 Today was a really important day because citizens from around San Antonio and around this state were able to make their voice be heard. To this White House and to this administration that has decided to create a policy of detaining women and children who have done nothing wrong other than ask for our help. This president who promised change, who gave hope, has instead judged out old policies that go back not just to the Bush era, but to World War II era, internment of family camp policies. Things that our nation long ago apologized for. So we came here today to send a message to the White House that not in our name and not in the name of our security can our country detain peaceful, innocent women and children who are seeking our help. We came here to ask him to tear down these walls and to let these people free. We're going to continue to do our work on the ground for each and every woman and child who's detained at Carnes and Dilley, and we're going to continue to advance our advocacy message here in San Antonio, in the state legislature, and all the way to the White House and the Capitol, that it is not an American value of family values to be detaining women and children. It's not an American principle to prosecute refugees, because this is a country not just of immigrants, but this is a country of refugees. And we were here today as citizens to express, we recognize that this is our history, that we stand in the very heart and center of our nation's principles, our values, and our most cherished history of immigrants who have searched our shores because their countries didn't want them, didn't want their ideas, didn't want their energy, didn't want them as people. We've sent this signal for decades that this is the beacon of hope. This is the shining city on the hill. And we were here today to remind our country that that's who we can still be. Right now we're working on the ground, we're representing individual women and children in their cases to try to liberate them from this detention center because the policy and the strategy of the White House was that if you kept these women far from cities, lawyers like us couldn't get to them and they wouldn't be able to win their cases. Well, we've changed that. We've gone to Dilley. We've gone to Carnes. We've represented these women and we have won their cases. And judges have found that these are refugees. Another strategy by the White House was that if we kept these women in boxes, their stories would not be heard, the American people would not understand their plight, and the administration could control the narrative. Well, by liberating women, empowering them to speak out, we've shared their stories locally, statewide, and nationally so that Americans around this country can understand that these are people who share our hopes, our dreams, and our values. But their governments have suppressed them, have persecuted them, and have oppressed them. They came here based on a promise that our country provides more protection than theirs. Unfortunately, they almost didn't find that protection. But with our help, and with the help of our community, the help of the people out there watching this today right now, we can change the narrative, and we can return our country to the history that we want it to have, to the glory that we once had. The only country that we need to learn from is our country. The country that we need to take a lesson from is the United States of America. Unfortunately, it's just not the United States of America of today. It's the United States of America that we remember as the greatest nation and the greatest generation that passed these laws. That's the answer. One last thing. What can people in San Antonio do? What people in San Antonio can do is they can participate and they can give. The most important thing that you can do is you can help a woman and her child to get out of this prison. We are raising money for a bond fund that helps to pay the bonds of women and children who cannot pay the $10, $15,000 they sometimes have to pay to get out. So we're seeking donations through our website at RiasasTexas.org where the money that you donate goes directly to pay bonds to liberate a woman and her child. My name is Virginia Raymond and I am a lawyer in solo practice in Austin, Texas. And since August I have been representing families, women and children who are incarcerated at the Karns detention facility which they renamed the Karns residential facility when they reopened for the women and children. But it was quite clearly named the Karns detention facility up until last summer. Fintl last year, up until last summer, women and children who came in or really other people who came into the United States asking for refuge in general were released on their own recognizance or with very low bonds to go pursue their cases elsewhere. Because detention is expensive and because people don't have, they don't present any problems for the United States in terms of security or anything like this. And so many of them were released and they were released either on a short bond or on what's called parole, which the Department of Homeland Security, which is the body that ICE is part of, has the authority to release anybody that it deems, you know, that it wants to release or that's in the public interest. And that was typically done up until last June. They're coming mostly from three countries, which are El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. And