floor for a vote any bill that does not already have the support of a majority of the majority. So practically speaking, what that means is Republicans are in the majority. You won't put a piece of legislation on the floor for a vote unless more than 50% of the Republicans in Congress support the piece of legislation. So what happened to the immigration bill is that less than half, obviously, of the Republican conference supported that immigration reform bill, and so therefore it was not put on the floor for a vote. Now, I've been very critical of the Hastor rule, and the reason is if you think about the math, what you're essentially allowing to happen in the body is that you're allowing about 28% of the body to control potentially 100% of the legislation. So you guys may be conservative or progressive or liberal or whatever, but that's essentially what you're doing, you're allowing a sliver of people to control almost all of the legislation. The only times that the Speaker at the time, John Boehner, departed from that, one of them was the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. That was passed, I believe, the reauthorization was passed in 2013. If you look at that vote, it was almost, I think it was all the Democrats voted yes, and then probably about 25% of Republicans. Another example was the funding for Superstorm Sandy. You remember when the East Coast got hit really bad? A majority of Republicans voted against that. So it was almost all Democrats or all Democrats, and then about probably 20%, 25% of Republicans. Now, the Republican objection, just to be fair about the argument, the argument was we don't wanna spend that money on the aid for Superstorm Sandy victims unless it's paid for, okay? Unless you're gonna take it from somewhere else and pay for it. And that's why earlier I said it will be interesting to see whether that is still the policy for the reform of the ACA or anything else over the next few years. So specifically to your question about ICE. I was in a meeting with ICE, I guess about two weeks ago with several other members of Congress. And after that meeting, I came out and said that I think that their policy basically is gonna be to go after everybody except for the DACA recipients who have no other offenses attached to their name. Let me tell you specifically what I mean by that. Somebody asked the question. If you have a, let's say you have a family that's undocumented, you know, some people have been here five years, some people have been here 30 years, right? So let's say they've been here 10 years. You have an order to deport somebody and you show up at their house, you knock on the door, the ICE agent knocks on the door and that person answers the door. The question was, okay, you have a court order to get that person. Are you gonna then go start asking everybody else in the house whether they're documented basically to prove their citizenship? And the answer from the ICE director was for national security purposes and public safety, we have the right to do that and it was clear that they intend to do that, right? They're going to ask for a lot larger budget to carry out their mission. So what I said was, I mean, it basically looks like you have a situation where the president intends to pursue a mass deportation policy because you're willing to pick up folks that aren't criminals. Now again, I asked them whether they had picked up any children, this was that weekend that they were very active in Austin and other places. They ended up picking up 683 people on that weekend or those two days and they said that they hadn't picked up any children. So, but just about everybody else, y'all, it looks like their approach, if you ask me what their approach is, their approach seems to be to go after just about everybody. Your father came, yeah, you know, that's a great question. Let me preface it with this, y'all. I've been very wary besides what's happening to, most Americans agree that if somebody, not all Americans, most Americans, agree that if somebody has been here and has been a peaceful person and been here a certain number of years, right? Say 10 years, they've been here a certain number of years, they've been a peaceful person, they've stayed out of trouble, you know, they've been working, they've been supporting their families, that they should, paying taxes, right? That they should be allowed a path to legalization, right? So, so my concern, my concern is that this completely goes against that idea, but also that whenever you tend to have large-scale operations like that, there's often a dragnet effect where other people who are not the targets of that, in this case, undocumented folks, legal residents and even citizens get caught up in this dragnet. So, for example, I guess about a week and a half ago, there was a flight from San Francisco to New York, a domestic flight, not an international flight, a domestic flight from San Francisco to New York, and when the flight landed, there were CBP officers who were asking everybody to prove who they were, right? And basically, you know, prove your status, prove who you are. They never answered the question, what authority do they have to ask three or 400 US citizens or legal residents who already showed their ID to get on a plane, right? What authority do you have to be questioning these American citizens about their status or who exactly they are, right? Let me, do me a favor, submit your question, I promise I'll answer it, and then I'll answer back and forth when we stop, okay? Because if not, then we're gonna, it's gonna turn into everybody kind of yelling up their questions up here, right? Okay, she'll take it, she'll write it down, Victoria, and we'll take it. So my concern, sir, is that soon people end up getting targeted who were not supposed to be the targets, and in fact, y'all, we have to be careful about that because that has happened before in our country. Remember, well first of all, let me preface this by saying, you know, we've been at low points in our country's history in terms of our politics, right? In the 1880s, when there were many Germans coming to our country, I remember Germans, were called dirty and unfit to be Americans by the British who had arrived before them, all right? When Irish, when many Irish came to the United States in the early 1900s, they were met by signs in New York and Boston that said no Irish need apply. They didn't wanna hire you, just because you were Irish. During World War II, y'all, I mean there was of course a lot of tension and anxiety and fear, but in all of that, many German Americans, Italian Americans, and then many, many Japanese Americans, Americans, right, were interned in different internment camps including a few that were here in the state of Texas. In fact, my friend, Jan Jarbo, wrote a book called The Train to Crystal City about that exact experience for Germans and for Japanese Americans. And so, and then during the Eisenhower years, there was a program way back then called the Bracero Program. The Bracero Program at the time invited Mexican laborers because of the labor shortage in sectors like agriculture, invited them to come work in the United States. Well, when the country decided that we no longer want these folks here, there was this massive roundup and in that roundup, there were of course many of those workers, Mexican nationals who were deported, but there were also thousands and thousands of American citizens who were deported back to Mexico, not back, because they were never there, they were deported to Mexico. So we gotta be very careful when we start these massive efforts that target people based on their status and then it turns into, you look suspicious, so we're gonna question you or you can get caught up in this. My, my, I've just, I've said that we need to move very cautiously on this, very, very cautiously. And most of all, Congress needs to do its job and pass an immigration reform bill. All right? All right, this comment, but I'll answer it about veterans. It says, I wanted to personally thank you for your help and serving in Congress for the veterans. Thank you very much. If you write it down, I promise I'll take it. I promise I'll take it. No, we'll, we'll let you submit it. We'll, we'll let you submit it. Go ahead and submit it. But that's, that's the case for everyone though. So, and I promise that we can meet, I promise that I'll talk to you after we finish if we don't get to your question either. Whatever issue you wanna address with me, I'll be glad to talk to you about. All right? And so, the question is about veterans. Several years ago, you remember that, that Walter Reed Hospital, right? Became basically emblematic of how we failed our veterans. This