 I'm here to introduce the introducer of life. I'm going to go through a couple of layers here. And I wanted to let you know about the organization that's sponsoring this event, Jewish Voice for Peace. It's the same in a chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace as the sponsor. My name is Judith Norman. I'm a professor at Trinity University and organizer of the Jewish Voice for Peace. Jewish Voice for Peace is a national grassroots organization that works to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and improve peace and justice for all peoples in the Middle East. If you're interested in learning more about the work of Jewish Voice for Peace, we have some literature I see most of you have found it on the literature table in the back, which has some information pertinent to the topic as well as the promotional literature from JDK. Jewish Voice for Peace understands that the root cause of the violence in Israel-Palestine looks a lot like the root cause of much political violence around the world, imperialism, militarism, dehumanizing rhetoric, and unchecked powers of corporation that feed off of and feed into war, surveillance, incarceration. This panel will seek to explore these factors at the border and in international context. JDK will be hosting a second panel as well on Friday, January 25th, where we're going to be examining more closely some of the connections between San Antonio and the Israel-Palestine region. To start things off, I'd like to introduce our moderator, Harry Gumpel. Harry Gumpel is a San Antonio native who lived in occupied Palestine from 2007 to 2012. He's a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, San Antonio for Justice in Palestine, and in this cold Palestine-Israel network. He continues to make regular visits to Gaza and the West Bank most recently in 2017. Thank you, Harry. Welcome, everyone, to this dreamy conversation about crises occurring in borders. We're very grateful to be part of this unique two-week dream wing event in San Antonio. Everyone here today is familiar with the events at the nearby border between the US and Mexico, whether by proximity or by cultural kinship or by place of origin. Our community is deeply involved and or deeply affected by what is happening there. So our purpose today is not to describe those events. They're a well-known thing. Rather, we want to use this time together for a conversation about some of the repercussions and implications of those events at the border and to examine ways that people in governments respond to them. We have all seen the response of our government to people coming to the border wanting to enter this country. Military troops were deployed. They laid out razor wire barriers. They shot tear gas across the border at a symbol of people. And they had clearance to shoot to kill. Families that separated and children detained then sent to foster homes all over the country with no plan or purpose to reunite the families. The rhetoric of officialdom has been strident and explosive, but rarely compassionate. The situation is called a crisis and a national emergency. We are told that we therefore are being invaded. And the caravans include drug dealers, criminals, and terrorists. Information has been misused. And the situation is at the heart of the government shutdown and loss of livelihood for federal workers. Only the focus for most of us has been on the border to the south. But what is happening there is not isolated or unique. In fact, just yesterday, as on every Friday since March, we saw very similar events at the barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strait. The use of military force, demonization and mischaracterization of people seeking justice, targeting and singling out on children, and political exploitation. But why bring up Israel and Palestine in our conversation today about the subject of the word for the sentence? Events that are so far away and seem unrelated and irrelevant. But as Judith has already pointed out, the same root causes are at play in both places. Today, we hope to illuminate the commonalities of cause and intentions that show why those far away events matter to us here in South Texas also. To guide us through this conversation, we have an expert panel. Immediately, to my right, is Giovanni Reyes. Giovanni is a 14-year Army veteran, a local activist, a member of the Valveface Veterans Against the War, a veteran-led organization of the 9-11 generation dedicated to ending the forever wars. He's also a member of me and the Latinx Justice Movement. He holds a BS in criminal justice, with an associate's in military science, an MS in international relations, and an MS in instructional technology. On the far end of the panel is Oliver O'Rothel, Oliver O'Rothel is an artist and activist from El Salvador, and has worked with several Salvadoran youth empowerment programs that confront the issue of drug abuse and violence. He donates his art skills to diversity and rights movements in San Antonio, and he currently enjoys being a soccer coach. To Giovanni's right is Elaine Cohen. Elaine holds a BA from Smith College with a major in religion and a minor in women's studies. Since moving to Austin in 1997, she has been active in various immigrant rights groups and served as consultant for the Hutto Visitation Program of grassroots leadership. She currently is part of the organizing teams of the Houston chapter of Jewish Forest of Peace and Volunteers at Posada Esperanza. And Dr. Hadi Lanour is a San Antonio-based scholar who has researched public perceptions of Islam. Her most recent research examined how San Antonioans from diverse backgrounds talked about Islam in relation to the 2016 presidential election. This research was the foundation of the documentary theater production titled To Be Honest. Horses on Islam in an American City, which premiered at the M'Nay and also performed at Trinity University and the Joe Long Theater, having the current teachers at Trinity University. This is really a five-star panel, let's welcome them. Our panelists will address several things. First, what happens when an event becomes militarized? Is it health? Is it solution? What implications does it have through the society at large? Is it compassion? Second, who are the people most affected by these events? What brought them to this time and place? What are some of their experiences? Is there room for compassion in an immigration crisis? When we are constantly told that it is a security issue. Third, how is our perception and response to the events and the people involved, affected, or even formed by public discourse? And does that discourse have consequences of its own? A recent media report characterized Greenway as addressing the question, what makes us human? So the question before us today is not what makes us safe. It is not what makes us powerful. It is not what makes us American. It is what makes us human. Joe Biden. You're a veteran of the U.S. Army with first-hand exposure to the culture of militarism. How does use of the military at the border affect our perception of the situation and influence the course of events? Thank you, Harry. Yes, Harry? Jeremy? Yeah. All right. Yes, so I wrote a brief statement and I read it pretty much encompass all my thoughts into this year, Jeremy. Okay. All right, so to go over to your question, let me, let's go back to a few months ago, back in October. October 2018, it was announced by the White House that 5,200 African-duke soldiers would be deployed to the U.S. Western border. You'll join over 2,000 National Guards personnel that were already stationed there. Just in comparison, it's about the same troop level that is currently in Iraq right now, about 5,000 soldiers. The stated purpose of this troop movement was to augment the over 9,000 strong customs and border patrol agents along the U.S. Southern border to help cover the approaching countries. This was in response to the announcement