it's not a coincidence, it's not an accident that they are coming from those three countries. Those three countries have this tremendous levels of violence, unprecedented levels of violence, and states which either cannot or will not able to protect people who are the victims and survivors of that violence because they have been so destroyed themselves. And so even a good government official, you know, many of them are killed but even are afraid or unable to act to protect the people we are seeing coming here as refugees. The people who are coming here are coming here for a number of reasons. All of them have had their lives threatened. Some of them have been actually injured, beaten up, sexually assaulted. Many, many, many have been sexually assaulted, assaulted other kinds of ways, threatened with their lives. They've seen their neighbors, their sisters, their brothers be executed, be disappeared. They, one family that I am working with have been locked up since August, had, was stalked and threatened many times by the same two men who are members of the maras, stalked and threatened the mother, stalked and assaulted one of the daughters. And then those two men came into their small home, the family's small home, just broke in, pulled the mother back, put a gun against her head, threatened to rape and kill. Her daughter's first, so she would have to watch it and then rape and kill her. Now anybody with a liquor sense would get up and leave. And that's what she did. And they've been locked up and they've been in ice custody since August. That they're, that they're suffering all of the harms of detention. And they don't see an end to it. And that even lawyers who work very, very hard and do the best that we can, cannot say, yes, you will be out by your 16th birthday in March. So, let's begin. This is Yvonne Dilling, she's going to start up the press conference. My name is Yvonne Dilling. I work with the Marino Fathers and Brothers. I've been a late missioner in Central America most of my adult life. We're gathered here today, anniversary of Archbishop Romero's martyrdom in who today agencies, today is a detention center. Visited and listened to detention centers years ago. Listen to these. Elizabeth Hernandez-Samaya, 33 years old, Salvadoran. Mother of Jocelyn, 10 years old, Valentin, nine years old. And Moises, three years old. We were detained on August 1st, 2014. And, or shall I say, I have six months and 24 days being detained. We were five days in La Yalera, terribly cold, sleeping on the floor of cold cement. We would cover ourselves with aluminum paper. The federales would count us every two or three hours, would get us up in the sleeping children to go outside, and they would strike the door hard with their clubs, and they would discriminate against us. And they would say we were dirty, and we had no reason to come here to this country. After five days, they took us out and sent us to another place that looked like a dog kennel, because they looked like cages for dogs. And there we stayed one day. And on the 6th of August, they took me and my children out to this detention center. When I arrived here, they told me that my case would last from two to three months because I had a deportation eight years ago. Three months went by, and then the immigration people came, and they told me that I would stay another three months, and that I had no right to a bond, but that my children did. But that they would interview them because they had to have their own case, because in my case, they did not apply. They had their interview, and they came out positive. I spoke with an official who has my case and asked what was to happen. He said that if the judge gave a bond to the children, I would also get out with them, because immigration would let me out. The date for my court arrived for my children, but the judge did not want to give a bond. But I did not understand why, because to the others, he did give them a bond. But the judge said to me that he would not close my case for bond. Now my attorney is appealing, so the judge or immigration will tell me what is going on. I feel frustrated, desperate, worried, because why so much time, and now immigration won't let us out. My children don't eat because the food is terrible. The water when we drink makes our stomachs hurt and we get bloated. When I take some of my children to the doctor, it takes a long time for them to see my children. After an hour and a half, they see us and tell the mother, give him water. If a child goes with diarrhea, they give him two bananas. That is all. If a child has a problem with his eyes, like my son, Moises, he has been there months and they tell me, wash his eyes with warm water and apply a paste they gave me. But it does not work. When it is time for the count, which is three times a day, the first count is 7.30 a.m., the second at four, and the last at eight at night. And we have to take the children, even though they are asleep. Because if not, they will report us and they say this will affect the judge and the court. The officials have told us that they will report us because our case is a lost one, even though we have a reasonable case and our children's cases are positive. One has already left who had four deportations and for the rest of us, they don't want us to leave. I don't know what is happening. I want to leave this place. The women that newly arrived asked me how much time I have here and