 Welcome I want I want to welcome you today to this session and I will be introducing Fred Schellenberg with or from American Organization for Immigrants. Fred will be talking to us about the needs of the immigration population so thank you Fred for being with us and welcome again everybody thank you for joining us at this summit and I hope you enjoy the session Fred. Okay good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all today. I'd like to talk about three things this morning. First of all a little bit of a commercial for my organization, American Organization for Immigrants. Then I'd like to talk a little bit about the process that we share and partner with on the interfaith welcoming coalition to help the migrants coming up from Central America to to the United States and then finally and and while I'm talking about that I would also like to describe some of the needs of the migrants as they pass through San Antonio and then finally I'd like to talk briefly on some of the issues that are confronting the folks that are on the border waiting to seek asylum to come into the United States particularly in the in with the drop of this coronavirus. Okay first of all our goal is really based on the same issues that our immigration laws are based on. That is the basis of preserving family unity and that's assisting with family-based petitions. What does that mean? It means that if somebody has come to San Antonio from Mexico for example and they're a lawful permanent resident but their family is still down in Guadalajara, we help that person go through all the paperwork and the necessary protocols and procedures to have that family prepared to immigrate to the United States. Of course the ultimate path is the next step is to seek citizenship and we help those folks in the application process but one of the things that we also do is that we help them with English as a second language and the civic and history courses because as you know when you take the citizenship exam you have to answer out of about 120 different questions things about the history of the United States and how our government is organized. And finally we offer low-cost immigration services and those services that we provide and we're accredited by the Department of Justice to perform these services and these are services related to legal immigration services related to asylum, renewal of DACA, employment authorization and so forth. In a broader sense the think of us is that we offer help and information about the immigration process and path to law for permanent residence and citizenship. Furthermore we provide to our low income clients orientation on how to adapt to the cultural changes and responsibilities to live in our country the importance of learning English and how to prepare for things like finding meaningful employment. Part of this is a basis that we started the NGO about three years ago and that had to do with we were volunteers at different other organizations in the city and we had learned that there was not one place where a person who wanted some help go to get everything done at the same time. And so we started this NGO in 2017 and what we really are like coaches and so we answer questions about employment about what it means to get your child in school as well as doing the legal paperwork to become a law for permanent citizen. You know and our vision really is to ensure that our clients integration is as legal permanent residence and citizens here in the United States. We're open Monday through Thursday and most evenings and Saturdays with appointments. We're easy to find we're right across the street from Thomas Jefferson High School on Donaldson and those are our phone numbers 210-250-762-210-454-2164 and we're fluent in Spanish so don't worry about that. Okay and our goals for this year started at the beginning and really are focused on family unity and so our plan is to have four citizenship workshops for lawful permanent residence and what does that mean? That means about a two and a half to three hour session where we explain the documents that are needed what the requirements are to become a lawful for a lawful permanent resident to become a U.S. citizen and how to fill out the forms and pay the fees and so forth. The other goal for this year is for tutorial classes for the citizenship interview. We go through a series of sessions. I've got a series of online learning programs that help people learn the answers and study what it means to be a U.S. citizen and these are done in English as for some clients who don't speak English very well we have the courses in Spanish as well and depending on their age and the amount of time that they've been in the United States they may be able to take the examination and the interview in Spanish. We also seek to expand the expansion of our capability to assist asylum cases. Part of our effort with the Interfaith Welcoming Coalition is to help those arriving from Central America and oftentimes those folks they are asking for asylum and many times without having a representative or an attorney working for them they don't realize the implication of meeting the deadlines staying in touch with the immigration service showing up for the immigration court appearances or appearing at the scheduled hearings with the Immigration Customs Enforcement Service. When they miss these deadlines and don't show up then they're very liable to face deportation even in absence you know. One of the things that I'd like to just point out and I'm sure you all recognize the importance of this is the number of immigrants that we have here in San Antonio. Our San Antonio population is about two and a half million more or less and about 15 I would say about 15 percent are immigrants in San Antonio so it's a sizeable portion and the foreign-born households spend about this given the ratio in the population they spend about 15 percent of the 30 to 35 billion dollars in gross sales in the San Antonio area each year and that's about five billion dollars so the immigrant population is an important element in making San Antonio work. Our focus or the clients that as clients are those folks who are here in San Antonio as law enforcement residents and can have the