of 3,007 or to the 7,000 migrant marching towards the U.S. border seat in Estela. People may come from countries in Central America where the U.S. has long, has a long history of intervention there. One specifically in Guatemala, Honduras, and Southern, two of these countries being staunch U.S. allies. The crisis was presented in the media specifically by the Trump administration as a national emergency. One needing a military response because we were being debated by the courts of the legal bed believe Ben I'm doing harm to American people. Keep in mind that Trump kicked off his presidential campaign by announcing that if he made president, he would build a wall that best would pay for it. It would impress all leaders in the country. I believe the words that was used to describe the Southern state or Southern neighbors at the time were rapists, murderers, and invocations were made that they're all either belonged to MS-13 or they were narco-traffickers or they were ISIS terrorists. Also keep in mind that all the recent field-mongering and media hype of the imminent invasion of land-embracing courts coming to take our lives and that military responses needed to protect us having to be around the U.S. and the Trump elections. Right, now, the talk today is about the 800,000 federal employees being furloughed without paying to be held as bargaining chips. So the Congress will pass a bill on the construction of this famous wall. Now, this wall has been constructed for the last 25 years, right, I'm going to be stating. Physically, in version, we started with the Clinton administration, president carried over to successive presidency of the Trump administration. These are white parts in venture and plenty of the profits being made by those companies who promised to visit those things, including foreign companies. Some of them are being in an Israeli company known as the L-Bak system of America. Manufacturers are hand-drawn, applied for the border, and it's currently being awarded 145 million contracts and drug-fixed towers similar to systems from Dallas to Arizona, similar to the ones that you see in Palestine and Gaza. All in all, the protective law of the border venture has caused the American taxpayers to borrow $400 million. Now, let's go back to the militarization of the border. San Antonio, aka the military city of the U.S.A., helped organize the active L-O-K march. It was supposed to be the largest in the country. And Dream Week is part of that event, right? It commemorates the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his legacy. So, I can't help but bring up one of the things that L-O-K said in one of his last speeches at Riverside Baptist Church in New York, which we call the madness of U.S. militarism. Offing the other side of wealthy and creating health for the poor. There, he rightly pointed out that racism, extreme capitalism, and militarism is toxic to any society. The military came into the tribe. It's a system that all adds to the military. And the military society is one that puts the needs of the military together with everything else. And the needs of the military is a solution to all problems and conflicts, right? Hence why we sent the troops down to the border, right? Because it seems to solve a problem. Now, the literal argument is that these people are in search of a better life, and we as Americans have a tradition of opening our doors to the need. The conservative argument is that we need to protect our borders and immigrants need to follow our laws. If we truly are compassionate citizens, we really need to get over this and take an objective, serious look, where we drive millions of people around the world to leave their homes in masses, exposing themselves and their children to unknown danger. We also, ourselves, recognize our diversity in creating these top positions. I should have mentioned we're following the presentation by each panelist. We're going to have plenty of time for questions. So please, please hold your questions. And I think we'll have time to address the other ones. I want to follow up on Shobanya's references to the involvement of Israel in all of this. We said at the outset we're going to try to draw those parallels today. So sort of through now we're going to be showing some images and I just touched. The image you're looking at now on the left is a confrontation. It was either the Arizona or California war, I can't remember which, in December, between military and those folks who were standing in protest who were demonstrated. On the right are five Israeli tanks facing this child on the boundary between the Nasr and Israel. Some of these images that we're going to look at today contrasting the two situations that are eerily similar. Giovanni referenced the large complex in Arizona, the sort of security complex. Israel has been thickly involved in that for decades. And I want to read you a quote from the mayor of Tucson who said, if you go to Israel and then come to southern Arizona and close your eyes and spin yourself a few times, you might not be able to tell the difference. So press particulars of the similarities and the involvement of Israel in our situation on the border, but it goes back decades into the 60s when Israel had pretty thick activities in the bottom of it. And then more recently here is Giovanni that's on your back. Thank you, Giovanni. Reference some of the root causes. Let's hear more about that now from Alvaro. And give me just a minute, I want to bring up some slides that Alvaro brought to a company's presentation. So give me one minute to stumble through this technology as well. Me nombre es Alvaro, my name is Alvaro Rafael. I am from the Cuscan clan. That's the real name from my land. In Spanish it's El Salvador, what that means is Jesus Christ. So I would like to talk about from the roots, why we are living in a country where pretty much we have between 20 and 30 people getting killed every day. It's pretty hard to hear about that, but you know, a lot of people don't want to talk about it. So we have a lot of, how can I say it, the medium, they don't want to talk about the truth. And I've been afraid for years to talk about it because it's a little bit, you know, hard to talk about that topic. So I brought some images and pictures and I'm going to be talking about in the same way I'm going to be showing some pictures about the situation. So this happened in 1932. So some of my people, you know, like me, we don't speak or language anymore, we speak Spanish because one of the reasons was, you know, we were in a tie of being oppressed for years, straight years and from the people taking our lands and you know, and from there we become workers. We didn't own our lands anymore. So you know, our people started getting organized and started like fighting back against this empire. Can I say it? So here we go to the next one. So from 1932 to the 80s, all people were organizing on the ground to, you know, to the government movements and figure out how we were going to fight back against our oppression. And I was a little jump when all this happened. I was between all the bullets, all the helicopters, all these armies throwing bombs on our neighborhoods. So when I started being about Palestine, you know, it's a lot of similar stuff, you know, and so I was trying to look at myself. So I started meaning about it. So that was in our neighborhood. If you can see it, you know, us as a kids, that was our toys, played with the empty shells from the army and the first one I was leaving were having the army behind in our neighborhood. So they were all, you know, patrolling the communities and chasing, you know, who was against the government. One more time, you know, those were empty shells. So why right now, you know, we had so many guns and weapons in my country. This is one of the reasons. This is how much money that empires Spain and those 12 troops. And you know, it's so easy to find a weapon on