what hurts me most is to see them enter and leave. Families come in and I stay here. My children ask me, what is wrong, Mama? Why don't we leave? I ask that you help us. We are not a threat for this country. All I want is refuge for my children and for me. As a footnote, we went back to court and secured a $1,500 bond for the children. We sent that to immigration, requesting prosecutorial discretion for Sonia to be able to leave with her children. We filed this request on February 26th, followed up on March 11th and again on March 19th, but we have still not received a response. Meanwhile, Moisesa's eyes are getting worse and his brother, Valentin, has lost so much weight from not tolerating the food that his pants fall off of him. Just this morning, I filed a report with the Department of Family and Protective Services for child abuse and neglect. What is happening to these children and these mothers has to stop. I have two children. My daughter is 11 years old and my son is five. We have been detained for seven months in the Currents County Residential Center and my children can no longer tolerate being detained. They do not like the food. It has already been a long time. Please help us. You're from Guatemala. I'm afraid to go back to my country because of my partner and because of the Maras. Some women have bonds, but they do not let them get out. I do not know why. In 2007, I came back because I could not live. My ex-boyfriend abused me and raped me. The kisses he wanted hit me. I did not have anyone to defend me. I only lived with my mother and she is a single mother. She told me to come back and that she would take care of my son. He was only four years old. That is why I came back and thank God I arrived in Los Angeles. In 2008, my other son was born. In June of 2014, I went to Honduras to bring my other son. He was already 300 years old and he started having problems. He was harassed by some gangsters when he saw that he was growing up and that he did not have a father and that no one would defend him. And as they saw that he was in a group of young people from the church, he harassed Catechesis and I had sent him a life. But they broke up and tried to kill his friend. He was scared and told me what was going on. That is why I went and brought him back. We entered here on September 12th, 2014. And since then we have been here in this place of meat, and what we are seeing is not desired by anyone because it is not pleasant at all. I am only aware of my God that soon this nightmare will come. I am worried about my children. The one who is here with me is suffering a lot. And the one who is in Los Angeles is also suffering. Because the teacher says that under the notes Catechesis is crying because in the morning she is going to leave a lady at school and she herself will pick him up. The father does not take care of him at night and all this is affecting him. I need your help, please. Thank you. I am Virginia Raymond and I am a lawyer. And I have represented with my friends and coworkers thus far, six who are incarcerated. That's an important word, incarcerated and carned since August. We are here to remember our Bishop Oscar de Romero who was assassinated 35 years ago for telling the truth. And we are here because other people, including us, must take his place in telling the truth about the violence and injustice that we spoke out against 35 years ago and it continues to bring refugees to the United States today. We are here because there is a continuous, unbroken line of violence and injustice that Archbishop Romero condemned and the incarceration today of hundreds and thousands of mothers and children refugees who are detained in Texas and in Pennsylvania today. We are here because the United States funded the death squads in El Salvador that created so much of the violence that people fled from at that time. We are here because the United States trained and organized the Guatemalan military who committed genocide against Mayan peoples in these years. We are here because the United States used Honduras as a parking lot for its extensive military buildup in Central America all those years ago and we are still seeing the results of that today. We are here because the refugees who are coming to the United States for safety today are coming because of problems that we ourselves in the United States created. I say we, even though those of us today, many of those of us who are here today were not born in the 1980s and I welcome all of these students who understand the injustice and who are withstanding with us today. We are here also with people who because of their great consciences had to help those refugees of Central America like Stacey Merck, like Jack Elder, there is he who not only gave up their lives and sacrificed themselves to run Oscar Romero in the valley to protect those refugees all these years ago but went to federal prison as acts of conscience because they refused to not help refugees. We are here today to stand with all the Central American refugees living and dead who try to achieve justice in their homelands, who died in their homelands or who were incarcerated in the United States then or now at the hundreds and thousands of women and children refugees who we lock up today. We are here today to stand in solidarity with Maria Estella Marquez, a Salvadoran woman who I met in August who came with her three daughters to escape targeted violence by the mothers against her and her