possibility of becoming citizens we're constantly reaching out through our connections here in San Antonio through the city of San Antonio Immigration Liaison Service through different churches through the Interfaith welcoming coalition and our partnerships with other NGOs here in San Antonio to help folks that are looking for a low-cost and and we do a lot of pro bono work as well we're all volunteers in this organization. Now I'd like to talk a little bit about the migration issues that we have for those folks that are the women mostly that are coming to San Antonio from Central America. One of the issues that we've all read about in the paper and are acutely aware of is the violence against women in Central America and this slide is just to highlight some of the points that 50 percent of the murders of women in Guatemala are gang related, 90 percent of the murders are not prosecuted in Guatemala and are the top five countries for female murders three of them are in Central America, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Well these women have a lot of reasons to be fleeing from those countries and coming up to the United States unfortunately the atmosphere that we have here in the United States is making it more and more difficult for them and their children and and husbands to get asylum and that's why it's important that we feel that it's important that we expand our capability to help those folks arriving to the United States and and seeking asylum. Steps in the journey. I live for about 20 years in Mexico and worked in Mexico and Central America and it's not an easy trip. Travel north through Mexico generally they have been surrendering at the border most of the folks that are coming up don't have visas to travel to the United States so they're either coming across the border at the checkpoints and that's where some of the administration's policies about remaining Mexico and the Mexico protocols mean that people have to wait in in Mexico and shelters and halfway houses until their number comes up for an interview. If they do go across the border illegally entering without inspection and are picked up by a border patrol agent they're placed in detention and that's even changing now and I'll talk about I'll talk more about that later but if they convince the Border Patrol Agent in that first instance that they are seeking asylum and they have a credible fear they're then detained in something called the icebox in Iveara and I've been in some of these offices of the Border Patrol on the border and they're cold. I don't know if it's because the agents spend so much time out in the hot sun and when they come in the office they want to feel the flesh but it's cold in those and so the folks that are coming up when they're held in detention they have these names for that and the dog pound and while they're processing if they pass that initial step then they will be held in in detention. Here's a snapshot of the routes that folks are using. Most of the folks that are coming up from Central America are crossing over through Guatemala at Tapachula. Some are coming over at Tinosique over on the eastern side of Mexico but it seems to me that most of them are passing through Tapachula and it's a you know everybody has their own way of coming up. A lot of them are using coyotes and the amount of money that they're paying for a coyote depends between five to ten thousand dollars. They also are using in common a very waste to get to the United States either by using the la bestia or using a bus or using friends to give them rides as they hop Scott across Mexico to the U.S. border. One time we had more folks coming across and going up through Tijuana entering Tijuana through the California point but now the statistics indicate that most of the folks that are coming up from Central America are passing from into Texas from Ciudad Juarez all the way down to Matamoros. I've seen this trained and this is this is a real photo. It's incredible and I'm sure many of you have seen the movies that they talk about the travels and the violence. Folks that are coming on this thing are subject to extortion. The women are particularly vulnerable and it's just very hard. I can't believe how they must be suffering so much in Honduras or Guatemala or Salvador to flee and take the list and come up in these in these areas. This is a snapshot of holding facility. In this is a facility of the Mexican immigration in Tapachua where they separate the men the men women and children are separated from the men and they're terribly overcrowded and again given the background of the coronavirus you can see how if someone is detained it'd be very difficult to maintain the social distance and once the viruses start spreading there it's just going to spread like a wildfire. I just don't know how we're going to be able to help folks in that condition. Here's one of the board patrol facilities in Brownsville and you can see how they have folks on the pallets they're stacked in there very close together. They're on these mats and the aluminum foil it's not very thick it tears easily and the food that they're given is not a taco not a tortilla but generally it's a ham and cheese sandwich in a bun and then you're not used to having those things and that's all you get. It's not very very appetizing but it is something. After the process extends and assuming that the person has made that initial threshold for credible fear they're moved to in Texas they're moved to family detention facilities depending on their background and who they are and if they've got a criminal activity to eat a dilly or a car in Texas I've actually gone down the car and helped the women there prepare for their second level of credible fear interviews when they meet with an asylum office. Many times that particular interview is done over TV and the judge is here in San Antonio. We also have while the majority of the folks speak Spanish but there's a significant number that do not Spanish it's not their initial their main language and we wind up using an interpreter by the telephone so it's all very complicated for someone that is being thrust into this and without representation and the fact that they're being confronted by