my country. And it's so sad to see kids eight, nine years old who were protecting the neighborhood. So from all this situation from the Civil War, some more people start aiming at me. One of them was my brother. In other words, do you know what happened to him? He came to New York for years and years. He forget about his history, what happened to him. He doesn't want to talk about it. So in the 90s, who were ending the Civil War in the south, but that wasn't legal. That wasn't real. All the guns, all the programs, all the psychotic situation, it wasn't legal. The situation, for example, is about whoever has more power, whoever killed more people, whoever oppressed another people. It's pretty sad to say it, but some people don't want to talk about it. But that's a reality. And the product of all these programs, you know, all these people getting the border back to Los Apos, and we were having not so many people coming from here and telling us what to do. So from the beginning, we were having not so many weapons already. So now they're coming back and they are telling us, you know what? This is your problem, and we're gonna give you a solution. And what is the solution? More military training, more weapons. So for those years, you know, if you see the two persons on the right side and my left side, they are again members. They were getting the border, those angels. They left the country when they were little kids. They didn't understand anything about the Civil War or the situation. Why, or what they were doing in a different country. So for years, and even now, this is just 2014. I'm sorry, it's in Spanish, I can't explain it. This is how much money I was spending every year in weapons in the country. And it's sad, you know, and we say, you know, El Salvador is a poor country. It's not. So, I mean, my question is, you know, what is all these weapons that are coming from? Everybody knows, right? And this is legal, this is the legal, the legal. Illegal, we have a lot of them going on here. So this is now, this is the reality now in El Salvador. This is the police, patrol industries, the neighborhoods. Some of these people, some of these kids over there, they don't belong to any gangs. But the police or the military, they don't care about it. If they see you in the wrong place, they're gonna kill you out. And it depends on the road, they're gonna kill you. So, I was talking with somebody yesterday. Just from this year, January 1st to yesterday, is 265 people getting killed. 50 belong to gang problems, the other one, nobody knows. I would like to mention that I was in the military too, and this was the audition to oppress me, you know. And for me, it was a little bit like, to understand, I was 16 years old, I didn't have an option. Well, for my client, they were military, so they drove me there and said, you know what, now you're gonna become a man. This is your future, this is what you're gonna be. So I was there, I was having questions. And one of the questions was, I mean, I had some family who disappeared and the civil. I was having questions about it. And they don't want to talk about it. They told me, you know what, you got a name, you don't have these questions, whatever happened, whatever happened in the past, because they didn't answer. So, if you see right now, you know, like me, if I had the twos, if they see me at the wrong place, they can beat me up, or they can take me to the office for 72 hours. And those 72 hours, they can do whatever they want. So that's it, the world ends, gears back. It's not, this is the reality in some way. I was thinking with this person yesterday, I was trying to throw the towel and say, you know what, I don't want to know anything about the situation. But he said, and he was telling me, you know what, we're not afraid of the pandemic. We're afraid of this operation, because he has a boy 16 years old, and they decided to take a picture of his face, putting on fouls. And now, he's a gang member, he's not. Why do we have to make that decision? So all the time when he has, or he is in the wrong place, you know what's gonna happen, it's gonna take a bit. But why? So what do they keep doing? They put it into the games, and they don't understand who's oppressing who. Because these kids, they're oppressing a community student. And it's sad to say it, but they don't have somebody in the front line and say, you know what, MS-13, they finally understand you. And the way how they start is protecting our communities. But now it's different. And you're gonna explain to me why they put it into the next. So, I think you guys know why. We are there, in Subway, it's a little, a little tiny country, a little tiny country. And we are now the capital models of the world. That is sad. Can we go to the next place? So you know, in this picture, I go back in four. And sometimes when I go over there, I try to convince people and tell them, you know what, to emigrate is not a solution. But sometimes they ask me, how can you say that? You look over there. I go back in four. I had a project over there. And I asked my, all the time, you know, what it means they have so-called corruption. Corruption. From 2001, all the parties in the suburb, they started getting on the table, on into the games. Two, by the boat. Whoever is president right now is because he played. That is the truth. Is that the real? They don't want to talk about it yet. I would say it's the truth. And you know, sorry. I have some friends, like, they were working with me in the streets. Now they are in jail. Nobody knows about it. Why? It's because the government, they don't want them to talk about the truth. And this is the truth. It's money, corruption, drugs. We are tired. You know, when I go to this neighborhood, because like I said, I go to the worst neighborhood. And I believe in the power of educating people. So in this case, they understand who is real for real. The enemy. What do you think is going to happen? Everything will change. The government, they don't want to see that. Can we go to the next place? This is my country, it's beautiful. You know what I mean? I can't go there anymore. I've got to wait for years and see what's going to be the solution if the violence is really, it's going to change, or it's not. But, and all I had, I had a question, you know, for people who's just getting off on the problem of entering into this country. Where are part of the solution? That's what I believe. People who's, people have the right to anyway. I believe that. But people have the right to go back and work in the community. You know, and it's sad when, I see people going back over there and getting reported, and the only thing what they do is, man, this country is sad. Man, this country is bad. You are responsible. You know why? Because you left. And when you left, you didn't care about it. Now, think about it. Think about it. What are you going to do? And this is, well, I'm going to try to survive. Some of those people will kill. And you guys know, because there's the media, that's what they say. We have so many different programs and organizations and fast working with games in the streets. Now, nobody wants to work with these people again. You know why? Because it's illegal. If you work with these people now, you're going to be imprisoned. So what's going to be the solution? More weapons, more kill, more people are going in. You know, it's sad, but that's the reality. We've got to think about this. So this is the idea for us what we do. And I believe that, like I said, in the power of educate, you can through the art or through the sport. I've been working with kids and soccer for 20 years. For 20 years, we just had two young members. Some of these kids, they are professional players. And I believe that you stay, and we can do the change. And you know, as I have people, and they see us, it's coming to the United States. I think it's a solution. And the solution is a community. What with the