 My question, and I guess I'm struck by the presentation from Adam, is happy with the results of this. The earlier statement in the morning was that the only institutions that were left, which country it was referencing, was the church and the cartels. So you seem to be presenting with the youth program, I guess, you know, the question is, then what is the relationship of those two institutions and how respectful is, say, the cartels towards the presence of the church? That's a good question, and I don't know the answer. I do know that the bishops of all countries, all the countries, have tried to activate all their folks against gangs, against the drug cartels, in the sense of just saying it's destroying the fabric of our society, it's destroying families, it's destroying people. So to my knowledge, but I could be wrong on this, what I'm reaching for is, did I hear any stories about a priest or a bishop or sisters directly being threatened? And I haven't heard that, but it's a good question, and it gives me a little homework, quite frankly. Thank you for asking it. I just want to follow up, because I think that the perspective that starts to open up in terms of mobilizing people is really can be debate-community, but I think the faith communities are also needing to move from passion, kind of the passion responses to the practical response. Can I just make a couple of comments that when we talk to children, as part of our intake, one of the questions is whether or not the child, him or herself, has been involved in the past in any kind of gang activity, and that goes to their eligibility for protection. And the number one answer that we hear more and more from these children when we ask them is no soy cristiano. No, I didn't belong to the gang. I'm Christian. So it's almost developed a kind of a counterpoint, where you see the gang activity lot are setting up checkpoints, and a lot of times you see checkpoints set up on the way to school, on the way to the market, to prevent access to these critical locations, and more and more we're seeing checkpoints being set up to prevent access to churches. Also, you see the gangs themselves beginning to adopt. As the church is, essentially the main countervailing point against the gangs, more so than the government itself, you see the gangs starting to adopt anti-Christian and anti-religious symbols and names. For example, what's the name of the lead gang member in your neighborhood? El Diablo. What will the tattoo be, an upside-down crucifix? So as that kind of counterpoint develops, you see the gangs actually developing anti-Christian nomenclatures and identities in order to show that rivalry, which has now gone from anti-government to anti-church. And also, in a lot of the organizing, if there is any of some of the movements of children fleeing away from these countries, it's not as much smugglers. We are hearing about priests being involved. One other point, you know, with the kids, I think they are getting exposed to church and faith from their countries. And it is one of the resiliencies that helps them, I think, carry on and survive. They're at St. PJ's. We do hold services for them weekly. Antonio mentioned he and the Archbishop went down to Lackland. They're asking for the scriptures. They're asking for rosaries. And so we provide all of those things. And it is making a difference for the kids to stay in straw. But I think it's also really important to emphasize the aspect that, yes, these kids are victims, but we also have to focus on the race. So we can see that they have enough to trade them as their trauma types and their reasons, because they are. But we also also have to consider that they have the resiliency to come to United States. They have the resiliency to overcome their trauma. And I think that's going to be really important as these children start to become part of the American society that we don't keep the training on trauma. You're absolutely right. And when I talked about what I did, I was just kind of sharing in context that if we don't do a better job of having the supports and resources and state-of-the-art kind of care, those children are also going to be at a much higher risk of falling into adult problems, such as homelessness and so on. So yeah, they're very resilient. But that's true. If the human body is also resilient to lots of things, but if you don't get them the medicine to overcome that, then they're more at risk. So yes. One of the things we've realized in our programs is part of the healing is they become, they're going out. We call it ascending. They go do something specifically about what they've done. Everything from the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to the At-Risk Youth Program, it's like they need to be leaders. They need to be leaders. You're absolutely right. I think just one quick thing about both comments is just both of them. One, I think you're right. Women are extremely strong. The women that I met at the bases, they will beat me up big time mentally, spiritually, physically, God knows what. I met a woman who gave birth to a baby. Fifteen days later, she flew her country and went over 2,000 miles just to get to the United States. And she said, actually, after we served her a mass, actually baptized her baby. She said that was the happiest day of her life. So it's an amazing story. But yeah, I agree with both of them. We're in charge of the Particle Theory that we've discussed, which is a polykinesis-specific community and not a governmental organization that acts as a vindication power to help provide vital information even by these individuals and frame their stories. The asylum officials, you know, is there a mechanism in place because it seems that might be out of our reach and out of our jurisdiction and a little too late by the time these children are happening? So in regards to the credible fear interviews, for most non-Mexican children, thankfully, because of the TVPRA, as long as we still have the TVPRA, and that would be something to remind your legislators that you think the TVPRA is an important protection for children and that our protection should not be minimized with the situation we have now, regards to adults, these new detention facilities that have sprung up that I was referring to, that they've really just come up in the last six weeks or so, that presuppose