is about almost a dozen years ago now. And after that, and then an intervening case in Phoenix, where veterans were, they were basically messing with the wait times, right? The staff was messing with wait times to make it look like the veterans were being serviced in a faster way. After that came out, especially in the last four years, there's been this major effort at reform. So let me tell you some of the good things that have happened, which doesn't mean that Congress still doesn't have to do more work. But the Choice Act was passed, right? So that if you live too far from a clinic or a facility, or if your wait time is too long, then it's easier to go see a private physician or private practitioner, right? We also passed a bill in the House last year that basically was trying to speed up the appeals process because a lot of the calls that we get for help have to do with appeals. People have been waiting months or even years on their appeals in these VA cases. And so I supported that piece of legislation. It didn't make it through the Senate. And to be honest, I think part of the reason it didn't make it is there's this issue about basically VA employees and when you're able to hire them and when you're able to fire them. So there is an intense debate about that. And because you wanna be fair to employees, but we also understand that the VA has to do everything that it can for our veterans. And before I move on to the next question, I'll just say that basically my philosophy all is that the country should stand up for our veterans the same way they stood up for our country when they were in service, right? And also because I'm very proud, we have many, many, many military veterans in San Antonio. This is known as Military City USA. We still have Joint Base San Antonio. Once upon a time we had five facilities, but we still have a large group of veterans and retirees and we have to treat them right, so. All right, y'all. This is another question about ICE and similar to what you had asked, so. This is a political question about the Democratic Party and insiders versus outsiders. This is an official government event, so I'm not gonna answer political questions here. I can't answer political questions here. Just policy stuff, all right? All right. I am a senior, have a major issue with the school taxes in Bear County being so high at a time when our income is drastically reduced. Okay, the question about school taxes. So it falls outside my purview, obviously, as a member of Congress, but in the legislature I did deal with it because we dealt with taxes generally. The school districts are the largest taxing body. If you look at your property tax bill, they levy the largest tax, right? A big part of the reason that that tax is so prominent and has gone up over the years is because the legislature has taken less and less responsibility for funding education in other ways, right? So basically, the legislature is saying to the school districts, hey, if you guys wanna raise the money for your schools, you go ahead and pass a tax to raise taxes on, really on the homeowners, right? Because they're not levying a sales tax or anything like that. And so what it represents, basically, is the state government, instead of using its other taxing avenues, has decided to place so much of the weight on school property taxes. And so that's why you see that being the highest taxing authority versus, say, the river authority or some other taxing authority that's on your bill. Right now, I know that the legislature is considering some school finance legislation and, from what I read early today, some reform of property tax legislation. But I honestly, I don't know where that's headed. The legislature is just getting into the meat of its session where their committees are finally doing work. Remember, our legislature only goes for 140 days every other year. So they're not gonna be in session again until 2019 after this. So I would encourage you all, if you have those issues about the property tax, to speak to the local taxing authorities, but also to reach out to your legislators, because it could be done a different way, right? It could certainly be distributed, the taxes a different way. Oh, it appears that somebody lost their wallet. All right, anybody lose this? If you did, come to my staff. It's RBFCU. We'll have it here for you. All right, here's a question that's on immigration but slightly different. It's what process do we follow if we're asked for documents and are American citizens? I mean, I suspect if you're an American citizen, you're probably gonna say, I'm not gonna answer any damn questions, right? But really, I mean, you know, it's so hard to answer that question because I can't imagine a society where what are we gonna do? Carry our passports around or a birth certificate? Yeah, I mean, it really is a comment on where we are as a nation that you're asking me that and it's a serious question. And I know actually for some people, it really, I mean, it's especially serious because you could get caught up in everything that's going on. I mean, I would say know your rights, first of all, make sure that you know your rights regardless of what your legal status is. And you know, I mean, God, I hate to say it but I mean, God, for the people that have their driver's license and have obviously proof of who they are, it sounds so bizarre to say that in our country, but I mean, that's the case. It's unfortunate that it's getting to this and quite honestly, I think that it could get worse, Trump. All right, y'all, considering Trump's budget plan, will Pell Grants, other federal aid for college be affected? All right, and then they ask, what's the Logan Act? All right, the president has put out just a rough sketch of his budget. All right, he has not put out a line item budget. Before we discuss his budget, remember, presidents of both parties will often submit budgets, but very rarely are their budgets the final product that makes it through Congress. That was true with President Obama, President Bush, President Reagan, et cetera, right? The president's budget is basically a vision for what he would like to see happen with the budget of the United States. So let me answer your question specifically on his budget, just with that understanding. The president is basically wanting to build up our military, right? And we agree with it, we want a strong military, right? But he's trying to build up our military, but it looks like in doing so would cut in so many different areas, right? So for example, he would have a deep cut to the State Department. The State Department would get cut by billions and billions of dollars. And that's what prompted, I think, about 100 generals, former generals, to sign a letter saying, hey, if you cut the diplomacy part of our approach to foreign affairs, then that's gonna mean that we're more likely to have to spend on the military end because you're increasing the chances that you're gonna get into conflicts with different nations, right? If you don't take care of the diplomacy part. So we know that the State Department could get cut. On education, I can't say specifically what would happen, but if you've gotta cut from these domestic programs because you're gonna try to take that money and move it to the military or something else, that means very likely that you're probably gonna look at something like healthcare or education and things like that. And so it's quite likely that if some version of the President's budget passes, in other words, if Paul Ryan and the majority model their budget closely after the President's, then yes, you could have cuts to federal loans, federal student aid, federal grants, and that's gonna make it harder for people to pay for college, right? You know, I tell the story that when my brother and I went off to school, I think around that time, when we were gonna start college, my mom made a less than $20,000 that year. And so it's hard, even if you're making, even if your family's making a lot more than that, it can be very difficult for our students to pay for college. And the legislature has also committed less money over the year to our universities. So our universities in response have jacked up the price of tuition to give you a sense of scale. Since 2003, there was a bill in 2003 called tuition deregulation. So the legislature used to set the rates basically for the universities and how much they could charge. In 2003, the legislature told the universities, you have more free reign to go set your own rates, right? Well, since then, the cost of college at our public universities has gone up by over 100%. So it has more than doubled, basically. So if you're a student who's paying that