same community? It's no way that I'm going to just turn around and say, you know what? They are the problem. If I do that, they are the problem. And this is in 2018. Some of my friends, they didn't know anything about Palestine. I was trying to talk to them and tell them, why is that the, it's so similar. Even now, we are not in civil war. 255 people can kill. It's bad, but that's the reality. Thank you. So called out in our arguments about how much money and trade offs of walls for doctors. So I'm really grateful to Alaro. Mine, this was at the heart of all of this. You know, I can't, these two scenes are on the streets every single day in Hebron, in the West Bank, just as they are in El Salvador. And Alaro pointed those similarities out. So the same systemic issues are going on all the time. Money and weapons, as most of you know, I think, we send the United States and it's four billion dollars every year to Israel, every year for years and years and years. But no matter what our economy is doing, it doesn't matter what's going on, four billion dollars goes to Israel for weaponry. A lot of that comes back. Thank you, Alaro. Elaine, we rarely hear the voices of people who are trying to enter the US, but you serve some of your experiences working with immigrants and refugees. Thank you very much. The journeys of those who come to the southern border to enter the US in territory are as you leave the snowflakes and yet there are commonalities and patterns. I began to know these stories when I returned to Austin in 2010 after living and teaching in Mexico for over four years. My story isn't as important as those of the people I want to tell you about, but let's say I wanted to work where my facility in Spanish would allow me to help immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries. Starting in 2011, I began participating in the hydrovisitation program visiting women incarcerated in the detention center in Taylor, Texas. For the next two years, I've met women from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Tineda, Nicaragua, Brazil, Congo, and Papua. The women told me of violence that came out of the cartel economy that the US government had engendered in the Northern Triangle. The reasons that drove them to leave their homes and family were enriched from cartel taxes that impoverished police and military pollution and corruption, toxic patriarchal traditions, and violations of every kind. This is what they were fleeing and what they were placed in detention centers designed to enrich the orders and stockholders of the private prison industry. The threat that emerged from almost all of the women I visited over the next years. The first thing the women talked about was the process of being thrust into the cement-holding cells of the border patrol before being sent to the different detention centers. The warning the women used is, I live us. Us boxes were somewhere held for days with no warm clothing and little food and water. One Honduran woman told me that she was put in to one of these late at night and was terrified to see what she thought were dead bodies covered in aluminum sheets and she started to scream. One woman came out from under her mylar blanket and called her, saying that no, they weren't dead and that she should just lie down and get some sleep. One Salvador woman I know spent 18 months incarcerated in Hanoi. She has won a provisional stay but is now facing deportation under the extreme policies of Agent Orange's immigration justice overlords. She works, pays taxes, is active in her church and in Casa Mariana which gave her shelter and a place to be released to after detention. Casa Mariana was originated over 30 years ago for the first waves of asylum seekers from the brutal military machines of the Northern Triangle landed in Austin. Casa has existed with dormitory quarters for single men and women in a group of houses on Austin's east side. Until 12 years ago, Casa Mariana realized that women and children were appearing at their doorstep and they knew they couldn't house vulnerable women and children alongside single men and women. One of the benefactors brought them brought them a house for women and children. It is called Posada Esperanza, Refuge of Hope. There are out four houses on a quiet bullseye. And that is where women from Congo, Mexico, Guatemala, Cameroon, Cuba, El Salvador and Honduras live with their children. Some have husbands still in detention. The immunity with which the border patrol operates was exposed in early December with the death of a seven-year-old girl from Guatemala while in custody. She was a key chain speaker whose life meant little to the customs of border patrol agents who called her and her father in the New Mexican desert. Then a second child, a boy, also from Guatemala, died on Christmas Eve. When not the indigenous immigrants faced a doubly problematic linguistic barrier, there are at least 20 watch-esteem Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala alone. Hardworking generation lawyers, many who work program, are often caught with interpreters who can speak the many different languages spoken by the people of the Northern Triangle. A woman I visited while she and her son were held at the Carnes Detention Center is a mom speaker. When it was time for her to speak before the immigration official, her maturity had found a mom speaker to interpret. But there are many different dialects of mom. And the interpreter did not speak the one my friends spoke. She was unable to understand any of the questions being asked. She had no real idea what was being asked of her. Her story of sexual abuse and threats from the family of her user went untold and her first asylum claims were denied. Linguistic isolation is a prevalent issue in the detention centers. There are many women who have learned Spanish while in detention. But not all immigrants who cross the southern borders during my visits to the Northern Detention Center I thought that my lemonade branch was actually useful due to the women from Triangle, Africa who also come to the southern border. I heard stories of travels that might begin in Congo, pass through Somalia or another African country that weren't flying to Brazil or Ecuador which have more open immigration policies. I'm a white Ethiopian woman who traveled with two young daughters while pregnant when the son was born in Brazil. They walked, caught rides, bought bus tickets when they could until they, like others, moved through Central America and then they go. Then they cross the borders in the United States after months of travel across oceans and continents they then end up in detention for months or years. It is really important to note the economic factor and the creation of the immigration detention system. People are making money on the incarceration of immigrants. Millions upon millions of dollars are given to the owners and stockholders of the private prison corporations that profit so boldly from immigration policies. Two of the most notable are Gino and Corostini. Each of which owns and operates family detention centers right south of San Antonio. Geo-operates one center in Carmen City and Corostini's one in Dilly. Corostini used to be called the CCA or the Corrections Corporation of America until so much bad press made them change. The name changed but the act, the practice of inactive staffing, bad food of use and neglect remain. The poisonous mix of racism and greed have contributed to the actual crisis at the border. The crisis is not about the security of U.S. citizens but the crisis is about how our country persecutes and profits from both seeking asylum and sanctuary. The crisis is the immorality of refusing to help those fleeing for their lives. Fortunately, there are many who push back on these deadly policies. Currently on trial in Tucson is a member of No More Deaths who leave water and food in the desert. The Intercept has just published an excellent article