that, and it's mostly women and children that are being housed there, that presupposes that they don't have valid asylum claims. In fact, they were set up saying, well, these are for the people that don't have valid asylum claims. And when they get to the United States, not having valid asylum claims, we'll put them here so we can return them as quickly as possible. We have no idea what these people have been through, except that we can extrapolate that probably based on everyone who's come before them from this wave, they do have valid asylum claims. And so their credible fear interviews are extremely important for them to have their day in court. There is thankfully a lawsuit that was filed this week regarding the detention facility in Artesia, New Mexico, which is a good thing, because certainly the violations, many of the things that I was discussing up there are things that were documented in the complaint as happening in Artesia, New Mexico. In Carn City, which is where the St. Mary's Clinic has started our work this week, we understand that those same types of violations are happening there as well. Members of the general public, I would encourage to reach out to legislators, reach out to the, I mean, it's the administration places people in there who make these decisions. The director of Homeland Security, J. Johnson, walked around and said, oh, this is a great facility for people who don't have asylum claims. That was something that he said before the people came to the detention facility. It is shocking to me that a public official would walk out and say, in advance of people arriving, that they have no claim to asylum, asylum being one of the, I mean, the most fundamental obligations that we have under international human law, under national human rights law, to protect victims of crime. So I would say, get on the phone. I'm gonna interject just a minute too. Because of our interviews with Dream Act students, the youth themselves can have an incredible impact if they tell their stories and they become empowered to organize themselves and speak up about the injustices that they face and their own needs. So I think that's an important part of it as well. Here and then here and then here. I'm just kind of jumping in on this. I just met with a student who had been in board control and his attitude was that they all have the same story. And I was trying to explain to him, well, this is sort of a condition to me that way. But I think there's very much this perception that, and I'm wondering what happens in the interviews when you're trying to prep them, if they're kind of getting like a canned version of their story and how do you make them how do you make people who are between the inter or who are receiving the interview understand that this is not necessarily just a canned one. And that's one of the reasons why the credible through interview is so important that it be handled properly the way that it's supposed to be handled with officers taking the time and asking enough probative questions. It's also important that it not happen within hours of someone arriving in the United States for 48 hours, 72 hours, when they're still completely traumatized, probably from just being released from the Aleta that Jonathan was talking about. They're really in no position to articulate what the heck is going on. Very important that they have know your rights presentations. I've represented asylum seekers from various parts of the world and sometimes it takes a while interviewing those individuals to be able to get to the root of what's going on. For instance, I had a client from Afghanistan and it took a while to really separate of all the many bad things that had happened to her in her life, what was asylum worthy and what was just frankly bad luck. When you're talking about people from different cultures, it takes a while. The interviewing process is incredibly important and that's why access to lawyers is so tremendously important. Do you want to? Can I just a point of housekeeping? An individual who's apprehended by Border Patrol and who then faces deportation will go through several interviews. There's usually an interview at the border by a Border Patrol official. Adults would then go on to get a credible fear interview by the immigration service. An unaccompanied child should not have to go through that hurdle of a credible fear interview. They are placed directly into removal proceedings where they would see a judge. It is the children from Mexico and Canada who have to face an additional rigorous interview by Border Patrol in order to get across that hurdle and into proceedings. But that's an interview that's occurring literally in the actual process of being apprehended. There's no opportunity for an attorney or anyone to intercede in that process. Now in terms of the credible fears that are happening now with the family units in Carnes and Arteza, they're doing credible fear interviews with the mothers in the presence of the children. And so the children are not being interviewed only the mothers. Therefore, any kind of SIJ or any of these children who may be abused by the mother, it's not getting screened. And also if the mother has things to say that she cannot or was not willing to say in front of her children, that's information that's not getting transmitted. Over here. Is there any effort to draw on the Latino immigrant religious leaders and community leaders as a volunteer base? Why don't you take that? I don't think, yes, especially the Latino community, Catholic charities through different partnerships with other entities, non-Catholic partnerships, we are going through all the communities. For now, we actually started talking a lot more to doctors, different positions of doctors within San Antonio who leave willing to actually help, not just these kids, but any other kids, just for value and purposes, for any needs that they may have over there. We are absolutely trying to engage leadership, religious leaders in the Spanish language churches. We're also trying to engage the arts and culture communities here in San Antonio because that's a big part of our identity. In fact, right now at RAISIS, which is on North Flores and Poplar, up by MK Davis and the Michoacana, we're turning our building into a mural dedicated to the voyage of these children. So it's happening right now. It's