 Tonight should be a very instructive evening. We have wonderful guests to talk about Haiti, the deplorable situation with the deportation and the tensions of Haitians. Patrice Lawrence of Undocu Black will be with us, as well as Paul Christian Namphee with the network action movement. So we'll hear about what they're doing, their campaigns, and we'll campaign as well. By the end of the evening, calling Congress and emailing the White House to express our disapproval of the Biden administration's treatment of the Haitians, the mass deportations situation in Del Rio, and we'll be, you know, urging our Congress members to cosponsor legislation or at least a resolution that expresses our our desire that things turn around dramatically. Nadia, do you have an update you'd like to share about what you've been up to? You're always up to so much. Yes, I would like to talk about our campaign to release funds to pay the Haitians, the Afghan teachers and health workers. We have been very upset by the Taliban takeover, but it doesn't mean that we should victimize the people who provide key public services for the Afghan people and themselves are dependent on their salaries to feed their families. So right now we have a campaign calling on the World Bank and the Biden administration to release Afghan funds that have been frozen to be able to pay those salaries. So we'll put a link in the chat and if you haven't signed, please sign. It's very critical because the economic situation in Afghanistan is in crisis. The hospitals, one in four of them are closed because there isn't money to buy medicines or pay the health workers. They have a new round of COVID. There is a humanitarian disaster as well, so we really have responsibility toward the Afghan people to not make things worse for them. So we hope you'll join us in this campaign as we call for releasing the frozen funds. Thank you, Medea. Yes, and Code Pink Radio is out this week. I hope you'll all share it. Perhaps she can put it in the chat, which has a chance. We have featured Medea Benjamin on this campaign. Phyllis Benes, who joined us a while ago on Afghanistan, as well as some of the House debate, the floor debate on the military budget. And on that subject, I wanted to share with you, since we did talk to Barbara Lee last time and we were focused on the NDAA, the final vote in the House, it has yet to be voted on in the Senate, was 316 to 113 no. And many of those voting no were Republicans. Why? Because days before the vote, the Republican House Freedom Caucus told Republicans to vote no on this because of two amendments that had been incorporated into the NDAA. One requires women to register for a selective service and a draft, should there be one. And the other that they objected to was it's a requirement that awareness be raised through different seminars and so forth on racism, systemic racism. So the Republicans objected to that. So the Freedom Caucus voted against it. There were 38 Democrats who voted no. We assume for the right reasons because of runway military. And I wanted to lift them up. We'll be lifting them up at Code Pink. We're going to do a Code Pink shareable with their faces. So look for that on the Code Pink website or if you're on Twitter. The 38 Democrats, I'm going to lift them up by reading their names who voted no on the NDAA. There were 86 who voted for a 10% cut. But only 38 who voted no on the $778 billion military budget. So they were Jacobs from San Diego. DeSolnier from California as well. Gomez, California, Kana, California, Lee, California. Lowenthal, California. Hawken class, Massachusetts. Bonamici, Oregon. Bowman, New York. Bush, Missouri. Clark, Massachusetts. Clark, New York. Cohen, Tennessee. Davis, Illinois. DeFazio, Oregon. Doyle, Pennsylvania. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this correctly. Espellette, New York. Garcia, Illinois. Jayapal, Washington. Jones, New York. Kildi, Michigan. Levin, Michigan. Maloney, New York. McGovern, Massachusetts. Mang, New York. Moore, Wisconsin. Ocasio-Cortez, New York. Omar, Minnesota. Palone, New Jersey. Pocann, Wisconsin. Presley, Massachusetts. Raskin, Maryland. Shikowsky, Illinois. Tlaib, Michigan. Torres, New York. Watson-Colman, New York. Welch, Vermont. Williams, Georgia. So those are the 38 that we really want to thank. We can get a chance for voting against the NDAA. Marcy, can I just say the hypocrisy that this is all happening while the Congress is debating this domestic spending bill that really amounts to $350 billion a year while they handed over a double that to the Pentagon with almost no debate about it? So I think that reflects the fact that we just don't have a strong enough movement to force these Congress people, even those progressives, who vote the right way, but they don't do enough about it and flex their muscles like they're doing with this domestic package. So stick with us at Codepin Congress while we try to strengthen the spine of those Democrats who are on our side and shame the ones who keep handing over gargantuan amounts of our tax dollars to an institution that only has a history of failure upon failure. If it were a corporation, it would have gone bankrupt a long time ago. So maybe we should bankrupt the Pentagon. Yeah, I wanted to also add that there is a bill that's being introduced on a more hopeful note. By Congresswoman Maxine Waters, she's a