about this case. The intent, there are scores of visitation programs in the detention centers that have crept onto the American landscape in the last years. There are, excuse me, and there are lawyers and immigration water clinics who battle daily to prevent deportation. One must not forget the volunteers across the barrierella in Austin, an association house in El Paso or the Interstate Welcome Coalition right here in San Antonio. All gains exist because of the people of conscience like those of you who came here today. The documentary film, Harvest of Empire, which I highly recommend you get to see and which deals a lot with the hegemony of the corporate hegemony in Latin America that we've heard every panelist refer to today. In it, the narrative says to characterize people as illegal is one of the many ways we can demonize them. Habiba, much of the discussion narrative about the situation at the border, includes all the things that have been valued in language, language like illegals, invasion, at least earners in the middle, criminals and drugs. How does such language inform public response to events? Well, I think language is extremely consequential. I think we're taught from an early age that words won't hurt you. And I think that when you study policy, when you study culture, you see that words reduce narratives which produce policies which intervene on relationships which can produce consequences which lead to life and death. They're not just words. It's not just air. The language of terrorism is something that I'm particularly interested in. And I think the current discourse of terrorism is one that's based on false logic and faulty correlation. Just last year, Robert Bowers was the mass shooter of the real-life synagogue was not labeled a terrorist by the president. It was an issue of debate. From the standpoint of the action, there is, it is undoubtedly terrorist. Yet, we do not call it terrorism. And not calling it terrorism produces another set of actions. It means that it won't be prosecuted like a terrorist. It means that there won't be policy changes to prevent that action from happening. So that label is extremely consequential of terrorism because there's a whole industry that seeks to prevent terrorism that is more funded than the industry that tries to prevent gun violence. So there are more resources that come from the label terrorism than gun violence. So that's very consequential. So then what is terrorism? I think, you know, I teach at Trinity and I teach students who, you know, they're 18, 19 years old. And, you know, at this stage where 18, 19 past, 18, 20 years past 9-11, we have involved conversations. We know, you know, we shouldn't be explaining, okay, terrorist, it almost seems like terrorist has an obvious point at this stage. Yet, the way that terrorist has been come to be understood by many young people is still that of a Muslim. And it's very inflexible in terms of how it's being defined. So, what ends up happening with that definition is that it criminalizes people, right? And so, Muslim terrorism becomes, it continues at this stage to be interchangeable by certain segment of its population. And so, as a result, let's think about the immigration and order issue. We have people that are trying to come to this country for a better life, right? Article 13 of the International Declaration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone has a right to leave their country and to return to their country. And we're in a situation where there are many people all over the world through civil conflict or through poverty that are Muslim countries that want to leave and will do whatever it takes to get to the same place and many people are trying to come to the United States. So, yes, there may be people from the Muslim world that are coming through the southern border. Are you giving examples? You're seeing this in detention. I've seen the examples here in San Antonio of people that have come through the southern border. But there are a minority, we don't have numbers. There's no way to have numbers. But it is a very small percentage of people that might be a Muslim background that are coming through. But the fact that they're Muslim automatically creates suspicion. So, I think the objective is not to say, oh, well there aren't a Middle Easterners coming through the southern border. Well, yeah, there might be some. There are cases where this has been known to happen. They're not dropping their freighter rugs on the border as Donald Trump is suggesting because that's just completely false. There's no evidence. And you don't need a freighter rug to break FYI. You can just put your head on the ground. That is the last, you can't carry a lot of things. There's no need to carry a freighter rug. So, the point here is that yes, there might be small numbers coming but because of this criminalization, the international criminalization of Muslims through the label of terrorists sort of creates the narrative of the threat at the border. It magnifies the narrative of the threat. And it is a false, it is a false claim, totally false. So, I think that it's useful to sort of take the step back and think about how and why we've arrived at this particular situation where a narrative used to advance Trump's logic of the wall is one of terrorism, right? I think that terrorism at this moment in America does not feel like an existential threat. Maybe it did in 2001. In 2001, Americans had a shock, right? It would be faced the largest terrorist attack in our history, right? In 2001, the borders were permeable more so than they are today. And so, I think it's important to kind of take a step back and to think about, okay, well, if we were, if we felt this existential threat in 2001, how come here we are in 2018 and we're insisting on, or 2019 and Trump is insisting on this wall to protect us from terrorism? So, I think it's, it was interesting I went back and sort of did a little bit of research on this and yes, there is, immigrants from the southern border have been criminalized since the drug war. So, the criminalization of migrants predates 9-11 from the drug war, but 9-11 definitely catalyzed that. But right, in 2001 and 2002, border security in the southern border did not necessarily increase. And I think that's really interesting of what happened during that time was that actually personnel on the border patrol migrated from the southern border to the northern border. The northern border was seen as one that was more vulnerable. And so there was a shift and the southern border seemed like it was relatively safe. And it took some time, over years, where actually, at the time, I find this really interesting, because I went back and I read a little bit and Edward Alden of the Council of Foreign Relations actually describes Tom Ridge, who was the first Homeland Security chief, as having an attitude of open borders. I find that really interesting and actually quite shocking. Tom Ridge, Bush administration and the early Homeland Security was believed in open borders. And if we think about today, the language of open borders, it is seen as this far left position. But in fact, there was sort of capitalist, neoliberal argument for open borders that we often forget. And that sort of the open border left and then the open border capitalists are strange bedfills in this situation that it's completely been overshadowed by the current discourse of the Republican Party. And that former discourse has kind of disappeared. It was an open borders signal prosperity, because it created opportunities for the best and the brightest to leave their countries and to come and work in the United States. And that's seen as a good thing for America, but also for labor. So this combination of labor, of free open borders for labor and free open borders for technology and industry, that was a desire of even Bush administration. And more so than I would say compared to Obama and