amount, or those of you that are parents or grandparents who help grandkids or kids pay for it, you've seen a spike at UTSA, UT Austin, A&M, et cetera. And so it's a really big thing, a really big challenge. Then one last thing on this, we also have this very pernicious student aid debt bubble, right? A lot of people are hanging on to a lot of student loan debt and that affects their ability to get the job that they want. It sometimes forces people to work two jobs at a time because they're trying to pay off these loans and also afford to live independently, rent an apartment or a house, get a car so they can go to and from work. We're in a state in Texas where this is a car and truck place, this is not New York where you're gonna get on the subway and you don't need a car, right? You talk to some people in those other states and other cities and they say, oh, well, I don't own a car. And I always wonder, how do you not own a car? But it's true, they take the subway or in Boston they take the T, in DC they take the Metro, but for us, it's hard to do that. There are a lot of people that take the VIA bus. We didn't have a car in our family till I was about 14 and so we would take the bus everywhere. So there are a lot of people that do that, but for most people, they have their own cars, all right? All right, and then the Logan Act. The Logan Act, this had to do with General Flynn. You remember General Flynn was the national security advisor for a period of time. He was, during his career, an accomplished general, was an advisor to Donald Trump during his campaign, but apparently from public reports, they say that he had a conversation with folks and from basically with the Russian ambassador, at least according to media reports. And the Logan Act basically says that you cannot aid another country somehow. And I think it may speak to, at times when our interests are in conflict with that country's interests. It's a law, as I understand it, from the 1700s, like 1790, something like that, 1798. And so the thing is, it's never, I don't think anybody has ever been prosecuted, perhaps since then, under that act, to be quite honest. And of course, General Flynn resigned as a national security advisor. All right, all right. Well, we soon have to show our birth certificates to go to the public restrooms, all right? Yeah. All right. All right. What effect will Trump's executive order have for transgender people? Okay. I guess I would want some clarification on, if anybody's willing to, whoever asked the question, clarification on exactly which executive order, and if you wanna give me that clarification, please feel free. Otherwise, I'll try to answer the question as best as possible. The thing that concerns the transgender issue right now is at the state legislature, right? The state legislature is proposing, and really it's Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor, who is dead set on, he's dead set on passing this bill, which basically would require students, or I'm sorry, require schools, would dictate the schools on how they can handle where transgender individuals, including transgender students, can go to the restroom, right? And I have said that the campaign that Dan Patrick has run has really been based on a lot of, what I would consider a lot of fear, you know? And look, I understand that there's a diversity of opinion here, I get that, but I'm gonna tell you what I believe and I understand that many people will agree with me, some people will disagree with me, some strongly, but I wanna tell you what I believe. He's really used to campaign of fear and the campaign has been that these big hairy men are gonna go into the restrooms and attack your daughters. And remember that when we're talking about schools, you're talking fundamentally about kids, little kids, and you're talking about little kids who are struggling with their gender identity. Nobody does that just to have fun, right? Like, nobody goes through that experience. But nobody, you know, nobody goes through that experience because they think that it's just a fun thing to do. Or that, you know, if somebody's going through that, I don't believe that they go into the restroom that is considered the other gender because they wanna harm people. You know, also, I've not seen Dan Patrick lay out a case or an example or multiple examples of where that has been the case, right? And so, you know, I've said that I'm against that legislation, but I'll be honest with y'all, you know? I said that there are people who disagree with that. I was told that the polling shows that a lot of Texans actually support what Dan Patrick is doing. No, I know, I know, I know. No, I know, I know. Believe me, I know. But y'all, but I'm trying to be realistic, y'all. I mean, that, you know, that he's made the argument. Yeah, he's, that's right, that's right. Hero failed in Houston, right? They basically repealed an action by the city council. Now, when my brother was mayor, he passed, they passed the non-discrimination ordinance in San Antonio. So, but, but y'all, so I'm saying, like I suspect in this room, there are maybe plenty of people who agree with Dan Patrick, to be honest. What I disagree with mostly, I disagree on the substance of the issue, but I also disagree with the way that the campaign has been run and that it has been based on fear and trying to scare people. I don't think that's right. I think it's wrong. All right. It's, it says, how can we help and support you during these crazy times to work for the common good? That's a great question, y'all. Like I said, you know, this isn't a, it's not a political side of stuff. You know, we do that through the campaign. So I want to answer the question about people coming together for the common good. You know, I think whether you're a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, we are not each other's enemies, right? We're, and I hope that there is a lot of energy out there right now, right? Particularly on the Democratic side. In 2010, there was a lot of energy on the right with the Tea Party and all the organizing that went on. And that movement was very consequential in American politics. If you look at the elections in 2010 and 2014, it was very consequential. And what is going now, what's going on now is obviously there is a lot of organic energy around it. But I hope as people advocate for who, you know, their different political positions and who they support and who they don't support, that we will try as hard as possible to be civil, to understand that as you're disagreeing with somebody, that that person has a reason that they believe what they believe. Many of us are products of how we grew up and our experiences and what we see in our daily lives. And that in the end, you know, we're all Americans, right? We're not each other's enemies here. It's, I know that it can be quite frustrating for everybody regardless of where you are in the political spectrum. And also politics has gotten, to be honest, it's gotten very ugly since social media really took off. I mean, all you have to do is read Facebook comments going both ways. People fighting with each other. I mean, I probably get, I don't know, depending on how often I post on Twitter, I get 50 messages a day calling me everything under the sun, right? So, you know, if you had to have a thick skin for politics before, you basically need Teflon now. So if any of you are thinking of running for office, don't do it unless you're really into massacism and whether you're Republican or Democrat. But y'all, I hope that we can all remember that everybody is basically on the same team. Even though there are some very deep disagreements on policy, is I said that when I ran for office that I would always try to do a few things, right? I would try to always listen to people even when we disagree. I would always try to stand up for what I believe. And then I would always try to explain to people why I believe what I believe. And then if people disagree, if they agree with you, that's great. If they disagree with you, at least they know where you stand and why, right? And so that's what I strive to do now. And I try to, I don't know if anybody, has anybody called my office, not just for help on services, but sometimes people will call me with messages on an issue where they say, I like what you did or I don't like what you did, right? Yeah. And so for those of you that have called, first of all, I try to make sure that at least our staff calls people back, right? But I also every week take time to call people myself. So I have picked, I will pick up the phone usually after the day's work from my office. Usually I'm in Washington and I'll call people and talk to them. And I'll