co-sponsor, as is Jared Huffman in California, Chui Garcia in Illinois, a couple of others. And this bill is to abolish the US Space Force. I'm in San Francisco on Chumashland, not too far from Bannenberg Air Force Base, which is, thanks to our US senators, now going to be one of the headquarters or a command center for the Space Command. It's already a superfund site, as you can imagine. And Marcy, I also want to say that we agree with the Freedom Caucus on one thing, which is that women should not be part of a selective service. Code Pink has taken a position against that, of course, because we are against a selective service for anybody. But we don't think that it is a liberating thing for women to be included in it. Absolutely not. Thank you. And now we're going to get started with our program. I see Patrice Lawrence is with us. She is our first speaker. We're so thrilled that she's with us tonight. Patrice Lawrence, originally from Jamaica, is the co-director of UndocuBlack Network. This network is a multi-generational community of currently and formerly undocumented black people fighting for survival, not just for survival, though, however, fighting to thrive. UndocuBlack has ushered in victories for temporary protected status, or what they call TPS, fought for DACA, DACA, public health, mental wellness, and is spearheading powerful media narrative-centering black undocumented people fighting vilification and criminalization. Patrice Lawrence, we're so thrilled that you're with us to talk about the deportations and the detentions of Haitians and what your organization, UndocuBlack, is doing to resist and push back on this. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Of course. Yes, so tell us what you're seeing on the ground. Maybe you can give us an overview of what's happened so far and any progress being made under the Biden administration to meet the demands of grassroots organizations like the one that you had. Yeah, so I, Patrice Lawrence again with UndocuBlack, I'll say a few things so I can talk a little bit about what we were seeing in the past couple of weeks. I cannot go to the border myself. I am undocumented, so that's not the role that we play. However, we have been paying close attention to the policy pieces as well as narrative and media of folks that we have who are Haitian and other folks who have been detained. So that's the lens that I speak of as well as leaning on folks like Haitian Bridge Alliance who were actually there last week and just left. So in general, the images have gone away, right? Many of us saw the very gruesome images of abuse of ICE and CBP officers on horseback that looked like 200 years ago. And many of us were really outraged about that and rightly so. And so what the Biden administration did was to remove people and they did three things with them. One, they have some folks that they actually made stay in Mexico and would not allow them to cross at all. Haitian folks as well as other Black migrants. Two, they put several Black migrants, thousands at this rate, about 5,000 is our last number in detention. Three, they deported close to about 8,000 Haitian migrants back to Haiti. So that's what they did and that's why we're not seeing those images anymore. Now there's a smaller number of individuals who have been paroled into the country. And as of last week, Haitian parole is now back, but it's selective and it's at the discretion of DHS. So in summary, what we have seen with the approach of Biden-Harris administration to Black migrants, to Haitians who are seeking asylum or seeking protection is not much different from what we saw under Trump. And in some ways we almost think it's perhaps worse because he campaigned on being better, on being the better person on delivering more and what we have seen as the opposite of that. Tell us about your organization and what you're doing. Yeah, so we are doing a few things. So on the policy and advocacy side, we together with several other organizations filed a complaint, a civil rights, civil liberty complaint, putting together all of the affidavits that we have of individuals who had said that they were abused while they were there by CBP officers. Everything from not being allowed medical access to actually being verbally abused, being physically abused. And so we have filed that complaint. We've also filed a FOIA, a freedom of information at request for more information to corroborate the statements that we already have. And we are also pushing to repeal Title 42. Title 42 is a health policy that immigration can use if they want to, and that's what DHS is choosing to do to deport people in mass. And so we want it to be repealed. Health experts now two DHS high level ranking officials have resigned and part of why they have resigned the second one resigned yesterday, Ambassador Foot resigned last week and they mentioned Title 42. They are saying that it is evil and that there are more humane ways to provide protection for individuals and they're resigning until this administration does anything better. So I know that a lot of our participants are well aware of this issue and have been following it, but still I think it'd be helpful to explain why we see this stream of Haitian refugees not only here but at the border with Mexico and other Latin American countries. Yeah, so there's two big things, right? There's one about like the US