then compared to obviously Trump. So the initial goal of Tom Ridge in the Department of Homeland Security is to try to balance the desire for prosperity with security. It was a difficult balancing act. And from the standpoint of this sort of white supremacist nativist like Lou Dobbs, that was seen as hypocritical. And so the discourse about the existential threat of the migrant was something that started to take hold during that time in Arizona where people like Lou Dobbs and thoughts news started to sort of question the administration saying why don't we consider the southern border? Why don't we add more security to the southern border? And that particular discourse, which was like 110 years ago, has a champion in the White House right now. That's something that is currently, it started with him, started with that particular discourse and now we have the president sort of taking on that same language. And so the Republican Party has been sort of split from borders being one of potential prosperity, but the sort of nativist discourse of the Republican Party has taken over. So closing the borders is seen as part of a broader desire for national security which is laced in nativist language. I think that getting back to language and getting back to 9-11, I think that this, what happens and what's continually happening through Twitter, through the right-wing media is this creating this correlation between borders and terrorism. If you repeat it enough, it becomes seen as a fact. You put these two images together and it's taken for granted and it becomes the rationale for the wall and the security. But I want to take us back to post sort of immediately after 9-11 with this sort of association that people had between 9-11 and it's about the same, right? That's an example of a completely false correlation that became the basis for a trillion dollar war in Iraq. This is actually something that I did my research on towards my PhD, that this association between Saddam Hussein and 9-11 was something that was seen as fact and it was true. But as we know, it was a lie that there was any connection with Iraq in 9-11. So here we are, 2018, that in theory the war is over, but there's huge consequences. But when we have these, basically these lies that produce policy, we also have a culture that does not go back and reflect or sort of discuss the fact that you have policy based on lies. I think this is kind of a problem that we have in this country. How do we go back and sort of say, oops, that was a mistake, oops, this was not something we should have done. But it's something that was produced through this association, these false associations. So I think we're back kind of in that place where we have these associations around borders and sort of security around these threats, these false threats. They're not real threats to the nation. And so I think this is something that I just like to stop on because this is something that I don't know. I don't think there's hope in terms of sort of going back and taking responsibility for these false associations. And I think you, during our question and answer time, but first, let's thank the panel for what they brought We're going to open it up for questions in just a minute. But first I want to ask the panelists to just offer up, after all of this conversation, what we want to do is to suggest or offer up what we can walk out of here with. It's nice to have them listen, but okay, what can we go to do now? What are some actions we can take if we're moved to take action? So let me just ask the panel to offer any suggestions. But what folks here might do in this regard, whatever it is, anyone? Yes, can you guys hear me? Hear me now? Yes, to answer the question, and I would just, I was asked the same question just a few minutes ago. I was interviewed by the Mundo. He asked me the same question, you know, what? What would I like for people here in the panel or for people who are coming to listen to the panel and what would it take away from them? One of the things was to get involved, right? It's not enough to just come here and get educated or come here and get receiving information and just go home and just move whatever you move before you get here and that's it, right? We need to, we need to make demands, you know? Make demands of people for who are making this policy, right? We need to go see firsthand, you know? We only live two hours away from the water, two hours away from the water, we'll see firsthand. There is a lot of organizations here in San Antonio that do work with the water. Find out, we should find out, we should join them, we should, like I said, get involved, you know? I just said that we need two hours, two-year cycle for the next election because this is not something getting involved, it's not something we can get resolved by within two minutes at the moment. Does that make sense? It's something that actually takes time, actually takes energy, actually takes, you know, people that actually get involved in being out there, right? Get involved, get involved, things like that. Also, I was recently in a conference where I met Lauer Kasselis, I'm going to do a video with Lauer Kasselis, she is the owner of Pente Kasselis from Honduras, who was a environmentalist activist who was murdered by security forces, you know, right? And the question was asked to her, you know, she was between the panel, she was in the discussion and the question was asked, what can we do? What do we need? Do we need, can we say money? We said, totally, we said, there's a bad, you know, with children, we said, it's all good, it's all fine, guys, it's all good for the need here. Means no blankets, no, that's all good for the need of men, right? Well, one of the things that she suggested, right, is change your government, change your government. That's what you do for long to change your government. And it is, I just need that to reflect on, pass it on to the other people. I wanted to ask, I think sister Sharon is here who works with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition. If you're involved with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition here in San Antonio, would you rinse your hands, please? So the people are you seeing? This is what you've got going here in San Antonio. So one real organization and you're looking to connect these two people, yeah, bravo, bravo, bravo. Because it's about infants being dumped at Greyhawk stations during these moments and it's the folks at the Interfaith Welcome Coalition who actually are at the Greyhawk station interpreting and helping people have their tickets. Some of us came down from Austin a couple of years ago, my wife, and it was quite extraordinary what happens there. So that's one thing. The second thing, fire, would you rinse your hands so people can see you? This is our friend, Byra Shea, who's the executive director of the Consul on American Islamic Relations in Austin. And on January 29th is what's called Consul Day of the Capitol. And perhaps when we break up, we might wanna go talk to Myra or perhaps June and send out a report to the list. There's a list back there because there are ways that you can get involved because as Jozari said, it is about changing the government. There's a way to actually work out the legislation that is about to be coming up. And Myra can also give you more information about one of the current legal cases progressing through the courts here with the Palestinian American speech therapist Bayer Ahavi and talking about her case against the ridiculous legislation that was passed in the last legislature about knocking him to work if you are against the boycott, domestic and Spanish group. So those are just two things I'd like to add. I would like us to mention some of the great way to educate people. I think it's, can I say it, so he doesn't give a damn. I think it's more responsibility to educate even the people because they didn't aim coming just to