call people that disagree with me, you know, that say that, you know, I'll give you an example, a thorny example. There were a lot of people that wrote in after I did not attend the inauguration that said, but look, they said, well, some of them said some very bad stuff, right? Some of them basically just cussed me out. But those that didn't, those that actually made an argument, they said, you know, I don't think it's right that you didn't go. This is, some people said it's part of your job, you should have been there. Some people said that, you know, basically this event is bigger than any one person, either yourself or the president who's being inaugurated, right? And my response was, I understand the historical significance of an inauguration. I think that the inauguration is part ceremony because it's part ceremony, the pomp and circumstance, but it's also part celebration. It's celebrating the new president who's coming into office. And, you know, without going into all of the disagreements that I have with the new president, I said that, you know, winning an election wins you the title of the office, president. And I respect the office of the presidency incredibly. I think we all do. I don't think anybody would say that they disrespect the office of the president, right? And Donald Trump, like it or not, is the 45th president of the United States, right? He is the president of the United States, right? But winning an election does not earn you the respect of people, right? Let me tell you what I mean by that. Let me tell you what I mean by that. That, you know, all of us, we're all from San Antonio, right? I grew up in a neighborhood literally, you know, well, we moved all over the west side of town. We're on the west side now. I lived in four places on the west side of San Antonio growing up. But I grew up in a neighborhood where you had to earn respect. And I suspect many of you did also, right? And if you said the kinds of things that Donald Trump had said about different people, right? If you said certain things about people, then people would not respect you for doing that. They simply wouldn't respect you. So I hope that the president will act more respectfully towards the American people. All right. The question is, how will you help improve the college acceptance rate in EISD, which is where we are, Edgewood Independent School District? And I'll answer that question also for the larger district. Although Edgewood is a big chunk of the 20th congressional district, I have all of Edgewood in the district. You know, I started school in Edgewood. I started school at Holscher Elementary. When there was a Holscher Elementary, it's closed down now. My dad taught here for 26 years in Edgewood. And the district has often been challenged in trying to get more students onto college. And then after that, getting them to graduate. That's a challenge for a lot of our school districts. So getting more students into college. One of the things that I did a few years back was I started what was called this Trailblazers College Tour, which was basically taking students from Edgewood and showing them colleges across the United States to try to broaden people's horizons and get them to apply to more schools, get them to take a chance and apply to different places. But we need to basically create a college-going culture. We have to engender that more in Edgewood and in other districts across the city and across the state, right? We have to make sure that people see themselves as being able to apply to and get in to college. That's why my brother, when he was mayor, started Cafe College, which is downtown, in downtown San Antonio. And his services to anybody from whatever district, school district they come from. Thousands of students go there every year to take advantage of those services. So creating basically a better college-going culture to make sure that students are applying to college. That said, there has also been a surge in vocational and technical education in our schools, right? And that had gone out of vogue or out of style for a few decades, especially, because when my dad graduated from school, he went to Fox Tech, which I think at that time was San Antonio Technical High School, right? Or Main High School. A lot of students, rather than having a choice about applying to college or going into a vocation, they were often tracked into a vocation regardless of what they wanted to do, right? So either because they were poor or because they were Hispanic or African American or they were poor and white, they were tracked into a certain thing and they really didn't have a choice, right? Well, the country got better about not doing that over the decades, but one of the ways it got better about not doing that is by starting to abandon the vocational and technical programs, right? And so we have seen an upsurge in more offerings for vocational education, which I've said is great. We just gotta make sure that you don't revert back to where people are unnecessarily getting tracked. And honestly, I've not heard a lot of complaints about that, so I'm trusting that that's not the case because if somebody wants to go work in auto mechanics or now HVAC, these things are much more sophisticated and require a lot more than they did 40 or 50 years ago, right? But somebody should be able to do that. There should be offerings. One of the things that I've been involved with and try to be helpful to is this Alamo Area Academies. The Alamo Colleges has this program where it takes high school students and partners that pairs them up in certain industries and basically they get a very technical and sophisticated vocational education in these fields and get certifications where they can so that they then have those certifications and they can go get a well-paying job or they can decide to put off that job and go on to college, get their associates or their undergraduate degree, and then go on from there. So, all right, it says, please inform and acknowledge that we are all Americans. The US Constitution does not mention any political party. In fact, most Americans are not associated with any political party and not a member of Democratic or Republican Party. All right, you're right. There are a lot of independents out there, a lot of independents, and especially I found when I was first, without getting political again, because when I was running for office the first time, or actually when my brother was running the first time in 2001 for city council, one of the beauties about running in a nonpartisan race is that you get to approach everybody regardless of party, right? And then when I ran the next year as a Democrat, I have about half of the people that don't wanna talk to me, right? Like, you know, I mean, there's people both sides, right? Once you have a label by your name, they just write you off. Like, I'm not gonna vote for you, right? But my first experience was going with my brother walking around Braun Station East and West, for example, over on the knighthood and Tesla and all that, you know, block walking all over the place, knocking on doors that as a Democrat, if you went up there as a Democrat, you know, you probably get a different reception, right? If you had a D by your name, as I do now. And so, but there were a lot of people there who I said, voted mostly for the person rather than the party. There are a lot of people that will vote for the person rather than the party. Now, although I gotta say, our politics has become somewhat polarized since then, since 2001, 2002, right? It's become a lot more polarized since then, so. All right. Can you please talk about the voter ID slash voter suppression situation? All right. Oh, y'all are asking me all the non-controversial stuff today. All right. So voter ID, let me tell you the status of the voter ID case in Texas. It's still in the courts. The court, I believe, had struck down a portion of it and then the state government made an agreement to adjust their policy for the 2016 election and that reformed policy or revised policy is what all of you experienced or should have experienced for the 2016 election. So it's still being litigated. The federal government with a new president and new administration has pulled out of the case, which means before with the Obama administration, the voter ID law had been challenged, right? And now, because you have a new president, the new president is saying, I'm not gonna be part of the group that challenges that law anymore. So it doesn't mean there's no case. There's still a case going forward, but the federal government is no longer a party that's helping basically argue with the plaintiffs in the case. Here's why I disagree with voter ID, right? So