accountability in this, right? So when we think about the early 1900s like the US has occupied Haiti for over 30 years and they have continued to meddle in their business and in their affairs. So there's that part. And then we have the most recent events this year which was that the president was assassinated over the summer and they had a major earthquake almost eight on the Richter scale just less than 60 days ago. So those two events have made it more difficult for Haitians to stay in Haiti and have also raised like a racist flag for other Haitians who were in other countries since the earthquake in 2010. And it made them not safe for them to remain there anymore including Haitians who were in Chile and so they started to make their way up. I think all of that combined with misinformation meant that people felt that the best place for them to be was with loved ones that they already had in the United States and that they have a right to go to. Thank you, Beatrice. We're gonna turn to our next guest and then we're gonna come back and do a Q&A with both of you. So thank you for joining us and stay with us. Medea? Thank you, Patrice. And thanks for the wonderful work that you and your organization do. And now we have the pleasure to hear from Paul Nam Fee who is a personal friend. I'm so delighted that you are here with us Paul and he works as a lead organizer with a group called FAM, the Family Action Network Movement. The ED is a very well known woman in the Miami area and of course nationally as well, Marlene Bastien. And Paul does and FAM do terrific work. They spearheaded the campaign for temporary protective status to get that for the Haitian people as well as for others. He works a lot on the plight of Haitians who are here in the US undocumented and has been very active recently in this most recent situation. And I think Paul, you recently returned from the border in Texas. So thank you very much for being with us and please let us know what you saw and what you think is happening and needs to be done. Thank you so much. Thank you, Medea. Thank you to Kopink and Undocu Black. Really, my comments are dedicated to the struggle of people in Haiti as well as the forces of change that we saw everywhere from Haiti on a constant basis to of course the many, many, many US cities last Saturday in terms of the women's struggle. So very quickly, we saw many, many, many things that really shocked us. And it was a very, very, very broad-based group, the Family Action Network movement traveled to Texas along with many, many different organizations, SPCC, Alianza San Diego, Haitian Bridge Alliance, many pastors of faith and action. We were also joined by Haitian-American community leaders such as Father Asian Ajamari of Notre Dame d'Aïtie and elected officials, local Haitian elected officials such as Doty Joseph from the Florida State House. And it was really, really, really shocking. First of all, that we were basically led into a false promise that we had basically negotiated with the authorities to be present with our sisters and brothers in Del Rio under the bridge that we knew there was, at one point between 12 and 15,000 people there, we were working with the authorities to get access to them to see what their needs were, what was their basic situation. We had all seen those images circulating around the internet or on social media of Haitian refugees being terribly mistreated by US border guards on a horseback with whip-like objects in their hands. And our mandate was to be with our sisters and brothers. And we went through intricate arrangements to arrive there on Friday, September 24th, and traveling from Florida and many other places. We had actually traveled from Washington, D.C., where we were at the immigrant rights demonstration on a few days before, on the 21st. And several hours after leaving San Antonio, just a few hours before arriving at Del Rio, we were basically told we don't need to go there anymore because no one would be under the bridge. And again, this was a real shock. This shows to some degree the lack of sensitivity in terms of the coordination of these types of interventions on our part. So it's true, we arrived at Del Rio. We went to a center where many of the people who had been paroled in were allowed, we're there and we're being relocated to via San Antonio and other locations to eventually join family members. We went to the, under the bridge and all that we found was border guards who were giving us basically their take on the situation. And clearly many of the statements that they were giving us, I'm not gonna say they were outright false, but there were certain basic details that were lacking that we were not being able to obtain in terms of basic information about where our brothers and sisters were, that they had been sent to a series of processing center and all around the border, all along the border, everywhere from Laredo to San Antonio to Rio Grande Valley to El Paso to other states such as Nogales, Arizona for a fate that we really did not have much visibility or given that this was not a transparent process. So we did have a press conference on the evening of the 24th. We were many of the different members that I just mentioned from the delegation spoke out. Also, Tessa Petit of Florida Immigrant Coalition Flick, Jeb C. Metellus of St. La from Miami. So basically showing our support for the Haitian