the United States and the state of New York. For me, they have to go back. They have to go back and get a fix of all problems. I don't wanna see any churches or charities going back to my country and fixing the problem. And I am responsible for that, too. So for being a responsibility, and I think about what those kids coming to this country, I don't wanna see those kids coming against my kids. So it's my responsibility to educate my kids and their kids because it's a lot of people here from San Antonio and New York and I am involved and very much in whatever I can. And that's the question is, if it's one of the good things people, I believe in it, I believe in the power of getting together in five times as a human being. And my friends, I would like to talk about what you guys think, what are you doing and how it's been a bit of this. Thank you very much for being out on the panel. It was really informative. I would like to ask the U.S. Council to lead us to speak and he's something that's helping us in what we're doing. My name is Ayanse Garasan and I'm a tribal member of the Garaiso Comedical Tribal of Texas. And we have on our C aspect there at the information table he is our tribal chairman and when we're talking about the crisis and then we have people in here also that are at our village, our Somisei village-based camp that we'll be able to talk about right now but the perspective that we have as native people or regional people of this region is when we're talking about immigration, we're talking about borders, we're talking about occupation for people that never left, our right to stay, our right to be able to practice our life things, our right to be who we are and then not be told that we are the immigrants when we're working out not, we are not the immigrants and also when we're looking at the continent and the boundary borders that we enforce but really it's just militarization it's really just enforcing the occupation of these lands and because of the resources, right because of the resources that people want to extract especially now with all the extraction that's happening and that's why, that's why we're here just to remind people that we're human I think the mother of her or grandmother of her she's reminding us also that we need to go back to being human and we need to go back to thinking about these things and when we're talking about the prices on the border we are going to be opposing that border wall that the so-called president said that he wants to build and we're thinking that because those are our ancestral lands, our traditional ancestral lands and that wall is going to be detrimental to the entire community ecology of the region so it doesn't just mean on one side of the border or the other side of the border because it seems like only, you know it's only a matter of occupation so it's kind of like that's going to be affecting the also lands, it's going to be affecting the butterflies it's going to be affecting us as people in our relationship with the animals of all the living things that are in that region so that's my, it's very important that we not allow that wall to go up aside from the fact of the increased militarization which has always been a problem and the human rights violations that people will be doing is that whenever there's been those sections of the wall that have been built it's been to, it's a deterred migration but my foreseeing people to change their migration routes right, to change ancestral migration routes and use routes that are much more dangerous that are basically putting us in a life or death situation and that's how they're deterring this death is that they're turning for people and that's why that wall is there it's to promote that death and that's obviously that policy of people because I've worked in Arizona and it's just the same policy but it's being done here and so what we're doing is we're building these villages we're restoring our ancestral villages and we're doing this because we want to remind people and we want to be able to protect our preserve our traditional ancestral lands and if you would like to be able to support us building these villages then I suggest that you go and sign up at the back and also we're just gonna be, and also we're offering anybody who wants to come help and work with us but that's like physical labor and also solidarity, all is welcome and I don't want to press something you'd like to add Can you give me a minute? Okay, we want to allow time for questions Okay, I'll just one minute I just want to say a few things I don't know if you can hear me but I'll use the microphone They just, a couple of days ago announced that they had found out that they had found some remains in Eagle Pass where they were built where they have the stream mine that is selling gold they've set some in the Gulf of Mexico and they took those to UN remains and they buried them secretly somewhere else now they've waved the Native American Great Protection and Repatriation Act they've waved the American Indian Religious Freedom Act they've filled this wall we're gonna be up right in this little wall up against protecting a cemetery that has some of our troubled ancestors that are buried there but also that has World War I and World War II veterans and we're gonna convert this stuff tomorrow and set up the camp and they already know that we're there and if you want to come out come out to the village of Somisec that's where we're at out here in Portugal, not too far and you can hear the rest of the story because 22 people in the last few years have died at the hands of the board of patrol or the ice agent and nobody's question of that a young lady from Honduras got shot said a month ago nobody has said anything there's no accountability for ice homeland security and when they build them all they're gonna build martial law all along that mile long strip that they're building they're not building it on the river they're building it two miles away from the border so we're giving up United States territory for them to do whatever they want with people that come along what they don't know is that once you get on this land you can ask for asylum and they have to grab it I just want to let you know that we're trying to teach people there and these villages will be exactly that there's a teach that I want to introduce J.R. American horse from La Cota Sue he was there, he was one of the chiefs there thank you very much I'm sure that there are some people who are going to want to talk to you maybe ask some questions so let's give suggestions I'll have to do yeah we're going to go to questions whichever our time is running out and I do want to allow some people to ask questions if you have some and I want to go into that with a poem a poem part of which you all are familiar with it may have some connotations or associations for you but let's just take a minute to just listen to the words of the poem in the context of our conversation today this was written by a Jewish American woman in the 19th century she was not an immigrant but her forebears were and she grew up and she learned about the story of her ancestors who immigrated to the US because of persecution in their homelands she became an activist for justice not like the brazen giant a brief thing with conquering limbs astride from land to land here at our seawashed sunset gates shall stand a mighty woman whose flame is the imprisoned life name and her name mother of exiles mother of exiles weak in hand blows worldwide welcome her mild eyes command the air bridge part of twin cities frame keep ancient lands your story palm cries she all masses yearning to breathe free the wretched refuse of your teaming shore send these the homeless let's have some questions if you have questions for an individual please direct them to the individual or if you have a general question just I'll ask you an answer yes it's a question and also a comment that I can't hold it