voter ID as I see it is really, is basically a point-shaving strategy, right? So people will say, so there's a few arguments that come out, right? People will say, look, when I go buy a beer or I go buy cigarettes, I have to show an ID, right? I gotta show my ID. So when we go vote, why shouldn't we have to show our ID? And I say, because in a democratic society, voting is much more important than buying a beer or buying a cigarette. Now, so the benefit of the doubt goes to the individual American who is trying to cast their vote in a fundamental part of democracy. Now, that's kind of the, basically the substance of it, right? But then we go on to other arguments, right? So of the billions of votes that are cast over years and years, the number of voter fraud cases for in-person voting, in other words, the in-person voting that would be caught with a voter ID law is really super, super, super small, right? I mean, you're talking about a fraction of 1%, a fraction of 1% of people that have actually gone and presented ID, tried to vote a second time or whatever, using somebody else's identification, right? And so I see that because of that, I believe that it's mostly a political, basically a political maneuver to shave off a certain percentage of voters during an election. Now, it's true, look, they passed a voter ID law, 95% of us in here, we have a driver's license with us, it's no problem, right? You've got a driver's license, you can show it, it's not a problem. But they're counting on the 5% or the 2% or the 3%, who forgot their ID at work or at home, or who's a license or is expired, or who are senior citizens and don't have a license anymore because they don't drive. And when you add up that 2% or 3%, you can start to win a lot of close elections that way, right? So you're right, it's not gonna affect 90, 95% of people, but that's not the point. The point is the 5%. That's right, there's certain forms like concealed handgun license. A student ID is not one of the forms that we had tried to get on there, right? We had tried to get like a UT Austin or UTSA ID as one of the forms of identification. And so, but my point is, whatever the ID is, the strategy really is that you're gonna get about 2% of people, 3% of people for whatever it is, who are not gonna be able to vote. Those people who happen to not be able to vote fall into a demographic of people that usually vote against the majority in the state legislature and so they're favorable towards a voter ID thing. All right. With Betsy DeVos strongly believing in private and charter school funding, how do you feel about the vouchers instead of funding public schools and what can we do about it? Look, I think the president could have picked somebody better than Betsy DeVos for education. I didn't have a vote, I'm not in the Senate, but the senators voted 50-50 and the vice president broke the tie and she was confirmed by a vote of 51-50, I think. And so, in terms of vouchers, I disagree with them. And I think there is, basically, if you do pass a voucher bill, the threat of siphoning money off from public schools, and remember, even charter schools are public charter schools, right? So they're still considered public schools, so you would even possibly be siphoning money from charter schools. But here's part of the reason, part of the reason why I think that if we go down that road, it's a bad idea. Let me just give you one example. Because I think what you would basically be replicating is if any of you have ever read or heard about what goes on in some schools in New York City, right, among the wealthy there, there is this intense competition to try to get your kids into these very exclusive, wealthy private schools. And the schools end up rejecting 80% or 90% of everybody that applies. And so after that, you gotta go look for another school and blah, blah, blah. And so what I think it would do, partly what it would do, is replicate that very intense process of applying to schools that can then just, without any real standards, accept or deny people admission, right? And taxpayers would be paying for all of that. So all of your money would be going to that, right? So it would essentially replicate what goes on when all of us apply to college, you know, and you have this intense competition to see what school you're gonna get into. And I just don't think you should be doing that with people in kindergarten, right? Or people middle school. But also because, because also if you're gonna accept public monies, if you're gonna accept the taxpayer's monies, then you're also gonna have to accept some of the standards that come with that, right? To make sure that you're delivering that you're delivering well-qualified students once they graduate. And there's no requirement in the legislation, at least that I've seen. Maybe they'll come up with something new, but nothing that I've seen that requires that. So for those different reasons and some others, I think that it's very problematic. The other part is, you know who's been speaking up recently on this, is the rural schools and the rural areas. Because if you're from a rural area, a lot of the rural areas, there's no private school for miles and miles and miles. I mean, they have their public schools, and then it could be 100 miles before you find some private school that you could theoretically go to or send your child to. So there's a group I know that's been formed for the rural school districts and rural schools and students that is very much opposed to a voucher bill. All right, this one is about nuclear waste, right? Stop nuclear waste to Texas. It's not a question, I guess a statement. I know there is not, let me say this, there isn't a bill that's moved significantly in the Congress at least on nuclear waste in Texas. I know there's been some stuff proposed, particularly in West Texas, right? But I'm certainly monitoring this issue and certainly will make sure that Texas has not become a dumping ground. So, all right, all right, you guys. My staff says that I should take questions from the floor. So, I know I've been drawing from the bowl. Let's do that. I know you've been vocal, so I'll take a question and then I'll go over here. And then, sir, the person that was back over here, if he's still here. Okay, I'll take your question right after these, yes. And I'm a registered nurse and I'm at the Department of Defense at Lackland Air Force Base. I'm also a union steward. I also am very active in the union. Thank you. And what I see right now is an attack on union and union busting, including attack on the official time as well. So, they're trying to take that away from us. But not only that, I see attack on our benefits and I see an attack on our healthcare and everything else, including our pension. And we've already given 182 billion as federal government employees. And it's about time Congress realized that we're counterparts of the military. We're there when people get deployed. We are nurses. We are doctors. We are park service people. We work hard. We do it because we love the country. And I'm hoping that you'll stand up and take these just to take back because I went to Washington and spoke to Ted Cruz on deaf ears, sir, on deaf ears. And when I told him and his staff that veterans, how we fought for veterans, they didn't show any care at all. They were trying to actually undermine what we were doing. But as a union representative, we work for women as well. And we really need to keep the union. And I'm at Laughlin Air Force Base. Well, I certainly hear you. I disagree with the union busting that we've seen in different areas. And I'll certainly take that back with me. Yes, absolutely. And then you wanna speak on the microphone there? Yes. Okay. So you were talking about taxes earlier, wood dot in. I wanted to talk about your foreign policy because that has to do with a lot of our taxes. Sure. So Mr. Castro, with the new Trump administration, what's your current stance on foreign policy? For a checked that during the last administration, you supported bills such as HA Resolution 124 and S1356 NDA 2016, which these bills trained and equipped the FSA, which if any of us hasn't known is the Free Syrian Army, which according to the New York Times on December 2012, Washington Post on April 2013, the Guardian on May 2013, HuffPost on January 2014, the Telegraph on June 2014 and Reuters and New York Times that they've documented that these groups have been linked to established terrorist groups such as the Syrian Al-Qaeda branch on Nusrah, who have also cooperated with the Daesh, aka the Islamic State. So would you continue to support such bills, given the circumstances of these rebels' connections during this administration, as