being painted this week. I invite everybody to come and check it out. We're having some artists, some well-known artists from the San Antonio community participate in making the mural in order to try to draw out some leadership and attention in that community. And I urge you all to check out the children's art on the table outside. That's brought to us by, where is he? I think that was his question. There are, with the children themselves, trying to demonstrate what their experiences are. As we know, just a few years ago, they were the Zapatistas and they were in Chavez. And the revolution there was the fact that the military actually attacked the Mayan people living in the area. They burned down their huts, they broke their sewing machines and their other equipment and the people left and went up to the hill. And she said, and they would speak out and they, some students from UT made some excellent films of them. Excellent films of people standing in front of tanks and saying, don't not come in into our territory. So now today, we read in the newspaper that a lot of people that are Mayans are coming to try to get into the United States because those are the people probably that were displaced in Chavez. And so our laws here say no refugees if you're from Mexico. As a Mexican, you are not considered a refugee. And so there, whether those 500 children a couple of weeks ago that were being kept as slaves by being sent out to get money and young girls to use as prostitutes, this was a Mexico city. And the government attacked the people who were holding the children and freed the children. Do you have a question for the panel about that? Well, I have a question here. If there's so much violence going on in Mexico, why can't they be considered refugees? The law states that unaccompanied minors to stick with that population should be, first, when the Border Patrol apprehends somebody, there's three questions. One, are you a child? If the answer is yes, then you move on to the next one. Are you an accompanied child? If the child is a child who's unaccompanied, then the Border Patrol officer asks the next question, where are you from? If the child is from any country other than Mexico or Canada, the Border Patrol officer should then immediately place that child into the custody of HHS and in a shelter. If the child is from Canada or Mexico, the Border Patrol officer can have an interview to determine whether that child can go back to Mexico, go back to Canada. The presumption is under the law that the child will be victim of abuse or trafficking. Only if the child overcomes that burden in the interview with the officer is the officer allowed to allow the child to return home. This is not in effect how the Border Patrol is carrying out this law. They clearly, by the number of children who are presenting themselves from Mexico, requesting help, and the small number who are making it through to the facilities. We barely see any Mexican children at the facilities. It's clear that the Border Patrol is not correctly interviewing the children, pursuant to the law. There are complaints and there are lawsuits coming on that. It's like it's very difficult. What about the kids who are unaccompanied that are non-Spanish speakers that come from really rural areas and come from a minimum background? How much do rural organizations or translators, et cetera? It's extremely difficult. First and foremost, many of them are misidentified as Spanish speakers out of the box. And so people don't take that extra step to try to get an interpreter for Quiche or Mam or Agua Cateca that we're seeing a lot of children coming from. There are more and more indigenous children, as we see the changes, not just numbers, but there are more Guatemalan children coming. There are more young girls coming. And that's certainly we're seeing more people from the indigenous communities arriving. They're the ones who have to face the hardest gauntlet, especially if they have to represent themselves. Or even if they're with an attorney, they may not be able to effectively communicate. We're blessed in that we have access to telephonic interpreters who do speak these different languages. One comment I would make on the indigenous communities, because there are more and more indigenous people coming. What we see, not just in terms of the kids who are leaving, the kids who are coming, but something we talk about which is filter rates. And that is the comparison between who is leaving the home country compared to who gets here, who makes it, who doesn't make it. What we see is large numbers of girls in this migration are not making it. They are the most subject to being stopped along the route, trafficked, and not making it to the destination here. Interestingly enough, as the rise, what we've seen in the data from Lackland is that the girls from Guatemala have a much greater tendency to make it to the United States than the girls from Honduras or El Salvador. And what this seems to pair with is the increased number of indigenous communities that are coming from Guatemala compared to El Salvador and Honduras where it is more urban flight. So you have, literally what you see is that the folks from Guatemala, they share language, they share culture, they share religion, and familial bonds. Whereas the folks who are coming from Honduras and El Salvador are leaving the cities alone and they're getting into groups along the way that they find for safety. But that the Guatemalans, you see it in photographs from the journeys, literally you see groups of young children where the boys surround the girls physically and they travel in that group. So it's their indigenous status that makes them more vulnerable, but it is these shared bonds that actually protect them on this journey. Here and I hear. I don't know, this is relatively my life. And I've been through a number of these these years and I have heard nothing but support for these kids. And I'm curious what the panning things of governor, Perry's approach or Senator Corn's approach, it seems oddly different to a high gear that I'm at in the U.S. and just U.S. I don't know if you're gonna touch that. I'll touch that one. Um. Wow. All right. It's a good thing about being your own boss. So, Reyes has made a finding of 63% eligibility, strong cases at Lackland. And in an interview, Governor Cornyn, who's