people who had really gone through everything going all the way from Haiti years earlier arriving in South America, many leaving because Haiti simply they were either facing outright persecution or felt that they could not have a dignified life. And then when situation became very difficult in South America, they engaged on that 10 country trek which is absolutely treacherous. People dying in the wasteland between the Columbia and Panama, there's a stretch there which is not guarded by either country's defense forces and people are basically, they're basically exposed to all types of rape, all types of mistreatment, robbery, theft. And so upon arriving at the border of Mexico and Texas and simply asking for a possibility to receive a due process to receive basically a fair hearing for asylum and protection. And as Patrice mentioned, just a little while ago we're in the thousands and thousands based on the information that we have, it is over 7,000 and growing every day we're seeing four, five, six, seven flights. And just before ending this response, it's important just to mention the case of Title 42 that a federal judge struck it down in terms of the application of Title 42 being applied against families. And unfortunately this administration which yet last year campaigned in little Haiti and other locations based on racial equity and immigration basically is continuing the policy of its very, very anti Haitian predecessors. So this is a very serious situation. We do have a series of demands for Congress, for the Biden administration in terms of how we can move forward but part of our stay there was also accompanying those who had been paroled and many of them have joined us here in South Florida as well as other parts of the country. We're very, very disturbed by Governor DeSantis' recent moves which are completely, completely, completely discriminating against immigrants including people who have been paroled into the country by this administration. Thank you, Paul Nampy. Medea and I are going to ask some questions and encourage all of you who are joining us tonight to post questions in the chat for our guests as well. Patrice Lawrence and Paul Nampy, terrific to have you with us to give us these on the ground reports and to share your demands. Medea, did you have a question? I had a question for Paul if you could just outline what it is that DeSantis may be explaining for those who don't know who he is and what is he doing that is problematic and then what are you calling on the administration and Congress to do? Thank you so much, Medea. Well, I mean, this came, again, I can't say it's blindsided us knowing this governor and how he acts but basically last week during the last week of September, 2021, the state of Florida issued an executive order and filed a lawsuit against USCIS which the Florida Democratic Party issued a swift counterstatement regarding a situation of recently arrived Haitian immigrants traveling in the Texas, Mexico border to Florida. So on September 28th, 2021, Governor DeSantis was joined by Attorney General Ashley Moody of Florida to announce three significant actions Florida is taking to address what they call the Biden border crisis and this is engaged in political very, very hard right-wing terms. First, Governor DeSantis issued an executive order, 21-223 to prohibit all Florida agencies under the purview of the governor from facilitating what they call illegal immigration into Florida despite the fact, again, these are folks who have been paroled by the US federal administration that they basically are prohibiting Florida agencies from any sort of assistance unless otherwise required by federal or state law and require the collection of information from state officials on the scope and cost of what they call illegal immigration in Florida. This executive order prohibits state agencies under the governor's purview from providing support for the resettlement of who they call illegal aliens to Florida, directing the Department of Children and Families to engage in a witch hunt against facilities attempting to help house unaccompanied minors, threatening their license renewal and requesting Florida Department of Law Enforcement to crack down on Florida companies hiring the recently arrived immigrants using eVerify requirements. So they're also using data gathering capacity to attempt to make the case that recent refugees from Haiti will be a drain on the Florida economy, pitting Florida's inhabitants fear of an economic downslide against the recent arrivals. So we see terrible, terrible amounts of scapegoating of the recently arrived immigrants in Florida who transited via the Texas-Mexico border basically trying to criminalize them, lumping them in with catch-all language referring to people guilty of drug trafficking, of illegal aliens who are pending criminal prosecution or have been convicted of crimes. These refugees in question are not criminals. They're simply immigrants who have been paroled into the United States by federal authorities. So finally, Governor DeSantis announced the appointment of Larry Keefer, former U.S. Attorney for Northern District of Florida as a public safety czar to ensure the actions directed by executive order are carried out. So they're basically gauging this that somehow immigrants are a danger to public safety. I mean, this is basically ringing of outright