you have voted yes on, during the Obama administration? Yeah, I guess, well first of all, you're right, we haven't talked about foreign policy today and I am on the Foreign Affairs Committee. And let me piece together the question that you're asking and give it context so that people were all on the same page, right? You remember around August of 2013, there was news that President Assad in Syria had, it looked like, use gas, right, against his people. And earlier the president has spoken about a red line which became very controversial, right? But there was, at that point, the president wanted to go forward and get the Congress's approval, basically, to take some kind of action. The Congress basically, you know, because the country is essentially wary of wars in the Middle East with Iraq and Afghanistan having gone on so long, that was a big part of it. You know, the president wasn't gonna put full-scale boots on the ground operation over there, right? So essentially, the other approach was instead of sending a lot of American troops in and soldiers, what you would do is try to find Syrians themselves who could basically be supported in their effort to reclaim their country and to stop Assad from what he was doing. Now, no, no, no, I know, let me answer the question. And so the idea was that you would essentially equip and train, you may have heard that phrase, equip and train Syrians themselves rather than Americans to go fight in Syria, right? Now, it turns out that that program was not successful and has pretty much been abandoned. Now, you asked specifically about my support for it back then, but now bear in mind, the United States policy is not to support people that have a connection to terrorism. And so that was not the policy we were not voting on. Yes, do you wanna give money to people who are involved with terrorism, okay? The issue was, and the vote was, do you wanna basically equip and train people, Syrians, to take on this fight? And remember, it's in the context of we basically want them to take it on and be supportive because we wanna saw it gone, but we also understand that Americans don't wanna go and get involved in another war in Syria, right? So here is my, so here is my thinking. Here is my thinking, right? And look, some people voted no. But here was my thinking, that these people who were experiencing these incredible atrocities, including many children, many women, who were being gassed, deserve some kind of help, and that they deserved an opportunity to at least have the equipment that they need to put up a fight against this guy. Now, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, and you're right, and you know what? No, okay, I got it. Here, let me comment on that part. Now look, here's part of the problem, right? As the United States has taken on more military action since 2001 and 2002, the Congress has not passed what is called an authorization for use of military force, okay? The last time that that was really dealt with was right after 9-11. So that's what allowed us to go into Afghanistan, to go into Iraq. This authorization for use of military force is basically the box. The Congress is saying, here is the authorization that we essentially give you in which to operate. It, hold on, it can go. Well, hold on, I'm still answering your question. So what I have said, I'm about to agree with you on a part, okay? I'm about to agree with you on something. Where I agree with you is that I've said that Congress has not done its job by passing a new authorization for use of military force. In other words, Congress has been missing in action in this debate, right? That we need to have a part in deciding when we're gonna authorize a president, where we're gonna authorize them to get into conflict and where we're not. So if your point is that Congress has been sitting on the sidelines, I agree with you. I was very vocal in saying that we should step up to the plate and pass an AUMF. And now, you can imagine, y'all, why do people not wanna vote on an AUMF? Because if things go bad later on, it's a bad vote, right? Why did you vote on this AUMF? So people say, well, all right, well, nobody, you know, people don't usually say it out loud. But basically, behind closed doors, people say, well, I'll just let the president do what he's gonna do. And if it messes up, then that's his problem. And we can say, well, we would've done it a different way, we would've done something else. No, I'm saying, let us pass an AUMF and decide on what that should look like. So I agree with you. Congress should step up to the plate. All right. I'm gonna take this one. Oh, thanks, Ben. Anyway, so Congressman Castro, thank you for your four years of service. I'm glad for the Affordable Care Act and all that stuff. Now, with that being said, as a congressman, you have federal authority. Why didn't you use your federal authority to get rid of this undemocratic system of city manager and city director of development and all that stuff? They're undemocratic bureaucrats. They're unelected. None of us voted for them. And yet they have saved on how our city, what goes on in our city. That's the job of the mayor and the city council. Why haven't you abolished them? It's undemocratic. Abolish the city manager and the... Yeah, abolish the whole system of city managers and city directors. It should all be done by the mayor and the city council. Well, remember, the cities and counties are entities and creations of the state government. So I don't oversee the state government, right? So I guess without even getting to the substance of the value of a city manager, et cetera, that's not in our purview, right? The state governments literally create the counties and cities are entities of the state government. So for example, that's why if a city passes an ordinance, right? The state government, let me take an example. The city may pass a plastic bag ordinance where they say you can no longer have plastic bags. But we've seen it, right? The state government can go in there and they can say, you know what, we override your ordinance and you can no longer legislate an ordinance on that issue. And they started to do it more and more to cities, you'll notice, right? So I guess, I mean, I understand if you have a strong opinion on it, but please know that that's not the purview of the federal government. I served in the state legislature, of course, but you know, quite honestly, the issue never came up. Cities do it different ways. For example, some cities have what's called a strong mayor form of government. Houston has that, Chicago has it, New York has it. A strong mayor form of government means that the mayor basically also functions as a city manager. So, and the mayor usually will make appointments on things like the superintendent of schools. I think Mayor Turner or Sylvester Turner in Houston may have that power. Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, I think, has that power. LA, the same thing. But here we do have a council manager form of government where you have a mayor, a council, and then a city manager who is an administrator, basically. So, but I mean, in the federal government, we don't make a decision on that. Yes. I'm sorry. First of all, Mr. Representative, I wanna thank you for being here tonight. I know that some members of Congress have refused to come to town meetings. And I really, really, I really appreciate that you are willing to speak to your constituents face to face. I walked in late, so I think I might've missed something about you can't answer political questions. So please, I apologize if this question is too political. I'm one of the millions of Americans who relies on the Affordable Care Act for my insurance. And I would like to know, my question has kind of two parts. I would like to know what you are planning on doing to make sure that if the Affordable Care Act is, to make sure it's not repealed without a viable option, without options for people who still need insurance. And then my second part of my question would be, what can we do? What can your constituents do to specifically work with people who may not agree with it? I would like to be able to reach out to the other side of the aisle to talk to them and explain to them why this is something that's so important to millions of Americans today. No, that's a great question. We did talk about the ACA sum, but let me just go over where we were on it. Basically, so the ACA came about around 2010. It's been implemented, the different parts of it haven't been implemented over the years. And Republicans have been against it from the beginning and voted about 70 times or so to repeal it and talked about replacing it. Now remember, once you come