for a while thank you very much for having the panel I think it's a very I think it's essential to have these type of discussions and I would like to kind of comment but also ask do I raise the question that you need to the like a change of order somebody can say that but the different parties because I would like to comment that under the demo the democrat has happened a lot of things like in 1995 originally people a lot of people died in one of that like 14 people died in one of them so that was under that that and also in the New York Times Polish September 13, 2016 that Obama gave in the day after that I'm 38 living in the United States and on that I always say he gave more aid you know to that Israeli that they throw in his name any of his friends so I think that's the legal part what kind of order they can say that they are more than friends that's what I think the other is like people dying in these countries because this country has control over the country like in America in the Middle East to accommodate the all these wealth so people dying for that because people want to leave their lands and they want to leave their lands one of that you know one more indication we demand you know to take care of all people so why not to take care of your own problems and problems that are going for the countries because of that so what kind of order we have and they also want to you know give more aid I wish I could respond I think you wanted to what kind of I got to respond what kind of government so here in the US we have a tendency to see government in red versus blue so for a friend but a lot of what I was talking about as you're talking about you're really strong she was talking about the destruction of our government we see I came across some different terms and political theory one of them being that the United States has a closed a closed system I'm not playing what I mean closed system and another one is the kind of the similar government came across which came from an Italian novel from the 1800s called the Iqat al-Bahram Iqat al-Bahram what that means so Iqat al-Bahram the whole thing about the novel is that because some of the overseas learning country is a relatively young country Italy as a country is the youngest in the United States Italy was divided to different kingdoms and principalities and some very belong to Austria and some belong to France so just recently just happened into the 1880s that Italy unified became what you see here today so there was this there was this guide the whole thing about that around this was that the general that was pushing for unification in Italy his name is and to these different villages different kingdoms pressuring for unification of Italy and there was this personality where this guide he wanted to do reforms it was a little reform but the thing is he wanted to keep his personality as it was and he wanted to reform to appease the central government at the same time to keep things as they were so that's what worked out about this to be there to initiate reforms to keep things away from this that makes sense? that's what got it to come about that's 19,000 people when we talk about a closed political system means that in the United States the White House whether it's blue or red the policy stays the same particularly the foreign policy stays the same it doesn't really get out of force what happens is they make adjustments and fine-tune it but still the same goals are the same because of the laws so when Lara was talking about changing government she made it change the whole structure of things on radio which they over there are the ones that are absolutely with the brunt of the outcome of what happened here does that make sense? did you have a response? I just wanted to say that I think that obviously it's supposed to think that the only way of being political is signing up for elections and voting behind a candidate we know that that's a very limited conception of being political and I think that we but if you do look at the parties and you do look at how they shifted both the Democrats and the Republicans and the Republican policy it's somewhat unrecognizable to sort of the senior Republicans or the older ones but I think that part of changing the government is also changing the public discourse and changing the public culture and that's a long game and that has to be strategic and I think sometimes we don't want to come across to be too radical or maybe you don't maybe you don't care about that I sometimes will just not say anything but I think that we need to make radical normal and I think that we need to think how do we do that I think like you know we see little bits of it happening we might not always agree with who that person is but it's like just shifting what is normal and that this whole that can be done because it has been done and it takes work and it takes some strategy but I think that it's public culture and discourse that has to that and then it will follow I just want to add about Javani and have you both said also that it is true voting alone is not enough but joining the parties is very important right now if we want to make a change it change has to come from within we have to be inside not from outside so running for any kind of offices is the answer that's the only way it cannot be done overnight you're right but each one of you can run for an office each one of you can join the party if nothing else become the researchers that is quite a powerful position because you change the parties thinking from inside so it is important I think we have been saying oh be active in elections you know go vote and all that that is also important but I think the time has come if we have to make a change we have to vote inside yes sir I think I got a microphone built inside you could hear we could I'm only a visitor from here from North Dakota we've been in the pipeline right there and they use a lot of force the idea of how you got to look back at 1984 when they introduced the executive order in Washington executive order came about this eminent domain and it never really came into prosperity until the president slowly started to work on that eminent domain to take over the land the water the railroads the highways the airports everything that's coming into effect the land your rent your houses they can remove your house anytime you want that's that executive order and then also the other one is the mass incarceration it's called docket law the mass incarceration for minorities okay that's what's to keep up the court system so when they put some of the right now you have a lot of children in locked up they're making money off of them and so sessions when he got an office in January on 17 he brought up that law that docket law and he introduced it and wanted to eliminate it and 45 minutes later he would drew his motion so they left it in there and they and they still try to keep them that great prison that's opening in Ohio Guanamato what do you call it that prison so and then there's Obama closed down 134 Walmart's they're making them into concentration camps so this is what probably might want to visit the docket law and the EO called executive order those were created in 1984 so some of you that are kind of into computers you might want to look that up and maybe revisit have our leaders of our state and the governors to visit that so thank you for listening to me so part of the job of a moderator is to put a damper on everything and I have to do that now because this library closes at 5 o'clock closes so it's 25 till now and I know the nature of people is to want to visit and talk and everything so what I'm sorry to have to do but have to because everyone of us in this room has to be outside the library at 5 o'clock is to adjourn the program and and allow some time for folks to visit with each other if you have questions for the panelists let's do that on a one by one basis thank you all very much for coming