one of the supporters along with, Governor Cornyn, Senator Cornyn, who's along with Congressman Quay are supporting the Humane, the Orwellian Lee named Humane Act, which would truncate the adjudication times these cases forced the children to prepare their cases in a week. It would disallow them from being released to family members. It would be a draconian act. And he in a telephone conference expressed doubt of the numbers that we found at the facility. I fortunately had an opportunity to speak with the senator. He was very polite and he essentially in a one-on-one conversation had no arguments to support his findings and he was very polite and asked for my card for his staff to follow up with us. And I just found out we're getting audited by the state of Texas tomorrow. So it's too late, I've already done it. But there is definitely a different perspective for presenting in our family. So yeah. Thank you. I'm good. How do you think it's done when I'm not? I was just going to say the history says to repeat itself, the thing that's going on turns down, it has happened before, the Teedon public in Texas, a lot of activists from San Antonio, with Bill Caravan and all the way to Teedon public, they liberated the children. But now that the children were laughing their first face, they kind of reminded the children that was kept at Wansan on the Bay in 1995. And I volunteered at the Spanish link was to go over there and assist with all the Cuban refugee camps. And one thing that I did notice is that they required special dietary food. So they were tired of eating, and the military came out of it. So that could really mess up the system. Has anybody asked these children what is it that they eat for that only they could eat for that year? How about? The health and the system. And to learn from the lessons from Teedon public, take that into consideration in terms of kind of what's going on today. Sure. Good question. They're at St. PJ's Children's Home. Again, we've been caring for just under 2,000 children. In the percentages that we've already heard about. And one of the things to keep in mind as a not-for-profit is a 24-7 facility. We also have a contract with the Texas Department of Agriculture, which is under the US Department USDA, United States Department of Agriculture. And so we provide all the appropriate nutritional values that we're supposed to. But we also, we know that these children also probably get a lot more fruits and vegetables than maybe our own kids do. And so we have a lot of that available, not only in the traditional times, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but all the snack times as well. And we have just gotten actually, no surprise, the kids are so grateful for the meals that they're being served and thankful and as opposed to some of the more traditional children that we serve sometimes. When we do a survey for our kids, just like maybe at the university sometime, what's the number one things that our kids complain about? It's the food. Yet the children, our unaccompanied children, never complain about the food. So that's how I'd answer that. So I think two comments. One was lagland base. On a Friday afternoon, I got a call telling me that the base would be closed that day. And I don't understand why the media didn't report until the following Monday. So for three days, no one knew that the kids were not there. You know, I don't know if they were afraid of people going and protests. I don't know if they were afraid of people maybe throwing stones like, you know, to the kids as it happened in some other cities. But I don't know. Food-wise, lagland base, I went on a Sunday. And that was a special day I was told because they have pandulce and they have coffee. So it surprised me that that was the special day, you know. But everybody I spoke to, they liked the food, all the kids as well in current city. They have rice, beans, chuletas, you know, the whole thing. So for breakfast, people, the kids at current city had like bananas, apples, you know, the chocolate milk. So it appeared to me that actually we were being fed their food. You know, so. One more, I think, and then we'll have to stop. Until now, we more or less have had a feedback about any reactive kind of situation where the children are here. But that are proactive where we already through the program where it comes from. And I wonder that probably Dr. Romero will organize another seminar where we can discuss those parts where they correct how the countries in the region here or peer governments see those situations in those countries. And also in the states because of the drug consumption and so on. And maybe put some pressure on the government here and the government's health care. I don't know, maybe you'll get otherwise. I think that's a very good idea and a good thing to stop on that we could have another conference and invite representatives from some of these countries, scholars from these countries, people who are working there in the fields to inform us about whatever it is going on there to stop some of the concerns here. We'll bring them in quite often. One more. OK, and this is the last one. First of all, I would like to thank you all just all the time and effort that you actually opened to the kids. And it's really what I appreciate just by being here. I work at UTC as an art instructor. And Andrea and I just basically own this collective artist to do art projects for the kids. We went to this organization that I cannot name because you already mentioned it. But the deal is we have been there for a couple of times and really enjoy it. And then I think I want to say thank you so much for what you're doing. And I think we can actually make a change. It's not just based on money. It's based on time. And I think we can make that significantly change to actually help these kids just with time and money. So thank you so much. My heart, if you need help, you're not probably something like that. Please don't hesitate to come back to us. Andrea and Juan Mora, Andrea and Teja. So we're working just, we're very impressed on this kind of movement and this kind of kind of effort. But if you need our help in doing projects for the kids, please contact us. I mean, I would like to talk to you after this. But the main thing here is actually thank you so much for what you're doing. And thank you all.