into the majority in Congress, if you've been talking about doing something, then your voters, right, and everybody else says, okay, well, what are you gonna do? You have the majority now, what are you gonna do with this? And so today, late this afternoon or early this evening, it looks like they have put their plan forward. Because I was getting ready for this and it came out so late, I've not had a chance to review it, so I don't know exactly what it does. But I laid out earlier, I won't go through all of them now, but I laid out earlier some of the things that we need to watch for, like the pre-existing conditions, other stuff, that we need to be mindful of. In terms of talking to Republicans who may disagree with you, the Senators, Congressman Smith, I imagine Congressman Hurd, although I've not spoken to him directly about it, you know, I think you just need to call into email and write letters if you have to. Now some people wonder whether we actually hear you, right? Does it make a difference if I pick up the phone and call and an intern answers and takes a message, right? And it does. And let me give you an indication of how that is. I know there's been some complaints about the Senators not answering their phones. But here's how powerful that is. A few weeks ago I saw a public report at least that Congress had had the most calls on a single day in its history, right? So that's very powerful. There's no way that anybody in the Senate or the House can ignore that kind of message coming from people. And I disagree with this idea that people are paid protesters, you know? And by the way, I don't think that was true in 2010 when the Tea Party was very active. You know, it's that people are upset about a certain thing. You may agree with them or disagree with them on the policy, but it's a very organic real thing, right? Yes, sir. Hi there, I haven't seen you in a while. How are you? I wanna thank you for always being open to us, whether it's been talking about children and mental health, whatever, you've always been here for us. But I wanna talk about something different because you know that message. The message I have, as we hear, I heard recently, like today, that now we're gonna cut Medicaid and Medicare to people who've been paid into that system who've depended on that. It's not a benefit. But what I hear as well, we have so many people that are committing Medicaid fraud. So I wanna give you a personal story, and it's quick. My stepdaughter managed to qualify for Medicaid in SSI because of her mental health disability. Her mental health disability was addiction. So she's been able to live in San Antonio, she's been able to live in Corpus Christi, and even though we've been able to move her away from the doctors that accept Medicaid patients that fill them full of hydrocodone, of fintermine, of oxycontin, 13 prescriptions, she died at Brickinridge Hospital in December, and they revived her. Sageen wasn't qualified, and she died forever. Yes, she did, I'm her sister. Yeah, Robin. She died, again, January 13th, and she had just received 13 prescriptions from a doctor in Kennedy, Texas, and they owned their own pharmacies, and Tasha could only fulfill her prescriptions in Kennedy, Texas. I worked with a DEA agent, and we closed down, and I'll say his name, it's on the news, Dr. Pendleton in Corpus. That was her other dealer, was the doctor, and he has a pharmacy at his building. So when do we stop looking at the poor people that are receiving Medicaid and need medication, and close down these doctors that are killing our families through substance use? Yeah. First, I want to say that I'm sorry for y'all's loss as a family, and I'd be glad to take a look at what happened also, and other examples of that across the state, with respect to Medicare fraud, not to single out practitioners, but a lot of the fraud itself is oftentimes not the patients, it is the providers, right? And that's where the dollars add up, because people are overbilling and other stuff. And so, but no, I'd be glad to take a look at it. And let me answer, because I don't think we've gotten to it, and I feel like people are probably wondering about the future of Medicare and Social Security, right? I want to make sure that they're protected for folks. And so, let me tell you a really quick story, and then we'll go over here and take another question, because these things are lifesavers for so many people, right? And I'll tell you my own story, obviously at 42, I don't qualify for either of those programs. But my grandmother, before she passed away in 1996, my grandmother never got past elementary school, and so she worked her whole life in low-paying jobs. She worked as a babysitter and a maid and a cook, basically a lot of her childhood and all of her adulthood until she couldn't work anymore. And when she could no longer work, she had never owned a house and never owned a car, and I don't think she'd ever had a bank account. The only thing my grandmother had was a $335 a month social security check, that she would cash every month at, there used to be a grocery store around here called Centeno, if anybody remembers it, and she would take the check over to Centeno and she would cash it. And that is the case, and she could never live on her own because she couldn't afford to live on her own, so she lived with us, and my parents were together till I was eight, and then she lived with my mom and with us. And so when I tell you, and I'm sure that is a story that you've seen maybe yourself or with your parents or your grandparents, they can't afford to live, and that social security check is all they have. Like literally for some people, all they have, and even if it's not all you have, right, it helps. And so when we talk about plans to privatize social security, some of the plans have included this provision where people would be allowed to invest in the stock market. And look, I mean, I know, you know, this is a country of liberty and freedom, but I'll tell you, you know, my fear is that you're gonna have a replication of what happened in the crash of 0809, right? And then what happens when somebody blows through most or all of their money, it's not like the government is just gonna allow all these people to have nothing. In other words, what I'm saying is that what would likely happen at some point, whether it's two years or 20 years down the road, is that the government would have to step in again and basically have, you know, to bail out, so to speak, although it's different because seniors already paid for social security, right? But you'd have to bail them out in the sense that you're going to have to come and save everybody again. Well, that's what social security was for. That was the safety net, right? That's what that was for. And if you do something with it where it's gone, then it's just too risky. So plans that include some kind of private organization like that that involve the stock market I'll vote against. You know, it's gotta be a bedrock. That's your bedrock income. I'll go here and then I'll go over there. Hi, thank you, Representative Castro, for again being with us, especially in a, you know, area where not a lot of people, you know, have the means to get to a richer side. But my question though is about special needs. My baby brother is diagnosed with autism. That doesn't label him. But going through public schools, we had a fight for services for him from speech, OT. And now he was bullied not only by students, but by teachers, by the administration. And now with Betsy DeVos and president in office and the idea website being taken off from the White House, what is your goal to make sure those with special needs are getting the service they need in school and throughout life? Because they focus on little and then the adults and he's in that middle range. First, let me speak on the legislation. If they put anything forward that takes away services from special needs kids, I will vote against it. All right? And by the way, y'all, you know, this has really become, Texas in many ways, unfortunately, has become the shame of the nation when it comes to how the state government, how the state government treats kids with special needs and disabilities. You know, there were these stories. In fact, the Express News, I think, did a long, did a series or maybe it was a Tribune, Texas Tribune, did a series on kids with special needs and disabilities being denied services at our schools, our public schools, right? And sure, being denied services. And then a corollary to that, just so that I can, because we're talking about kids and young people here and then I'll get back to special needs. But also, I saw probably about two weeks ago an article on the