fascism. You know, I mean, there's really no other word for it. And they also announced the governor and the attorney general of Florida has filed suit against the Biden administration challenging its catch and release policy. So there was some pushback on this from the Florida Democratic Party. They immediately published a response claiming that the attacks by DeSantis, which are demonizing immigrants are to deflect scrutiny over his catastrophic management of COVID in Florida and throwing red meat at the GOP xenophobic base attacking and maligning immigrants in a craven attempt to evade the blame he so richly deserves for allowing his state to be ravaged by the pandemic. So we're in a very, very, very tense situation. In terms of our advocacy, what we want from the Biden-Harris administration, what we want from Congress, what we want from local elected officials throughout the country is basically, first of all, we are fighting Title 42 tooth and nail. It is absolutely unconscionable that the best minds, including people inside the CDC, are not at all convinced of the scientific merits of Title 42. It's had disastrous consequences in many times sending people back to their countries of origin is exacerbating the pandemic worldwide rather than attenuating it. And there are definitely other measures to deal with that. So the rescinding of Title 42, particularly in its application against families, husbands, wives, children, this is simply, simply unconscionable. Second demand that we have is that there be a thorough investigation into the actions that happened in the border in the early days after the crisis erupted under the bridge in Del Rio, that there has to be accountability for what happened. We heard that many of our Haitian sisters and brothers who really were victims of this violence, we can't find them, maybe they've been deported. I mean, again, there's a lack of due process here and due process is exactly what we need. As I mentioned earlier in terms of people, going that long track leaving Haiti, many of them who have been politically persecuted, arriving in South America being squeezed forward to the North where they had hopes of joining relatives. And so they do need to receive due process if they have a credible fear either for protection or for asylum. We're asking also that they review the decision made to not extend the July 29th as the end date for eligibility for permanent continuous presence in the United States for temporary protected status. I mean, the earthquake occurred after that. Patrice mentioned many of the challenges that they face in country. I mean, the assassination of the former president should be mentioned was one small piece of a larger basically series of massacres which occurred in the week or two before that assassination including feminists, including human rights advocates such as Marie Antoinette du Claire including journalists such as Diego Shaw. 60 people were massacred in a one week period at the end of June. And basically these are armed gangs controlling the streets in Port-au-Prince and some other major cities and creating life completely unlivable for the civilian population. So I'm glad that Patrice mentioned the name Daniel Foot because this is someone who he had been sent by the Biden administration as their envoy. He many people were very in the civil society were very skeptical of what his intentions were but he was brokering, he was listening to everyone including the commission for a Haitian solution to the crisis who came out with a very, very important accord at the end of August. So inside Haiti, this is really our compass that we are following. I mean, we in terms of people who were advocating for Haiti outside of Haiti as well as the movement inside Haiti is the commission for a Haitian solution to the crisis and the accord at the signed at the end of August by many, many, many different forces many of whom had been against each other earlier and had found this unity. And this unity was being undermined by the unelected current prime minister of Haiti who has absolutely no legitimacy who came up with the initiative of his own to try to break the steam and the momentum of the accord. Mr. Foot had showed that he was interested in listening to the accord in making policy recommendations. These policy recommendations were completely ignored by the US ambassador, by the administration by the State Department resources that Mr. Foot was asking for to deal with the earthquake, to deal with other emergencies were being ignored. And finally, his recommendation against that people would be deported back to Haiti under these conditions. This was all ignored. And he said, I've had enough and he wrote a brilliant resignation letter. And so this letter is written almost as if we wrote it. So these are our main requests that the basic, basic tenant and I'll finish here is that we cannot dissociate the crisis in Haiti from the border crisis. And if the US administration is interested in resolving the border crisis, they must address the issue of the reason to flee people who are leaving inside Haiti because until the United States starts heating the will of the Haitian people as represented by the commission and other civil society forces, people will continue to show up on the shores, on the border between Mexico and the United States. Thank you, Paul. Yes. Patrice said that she'd like