using a telephone to do the interpretation and then it has to be translated into English it makes it very confusing for a person who's trying to give their declaration about why they're why they fear for themselves why they left their country and why they fear to return and those are two separate questions and asylum officers go to these various various times. Many times when I'm seeking the women I ask them tell me what happened when you had your first child and they can tell me the time of day where they were who was with them what the clothes were how the room smelled what happened and so forth and I use that as an example to say these are the kinds of details that you have to include in your declaration of why you left El Salvador Guatemala Honduras and why you're afraid to return. Clearly one of the aspects of it is the trauma that these women and men have experienced as they fled from their home countries and sometimes that clouds their memory and they can't remember all the details and so that's why having a representative help them through the process is so so important that helps them clarify it helps them focus helps them remember some of the detail and by going through these interviews several times person has a much better chance of gaining asylum here in the United States. The other points is that these administration these facilities have been expanded as you've seen on the television and the news reporting not only do we have the fixed facilities in Carnes-Dilly and and in Burks, Pennsylvania which is a much smaller one Carnes has about the capability for about 1500 people Dilly is I think about 2500 people not full right now given the shutdown on the border but that's the capacity and the Trump administration is budgeted for expansion of 10 facilities. These facilities were operated by private companies and they're for profit and the statistical numbers that are the financial numbers that come out of these companies show that it's really expensive on the way that we're handling and detaining our people coming to the United States seeking asylum. I guess the bottom line is is that we don't need to be protected from asylum seeking family we need to be protecting them it is a prison like a facility and there's inadequate medical care we've had expanding instances and use community health workers we know that it's really important to make sure you give the right dosage for the vaccine for the medicine for flues or coals and stuff like that and oftentimes the dosages were larger than what was needed and there was a reaction to that. They are awaiting the credible fair interviews while they're in detention but if there's folks like me are not going down to help them in the representation they will have to do that on their own and if they fail that credible fear then they will probably be deported and they can be held in detention while that process is underway for several weeks. We've had people women stay in carns for as much as six to eight weeks. Hard to read this slide but the point I wanted to make here is that there's several ways that somebody can come to the United States seeking asylum. One there's a refugee process which means a person is asking to come to the United States from outside of the United States. These should be the refugees seeking to come to the United States from Afghanistan from Iraq from Syria and they go through a vetting process through the United Nations and then the United States wants the United States exception. Under the Trump administration that number has been cut back to 18,000 a year. We used to be allowing in between 85 to 100,000 applicants every year so it's a real closing of our welcoming arms to folks that want to seek asylum as a refugee in the United States. The other way that folks, people can come into the United States is that they have a passport and they have a visa to travel into the United States. They enter into the United States, enter with inspection and once here they decide that they don't want to go back to their home country for a variety of reasons. Once they do that they can then ask for asylum. The third way is when somebody doesn't have the travel documents and this is what happens to a lot of the people coming up from Central America. They come up to Mexico, they go to the border and then they cross the border and at a port of entry and they tell the board of patrol that they want to, they're asking for asylum. Our process when the numbers weren't so great was rather straightforward. There would be an interview and if the board of patrol person thought that the story was reasonable and there was sufficient reason to allow that person to come in, the person would be admitted and then go through this process that I've already described about being in detention while there was a credible fear interview by an asylum officer. If they don't want to wait and they decide to just come in they'll cross the border without inspection and that's what's happened and that's part of the reason that the administration has had such severe reactions to people coming across the border. Those entering in that way they can still ask for asylum but the process is a little more difficult now. I'll talk more about that later. American Organization of immigrants, we're partners with the San Antonio Interfaith welcoming coalition and you may know this that the coalition came together in 2014 in response to the huge surge of people coming up from Central America. I volunteer on Tuesdays with Interfaith at the airport and what I do there is I have a set of backpacks and when the folks are brought to the airport by the Customs and Immigration Service which means that they pass their credible fear interview and they have a one-year period to be in the United States and file officially formally for asylum and they have a person or contact that they're going to stay with here in the United States and what we do is we have a backpack that's got some supplies for them and we help them get their airplane tickets. Generally their family members or the person that they're going to stay with has bought the airplane ticket for them and we help them go through security, help them get to their gate, show them what it means to