young daughters. Teenage adolescent women are targeted especially in El Salvador and Guatemala and on her tenders today. And we are here in solidarity with Maria Estella's daughters, Jackie, who turned 11 in detention in September, Carmen, who turned 14 in detention in January, and Melissa Guadalupe who will turn 16 on Sunday in detention having been there since August. We have been begging the immigration judges to let these women go and we have presented many compelling legal arguments as to why even those who have been deported today even those mothers who've been deported before deserve to be let out of detention after six months coming on eight months for some six, seven, eight months of detention having done no wrong except to come to the United States seeking refuge and for their daughters and sons who are with them who have committed no wrong either and who have been detained for these six, seven, eight months. We are here because we know from psychological evidence that the trauma caused by detention of even two and three weeks can cause long lasting and even permanent damage to children and adolescents from being locked up. One of the psychologists that we have told the judges about has said that he has interviewed these children in carns and decided that children in detention in carns are facing some of the worst trauma that he has ever seen in his life. No exaggeration, this from a psychologist of 30, 35 years the worst trauma of his life by being in detention that when children who need the security of their parents see their mothers mistreated or talked to rudely by staff when their mothers are unable to answer the question of when will we get out, mommy? And their mothers are helpless that that undermines very fundamentally the trust that children need in their parents for healthy, normal development. We are here because our psychologists have told us that when they interviewed traumatized children in August and saw the terrible trauma that they had experienced and how damaged they were by what they had experienced in Honduras, in Salvador and Guatemala. And then when they saw how much worse off those same children were in December that they were able to say this part of the trauma, this part of the damage, this part of the injuries that are happening is because of detention and not just because of what they endured at home. We are here because even though I started calling Department of Protective Services and Department of, in the child abuse hotlines in September, I was told there was nothing the state of Texas could do about it. I'm here, we are here because immigration judges who are smart and good people, many of them do not believe that they have the authority to release women who have in this situation. And there is one group of people who unlike the state of Texas says we don't have the authority to do that. Unlike the immigration judges who say we don't think we have the authority to release them. There is one group of people who have nobody telling them you don't have the authority to speak out against us. And let's act like it's a democracy. Who is that group of people? It's you all, it's us. It is we can demand the release of those women and children. To detain mothers and children. It is dangerous, it is expensive, and it is unnecessary. For Sonia and her three children for the last seven months to we the people, over $200,000. And the irony is, Sonia and all the mothers and children are following the rules. They have to be in this country in order to apply for asylum and they're fleeing persecution in their home country. Family detention is the yardstick with which our generation will be judged for generations to come. But for the smokestacks and the trains, the parallels of family detention are eerily similar to the Nazi Holocaust. And locking up these mothers and children until we somehow break them and they beg to be deported is essentially prescribing them with a death sentence in most of these cases. Let them go with their families, friends and organizations and churches who are ready and willing to sponsor them and accept them. Give them a reasonable bond and allow them to pursue their cases while simultaneously able to heal from the trauma and help their children heal from the physical as well as emotional and psychological scars. The torture that the US is now inflicting upon these families by detaining them for such an unreasonably long time would be decried by our government. As inhumane were we witnessing it by any other country, yet it continues in our backyard. Why does ICE release convicted criminals on bond? Which they do. Why does ICE release men and women who are supposedly mandatorily detained? Which they do. Why does ICE release males and females who have previous immigration entries and or deportations? Again, which they do often on their own recognizance. And why will ICE not release mothers with babies who are ill, have followed the immigration rules, have no criminal history, have legitimate claims for relief and have people in the United States willing and able to sponsor them? That is the question everyone should be demanding an answer to. The wholesale incarceration of mothers and children and the government's unconscionable and discriminatory treatment against them simply cannot continue. If any of the media wants to do one-on-ones with different folks here, you may do so now. Thank you for being here. Thank you. And for all of you who are here.