to answer a question that was posted in the chat. If the refugees fled to the United States in smaller steadier numbers, would they be treated better? We see a thousand coming per week. And Patrice, I also, a couple of people wrote to me asking questions of you. What does race have to do with all of this? If they were not black, would they have been treated differently? And also the issue of politics. If, while some people in our chat wrote that they're in favor of open borders, and a lot of us are, it doesn't seem to be the general sentiment of the American people. And so given the democratic desire to keep the House and the Senate, are there things that Biden can do that would not be politically detrimental to his party? Those are a lot of questions. Go for it. Okay. I will start on the issue of race. So as many of you know, like anti-blackness is coded in policy, right? But it doesn't look like, normally it doesn't look like you're black, so you're out. But actually at the border, it kind of does look like that. So my example is that some of you may know about like the remaining Mexico policy, also called MPP, right? And what it said was that, it said that people who had crossed the border had to go back to Mexico and stayed there and Trump put it in place, right? Well, if you look at the numbers, the majority of people who are a part of that program are from Central America and are not Haitian. Some of them are black. They're like Afro-Latina, Afro-Latinos. But the reason for that was because Haitians were not allowed to cross in the first place. So that's kind of like how racism plays, is like it's a very like real person to person thing of border officials, not even allowing people to cross the first time, but just for them to stand in line. So many of the Haitians that are coming now have been stuck in other countries or they've been stuck in Mexico for the past two years or more and they were never allowed to cross in the first place. So Biden politically, you know, because he has a very big interest in the Northern Triangle countries, right? So Guatemala and the Central American countries, he is allowing MPP to wind down and allowing people to be allowed back into the United States, but Haiti is not a part of that. And so he can and should do something separate for Haiti, but a part of the second piece I'll mention is the politics. So the big politics, right? And the difference between let's say Afghanistan and Haiti is accountability. So Biden feels like it's in his best interest to, you know, put a middle finger to Bush and the Republicans and whomever else by allowing for some sort of process to have Afghan folks resettle here. And they're still doing a really, really small number in comparison to like the neighboring countries, right? Like it sounds big, but it's not that big. That's because for their political interests, they want to do that, right? For Haiti, the narrative and Paul can definitely share more there is the narrative is these people caused it upon themselves. Not mentioning that it's the US who continues to work with illegitimate governments. So earlier this year, we saw Haitian folks marching the streets, setting things on fire, saying, listen, this government is illegitimate. We are not being served. It is corrupt. And what did Biden do? He began the deportations. The deportations started in February and then he slowed them down and then he restarted them again this fall. But even right now, our main question is, who are you negotiating with? There is no president. And the prime minister is one of the suspects in the murder of the president. So there is no legitimate government. There is no legitimate rule. There's corruption. And the people of Haiti are saying, we are not safe. So the US is dismissing the will of the people. The will of the people. And this is when you start to talk about sovereignty of the state and basically they are upholding an illegitimate government. So then the third piece about if you were to allow people in. So here's a thing that some of you may know if you follow the trends of how migration patterns go. There are checkpoints all along the way coming up to the United States. The US knows who's coming long before they get here. They have numbers, they have names, they have their identification materials. It is not a surprise. And they have before, very often when they do it, it's not fair, but they have before done different systems where people get numbers or like they get a day in advance that they are allowed to cross and have entry. The US is not doing that no for Haitians. They are doing it for some Central Americans but they're not doing it for Haitians. That is selective, that is deliberate and they're using Title 42 against Haitians. But could they treat people better? Absolutely. Are they treating other people better? Yes. Will they do it for Haitians? Not without a whole lot of public pressure. So I also put in the chat like we've made complaints, you know, Code Pink could file their own complaint, right? You could also do your own collins. They're different levers that we can push to basically antagonize people until they act because there are many, many ways to do that. And I also put the petition and the toolkit in the chat. So it's about like really keeping up the pressure on all of these things. And the bottom line, if you don't remember anything else is that