transfer from one air to if there's a layover how they have to go from one airline to the other as they find their way and we also make contact with the person that's going to help them at the destination and make sure they're going to be there at the destination airport to pick them up and take care of them. I get a lot of phone calls from these travelers as after they reach their destination they call back again it's just having somebody that they can talk to and they have questions about well what happens if I miss my appointment or I'm not in the same location that I at the same address that I gave when I first filed for asylum here in the United States or am I most of them a lot all of them but a fair number of them have an electronic monitoring device agree yet they and they have questions about that it's not charged up so it's just having somebody that can reach out and and and help them kind of navigate the process as they seek to do obtain asylum here asylum here in the United States. There's a snapshot of famous bus stop downtown St. Mary's in Navarro. Here we are. Generally the volunteers are at the bus stop from sometimes early at 6 30 in the morning till 8 9 10 o'clock at night and I have to say that the people at the Greyhound bus station have been incredible. They're always out alerting us if there's somebody that seems to be lost or has come up without the necessary paperwork or they need a place to stay overnight partners with the interfaith or Catholic charities they oftentimes will provide support for overnight housing and then tonight church downtown on South St. Mary's will help out and of course with the interfaith welcoming coalition we sometimes will help out United Methodist when we had the surge last year we and we were using the resources of the city of San Antonio for the migrant resources which was incredible. We were using United Methodist there at Travis Park for overnight lodging. The travelers on the bus is it's a little more difficult because normally the bus ride is two or three days so we have a more a larger backpack I guess is the way I would say it in terms of the the material that we give these people help them on their way and we also if necessary can make a cash cash outlay if they don't don't have any money at all and generally they don't but most of the time our support is through material in the backpacks and snacks and stuff like that at the airport it's a little more straightforward the only difficulty at the airport is that for most of the travelers they haven't flown before and so there you're we're showing them what it means to travel by air what it means to go through the security checkpoints how to get their tickets explaining to them what it means to ride on the plane how to find their seats and then we also check in with the ticket agents to make sure that there's an assist that somebody can speak Spanish if they're going to Houston or going to Atlanta that there will be somebody there to help them on their way as they make make their layover and seek onward transportation it's hard to read this slide but this is a sample of the material that we're providing in our bus station backpack there's toiletries toothbrushes and personal hygiene we also provide snacks fruit bars and apples and these are done by different volunteers in different churches in the in the San Antonio area that make up these lunch bags for us and then we store them and then portion them out as we need them on the bus we can provide bottles of water and we also provide small blankets during the winter we're providing also hoodies because it gets cold and and depending on the age of the child and whether the child is healthy or not we sometimes will provide a little bit of cough medicine or some baby aspirins and that sort of stuff what's been the impact of the immigration policy changes for example in 2019 we gave out almost night well 18 500 backpacks and our rule of thumb is that we give out a backpack not for every child but for every family and most of the time the family is two people so you can see that you know 35 40 000 people at the airport we gave out about 7 000 backpacks in 2020 as of the end of march we've only given out 412 backpacks at the bus station and 341 at the airport so you can see how the policy changes implemented by the trump administration have really shut down the border so the interfaith is doing more with the increased focus is now on advocacy we're being asked to write letters to our congressmen and senators to help education at the state level and particularly working and and appealing to dhs uh to be aware of the humanitarian aspects of our immigration policy the other thing that we're doing is that we're providing more support for our border partners we just provided a donation of about 40 some odd thousand dollars 45 thousand dollars to eight different shelters in the real ground that's well from the real grand valley all the way up to uh cedad well laredo and uh this is both in uh in the united states we also did in the web laredo el paso cedad four is san bonito egopas pietr nagr uh rionosa that's one of the ways that the interfaiths can help um alleviate some of the difficulties for those working in the front lines so to speak at the shelters on the border if you'd care to make a donation here's our website the interface welcome coalition dot or donate or if you would like to mail a check you can just mail a check to the interfaith welcome coalition care in the university presbyterian church at 300 bushnell san antonio texas so what's happened uh with the new protocols okay the one uh that is and this is still undergoing uh legal challenges is the migration protection protocol mpp or common called remain in mexico it's been in force since january 29 and it meters those seeking asylum to stay in mexico given the corona virus and the credit conditions and the shelters on the border uh there there's all kinds of problems uh waiting there and now uh we've had refinements to the mpp and one is called the prompt asylum claim review pacr and that's for uh persons is not a mexican is set for an interview that person has on the border has a 24 hour window to seek legal assistance in preparation for an asylum interview