state government again and how, you know, Texas is the number one state for sex trafficking in the country. It's literally, if you didn't know that, it's the number one state for sex trafficking. You think about all the highways we have going up and north and south and east and west and all. And so there was, I can't, I don't wanna give a wrong number so I won't even say a number, but it was a small number of beds that the state has dedicated for victims to treat victims of sex trafficking, right? Like, you know, the law enforcement goes and recovers them, saves them so to speak, and now you've gotta rehabilitate them. Oftentimes, they may not know where their family is or they're disconnected from family, so the state was dedicating this very small amount of resources and beds to treating the young victims of sex trafficking, which is a shame, really. But to your question on the special needs, we'll vote against anything that takes away any further services, but more than that, we have to be aggressive in telling the state government that they need to do a better job to do right by our kids. Yes, sir? Hello, I'm Robert Ludicke. I started in 2007 promoting healthcare reform and doing everything that I could to help promote the Affordable Care Act and telling people that we really needed this. I'm a physician. Sure. And with the new administration being elected, I understand there's not as much control over what's going on. It appears to me that the bipartisan bill that goes forward is really what we need. And I don't know what side of the street that's gonna end up on, whether it's on the repeal side or on the redo the Affordable Care Act so that more republics, I don't know. But anyway, are you able to do a bipartisan fix for healthcare for us? That's a great question. That's like the $64,000 question, right? You know, it depends what they put forward. I know they put a plan forward. I need to look it over. It just came out this evening. But honestly, I mean, with the rhetoric that's been coming out, and for example, they talked about cutting out Medicaid expansion from their plan, which I don't know if they did that or not. They did or they did not? They did not. Okay, so it's good if they kept Medicaid expansion, right? But now, that's different from block granting. I don't know if they block granted their money. I don't support just block granting something because I'll tell you what will happen with a block grant. Real quick, look, here's my short answer, right? My approach is to be able to fix the parts of the Affordable Care Act that we can fix to make it serve people better, right? Like I started out saying, it's not a perfect bill, no bill is perfect, especially a bill that large. So I'm open to looking at those changes, yes. But will I just repeal it and then replace it with something that gives people either a lot worse coverage or weaker coverage or simply entrust the state governments with billions and billions of dollars and counts on them to do the right thing? No, I won't. And I'll tell you why, because what happens is when the federal government, if the federal government says, hey, we're gonna block grant you this money, that means we're just gonna give you over a big chunk of money and we have some loose guidelines on how you're gonna use it. What will happen is that a lot of state governments, including I believe this Texas government, when they hit a budget shortfall, instead of insuring people, they'll use that money to plug the shortfall, right? In other words, they're gonna use it for something else and you should plug a shortfall, but you shouldn't do it by using the federal monies that were meant for people to get healthcare, right? And so, just to answer your question, there are gonna be a lot of twists and turns in this and it depends on what they put forward, sure. All right, I'll take two more, y'all. We're at 8.30 and I'm gonna say hello to folks and stuff. I'll take one right here. Sure. From your office. Okay. And why did you vote for JASTA, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act? Follow-up question, do you, like many other lawmakers, regret your vote and follow-up question? Are you at all worried that allowing U.S. citizens to sue foreign governments and U.S. courts will expose U.S. personnel and armed forces to risk in foreign countries? All right, well, let me answer your question. This was basically the bill that would allow victims, families, the victims of 9-11 to sue the Saudi government, right? There were concerns, of course, over basically in foreign affairs what that could trigger. The bill passed and those have not come to pass as far as I can see. You know, of course I, you wanna be a responsible legislator and take all those things into account. But at the end of the day, if you ask me if somebody whose father or sister or somebody died on 9-11 should have some recourse in the courts to at least allow those suits to go forward, yeah, I voted yes. I know it looks like you disagree, I understand. But, you know, yes, yeah. It is a tough situation, yeah, yeah. Are you worried at all about, you know, the risk that it opens up for U.S. Congress? Of course, that was part of, you know, that was part of the debate and part of the decision making. And honestly, you know, when you're in a legislative body, whether it's a city council or U.S. Congress, there are a lot of bills where, you know, you have to look over everything and, you know, your repeated answer is not just yes right away. There are a lot of things to consider. But on the whole, you've got to make a yes or no decision. And I voted with what I thought was best. But also, you know, if you look at what's going on with foreign policy now, I think there's a lot more, a lot more dangers right now based on the approach that this administration is taking. Yes, and then one more. And then I'll say hello to folks. For insurance for 11 years, for two years I was a beneficiary of the Affordable Care Act and your office helped me to get enrolled. I got a small subsidy which made healthcare affordable, health insurance affordable for a short time. Then my premium went up 82%. Long story short, I couldn't afford it anymore. The truth is that the Affordable Care Act doesn't contain any real cost controls. So my question is, would you commit tonight to supporting a public option such as Medicare that I could buy into? That's a great question. My goal is basically to get us to a place of universal coverage, where people have coverage, right? Now, that's my goal, it's universal coverage, right? There is this debate about how you get there, okay? But I want us to get to a certain end which is that in the wealthiest nation on earth, in this industrialized society, that people should be able to have healthcare coverage, right? So, all right. And then this one, and then also when I'm gonna try to say hello to everybody, if you ask me a question, please give somebody else that hasn't asked a question a chance to say hello, because I see other hands up and they may have a question. Yeah. All right, thank you for having us. Thank you for being here and thank you all for being here. This means a lot to us and to our school. One of the things that does concern me quite a bit is of course our students and some of them being immigrants and so forth. However, what I would like to know is, do you have any chance or opportunity to allow a town hall meeting for high school students? They have a chance to go ahead and voice their opinions as to what goes on in public schools, but also what goes on as far as the lesbian, you know, bisexual days and so forth, the transgender, all that, that is something that does affect our students on a daily basis as well as the immigrant process. And these are things that are scaring our students and nobody is answering those questions. So we would like for you to please. Yeah, I'd be glad to. Take that chance. Again, thank you for being here. We'll figure out when we can do it. And I guess I should say, I guess doing a town hall is different from speaking, right? You're just giving a speech. But yeah, I mean, I've been through schools all over the city really, speaking, reading the students in elementary school, for example, answering some questions, but as far as like a back and forth like this, I don't know, it's probably been a while since I did that. So yeah, I'd be glad to. Thank you all. I'll be glad to stay and say hello. Let me say some thank yous to the superintendent, Emilio Castro, thank you for having us and Principal Norwood, to VP Juarez, to our interns who work so hard on this, Zelda and Daniel, and also to all of my staff who helped put this together. Thank you very much. And to everybody who came.