if Biden wanted to do something, he could. There's absolutely nothing that says that he cannot. If he wants to, he can. It is a choice. They don't have to follow Title 42, it is a choice. And it's a choice that they're making every single day to be at war with black people instead of giving them care and compassion like they're supposed to. Thank you, Patrice. It's so disturbing to hear this and ironic given the fact that it was black people who got Joe Biden elected. Really? Right. He went on, you know, Paul is right. He went down on there, there's footage. I wish I could find, I could find a YouTube video. He went on Bended Knee. The Bended Knee in little Haiti and begged for the vote of the Haitian people. Bended Knee. And then this is how he repairs them. I do want to remind people who may have come in after we began that we are going to conduct our capital calling and emailing party. We will be emailing the White House with these demands and calling members of Congress, urging them to sign on to a resolution denouncing the treatment of Haitians by the Biden administration. Perhaps both of you can take this, you know, since this really erupted in the news with the whippings of people at the Haitians at the border, there was a lot of outrage. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, you know, said this is slavery. And Biden supposedly ordered a stop to that. He also promised, as far as I'm aware, that he was going to stop these mass deportations and yet Time Magazine is reporting that they have not stopped. Has anything improved? The deportations continue. Mass deportations continue. The deportations continue. You know, he gave TPS, but he hasn't extended the date. I suppose the only good thing I could say that they've done is TPS and the redestination of that. But the way that they're treating those same people's cousins and siblings right now, it's almost like, you know, three different people. Medea, we can't hear you. Paul, did you want to respond anymore to? Yeah, yeah, so there's another thing that's very, very, very important to say here. The last time that Haiti was granted TPS, they were granted TPS redesignations or designations twice in 2010 and 2011. And then there was a 10-year drought before they were finally redesignated this year. At that time in 2010, it was after the 2010 earthquake on January 12th. And basically that TPS status coincided, that designation coincided with the 12 to 18 month moratorium on deportations. And the US White House binomial at the time was Barack Obama and Joe Biden, you know, and you fast forward 11 years. And again, we have a TPS designation that we fought very hard, and that was part of our original request. We finally got it. Up to 150,000 Haitians can benefit from that TPS redesignation. The majority of them, people who came after July 2011 who have not been eligible for the, you know, to have TPS because of their arrival date. And it would be logical for that to coincide, that decision on August 3rd, 2021, published in the federal register. It would be logical for that to coincide with a moratorium on deportations, particularly that the situation in Haiti has not remained the same since that happened, it's actually gotten worse. You know, the earthquake was after that. And so again, it doesn't make any sense that these deportations are occurring because the designation of TPS is based on country conditions. This is a report that comes out of the State Department that basically says, because the country is not safe, does the country, you know, cannot absorb people who are being deported. You know, this is why we're giving temporary protective status. So how can you grant temporary protective status on the one hand and be deporting people at record high rates? On the other hand, it's simply incompatible in terms of policy and we will continue to make that case. Absolutely, and I see, Paul, that you put in the notes here that Daniel Foot is going to brief the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday, which is fantastic to know. And also, I wonder if we can, what we can expect happen on that committee and who are our champions in Congress? Who are doing the best work on this? So go ahead, Beatrice. No, I was going to mention a few. So Mander Jones has been really good on this. Ayesha Pressley. Ayanna Pressley, yeah. I'll say Ayesha, that's her staffer. Ayanna Pressley. If that Clark's still talking about this, Ilhan Omar, AOC, some of the regular few, but others as well have continued. I think there was a recent letter of about 50 members. We need all Democrats to be on this bill. So as much as you can push people to be on this, it would be really, really helpful. The Congressional Black Caucus came out and Joyce Beatty, who is now the head of that, if folks are in Ohio, please, please pressure Joyce Beatty to not let up the gas on this, especially if like you're in the Cincinnati region, I believe that's her district. I think it's really important for them to hear a wide cross-section of people watching this. Additionally, so in the reconciliation bill right now, GOP rep ideas, ma'am, not really. There was a time, there was a time. I don't think that time is now. But for the reconciliation bill, right, in the His Gap portion of it, that includes border, and that is still $50 billion. I don't know for what. If anybody is monitoring that money, feel free