and that's when they come across the border in the morning and there's an interview by television and then they're they're shuffled back over into mexico to wait for the decisions it's almost impossible to do this uh the uh accredited representatives like myself or the attorneys that are working on the border means that we really have to be on call 24 hours a day and and be able to respond when somebody calls to to go to the border or in the border area go to these facilities and oftentimes it's that we have to do it by telephone because the border patrol says whether it's just not a space to do this or because of the coronavirus uh virus we can't have more people in the in this tent courtroom that they've set up if the asylum interview is not successful then that person is placed in what we call expedited removal and again has to remain in cbp detention until deported and that can be uh very quick less than a day the humanitarian asylum process is the same process but it's for mexican citizens finally uh the one of the rules that the trump administration has tried to put and it's still under legal uh challenges that's the protocol that's based on immigration in europe it says the person coming to the united states has to first has to ask for asylum in the first country that they've entered after leaving their home country mexico uh guadama hunders the government is talking to them about that but it's not uh it's given in my understanding it's not a uh an agreed upon procedure the goal of the emergency models is to reduce the number of detainees in u.s custody and to reduce the risk of spreading these infections across the border stations and and the flow of unauthorized border crossings has plunged since these measures were implemented on saturday march 21st for example we were at the border patrol reported they were averaging about a thousand per day for the border and a week later it was down to about 600 per day and then under these rules uh the u.s border patrol agents are processing these migrants from mexico guadama el sábado and hunders in the field before they're even able to set foot in the united states that means that they are staying in border and it it gives a lot of authority to the border patrol agent one estimate that i've heard is that migrants who cross in the united states illegally are being expelled to mexico in an average of 96 minutes under these emergent sequel measures so bottom line is what do they need okay well you've seen some of the stuff from the backpacks but uh part of the part of the issue is as community health workers i think is just the trauma that folks that are in our area that do arrive to the san antonio area is that they need they need legal assistance to maintain the stay here in the united states and they need legal assistance and it's not only myself but other non-profit organizations that can help them do this work on a pro bono that's the main thing the other issue that i the other thing that i think where they need help is just understanding what it means to be seeking asylum here in the united states and understand what access they might have to medical help to outreach programs from the city of san antonio okay that's about all i have to say this morning thank you very much for your attention um if there are any questions i'd be to be happy to take them and try to answer all right great um so we do have a couple of questions friend uh first of all before before i forget um we do have uh some people asking if you can share the power point if we can go ahead and share that with everyone and i know that it does contain information as far as your contact information as well as um you know the list of items to be donated so will that be available to share with everyone yes i need to um i don't want to well let me uh send that to you later okay okay perfect and we can talk a little bit more definitely all right and so we have one of our questions um what about people on hold for immigration in the bair county joe normally they would process out of pierce all and be taken to the border within a month right now they seem to not be moving anyone is this a violation of rights uh who is working on that and how long can they be held before deportation actually that's a very good question the uh rule is is that they're supposed to be only held in detention in these processes for 72 hours but because of the the emergency uh model that's being used we've had people uh in in detention for as long as a week and but it's and there are court cases pending on that okay and do they explain the public charge law to the clients no okay the public charge law was just implemented on uh february the 24th and um there's a lot of confusion about folks that are receiving who may be receiving for example some of the benefits that the federal government will be providing under the care act or if people are accepting medical help my understanding from what i've read from the united states citizens uh immigration service is that receiving benefits under the care act will not affect their status as as a public charge that said however if the person is in the process of applying for law firm to residents or is in the process for applying for citizenship they're going to have to answer the question truthfully that they've accepted the public benefit then they need to explain exactly what the circumstances was and that's the guidance that us cis is providing to uh folks like me to help uh in the application process but and what about um any immigrants that may not be spanish speaking or outside of the san antonio area are you assisting them we uh there are different organizations our focus is mostly for those who are spanish capable but there are different other NGOs here in san antonio that can handle uh different languages if in fact we have somebody that's speaking quiche your mom from central america we have access to translation services to help those folks in the process okay and so i imagine that part of this would be uh they can reach out to you uh at the information you'll provide on the okay great thank you very much for everything right and thank you everyone okay thank you very much and we're going to go get on to the next session