to monitor it. For the money that's being given in appropriations, like last year, the fiscal year right now, ICE and CBP alone gets $25 billion. I'm sure they've asked for more money because they always ask for more money. I think it's really important to call for cutbacks on the money that they're getting, and to say like you cannot get more money for what we are seeing as a failing grade. And their pushback to us has been, well, give us more money for medical supplies and for medical things for CBP to do. And I don't think we trust that either. I think it needs to be separate agencies. I think it needs to be other organizations. ICE and CBP clearly cannot be trusted if those are the same people we saw on horseback. We cannot expect them to actually be compassionate and kind and caring to individuals. The whole structure needs to change, and we need to call for that. So Patrice, just to clarify, you're saying that in the reconciliation bill, there's $50 billion? There's $50 billion for border, for border. It says just border, and it's in the Hisgat Committee, so Homeland Security. So that's separate from the money that I do want to keep in, which is the judiciary money of $107 billion for legalization. Don't touch that money. Please make sure they keep that money. Keep talking about them keeping that money and also citizenship that it's citizenship that they're pushing for, that's through the Judiciary Committee. But there is a separate part of money through Homeland Security Committee, and that needs to get cut down. Well, there's a lot to keep track of here. So maybe as we go into the action portion, if you have a moment, Patrice, you can post some of this in the chat. So we're on the right page here. Maybe we can give Paul a chance to make your final comments. So if I could just mention a few other names, in addition to those that Patrice mentioned, she named two of the four representatives on the Haiti Caucus. There's also Val Demings from Florida. There's Andy Levin from Michigan. Kim Jeffries is always a great place to start. Gregory Meeks in New York, depending on where your district is. Corey Bush is my favorite. She came out with a statement that I put in the chat also. I mean, she's the champion of Breonna Taylor and now also the champion of Haiti. So she's really been very, very, very supportive and just she's a freshman representative from Missouri and doing an absolutely wonderful advocacy. So in the Senate, Patrick Leahy has always been our champion in terms of causes related to Haiti. And we can also, we need to be putting pressure on senators who preside over states that have large Haitian populations that are very attuned to our needs. So that would be a great advocacy spot. I believe that we're again, facing a critical moment here where we have a choice to make. We can either, we in the advocacy committee, but decision makers can either opt for the status quo which will absolutely ensure failure, okay? Or they can be bold and they know what the right thing is. They just have to do it. I mean, President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, they know that they're not doing the right thing right now. And this may be based on some political calculations but we have to keep the pressure up. We have, so part of our work in the family action network movement is really motivating people to take their civic responsibilities, to get naturalized to vote and to participate in this political system because that's the only way that we will push things. I mean, I think it's part of what we're seeing from the administration is political cowardice. But it's also a calculated really guess about how this will affect the midterms. And yes, they are scared of that. So we have to put counter pressure. We have to put as much counter pressure as possible to push them in our direction. And until that happens, we're gonna have a lot of uphill battles to fight. But in conclusion, the Haitian crisis inside Haiti is inextricably tied to the border crisis. We have to continue hammering that away and we have to absolutely really twist them as hard as possible to change their Haiti policy because that is the only way that we will get accountability inside Haiti and that Haitians at an individual level will make the calculation to stay and to be part of building a future Haiti rather than saying this is hopeless and they're leaving. So those are the remarks. Again, thank you so much for this wonderful forum and we have to really continue to fight the good fight, the women's struggle, local political power, local economic power, environmental power. So I mean, this is really where we have to go with this and Haiti is no exception. Yes, Paul, Namphi, thank you so much. Paul is with the Family Action Network Movement. He's a lead organizer. Patrice Lawrence, Executive Director of Undocu Black. I'm reading the comments in the chat, stellar discussion, great presentation. People really appreciate hearing your perspective, your analysis. And what I'm hearing is that there is outrage, but not enough. There needs to be a lot more pressure on the Biden administration. So before we go into our action portion in which we will apply some of that pressure, I ask everybody, you should be unmuted to thank our guests, Paul Namphi and Patrice Lawrence for joining us on Code Pin Congress tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.