I want to welcome you to Interfaith Wellcome Coalition, our monthly meeting on the second and third day of each month. My name is Mary Grace Kettner, I'm co-chair. My buddy, Linda, is not able to be here today. And I have a little kind of get well card for her. She's waiting some medication that she needs. And so if you know Linda and would like to sign the card, it's just got a picture of things on it that says we're greeting for you. So you can read it out to them. So I wonder how many of you are regular attendee? You've been here before, regular for at least two minutes. And how many of you are here? Who is here for their first time? I'm just going to ask one. Wellcome. Can you tell us where you're from and who you are? Hello, everyone. My name is Anita. I am an intern at the Migrant of someone who you already know here.  So I'm working with her at this moment. Yes, thank you. Who else? All right. My name is Ryan. He's my partner Joanna. We're both the co-founders of the Gathering Place, which is a proposed new school here in Sainton. They're focused on art and social justice in different projects. The Gathering Place. Gathering? The Gathering Place, thank you. Is there anyone else who's new here today? My name is Dick Graybill. I'm a retired member of the faculty of the medical school. I've been here before, about five years ago, but I just had a chance to go back. My wife wanted to spend about four months a year living down the border wall. Oh, that thing. Well, we thank you for that. We're doing that for us. I'm kind of skipping around in our order today because we need the Salem to be plugged in in order to have our prayer. But I know that Helen Borcier is here today. How many, did some of you, your church's host, the art exhibit we carried around a few years ago? Yeah, there were like eight or 10 or 12 churches that hosted that beautiful refugee art exhibit. And it didn't end when we sort of finished the cycle of our various churches. Helen, would you come up and tell us what else happened? Hi, thank you. First of all, Mary Grace is the one that commissioned me to create the art installation. So I'm just grateful for that idea. And it continued to travel around and continues now. Tonight it'll be online, live through cyberspace, and it will be viewed in California, where I do an online session with an immigration gathering there with Ignatius, something or other. I can't remember. But I will be doing, speaking with Hope Fry, who's an amazing immigration attorney who retired 40 years with his advocacy for children. But I came to say thank you. This book has just come out.  And it is an interfaith. It's called the Ethics of Hospitality and Interfaith Response to US Immigration Policies. But it doesn't say on the back or on the inside, I mean, the PR stuff you'll get, is that it's centered in San Antonio and the work, in particular, of the Interfaith Welcome Coalition. So it's very cool to be, this group is now a historical document. This, it is duly recorded. But I came to say thank you because a year ago, maybe, I went on an email and anybody who wanted to respond to question and answers about why you are a volunteer, what it means to you and how it transforms your faith. And it was all anonymous. So I have no idea who those peeps are. But muchas gracias, and todos. It is a wonderful way to share a witness and Mary Grace's story is in here. That every time I read it, especially when I read it out loud, it brings me to weeping. Her story is so beautiful of the transformative experience that she has shared with many people and gave me permission to include it in the book. So for all y'all, thank you, the goal, the hope, the prayer would be that this would be in classrooms in the fall. So if you know of anyone, even remotely who teaches anything related to immigration, ethics, interreligious studies, social justice, all of those topics are covered here. And there's a flyer back there. It's expensive. OK, and authors don't make any money. You donate all. I'm just going to tell you I made a dime and worked on it for 10, 11 months straight. That's just the way it is. But there's a flyer over there, 30% off that if you use the code, it's for when I do public speaking.  Send it to somebody. Give it to somebody. But it's centered on the work that y'all do. And so thank you for your participation. And may the witness support them for me, as always, for the families. Thank you so much, Helen. And congratulations. It's a college, right for college classrooms. So if you know a professor who would benefit from having this in his class, his or her class, please pass the information along. Take a flyer and give it to me. Let us now begin with a musical player, Dana Clark, who's a singer, songwriter. I heard her sing a beautiful prayer, and I think you will appreciate it as well. While walking in Big Bend, I came to an overlook where I could see both sides of the river. And there was a sign posted by the Park Service that talked about the vegetation in the area and how the same plants grew on our side and on the other side. And the last sentence on the sign said, nature does not recognize the artificial boundary that divides the two countries. And that's how this song began. The dust, lie deep in this desert. The dust of their mothers. It drifts with the sand. But in this river, this land belongs to the ones who belong to this land. For thousands, they have walked these. They've climbed to these canyons with hearts. This land belongs to the ones who belong to this land. The climate action plan has been developed over this last year after San Antonio voted to stay in line with the Paris Climate Accords. And a lot of people put a lot of work into developing a very elaborate, comprehensive plan. Now there are people who are trying to block implementation of it, who would like to take out some of the essential elements. So a coalition of groups here, including the Environmental Defense Command and EqualCentro, which is hoping, have combined to support the climate action plan and so we're going to gather there and sing to city council. And if we sing convincingly enough, we're going to save the planet. So just be there. And if you go to my website, DanaClarkMusic.com, the first thing you see on the home page is about this event. You can click on a link and see a choir singing the song we're going to sing. And then you can download the music and download the words and just come and sing. And it's a familiar melody because it's Halleluja. From Shred. Yeah, Halleluja by Leonard Cohen. I rewrote the words so they're about the climate. And it would be great.  So it'll be fun, too. Yeah. It's the 20th. Yeah. So it's Wednesday about 6 o'clock. Oh, good. Oh, good. Just the song and jump up and sing with us. Halleluja. OK. You know it. Please. Thank you so much, Dana. The biggest, hardest-hearted singer-songwriter I know. Let's see. This morning, our guest speaker for today is from Essay Stands, which is an organization that kind of got started with us and then took off in its own direction and is doing wonderful things, specifically around our city and city policy. And we've asked Sharon Altendorf of Essay Stands to chat with us this morning about that. OK. Good morning to all of you. Good morning. How many of you have been to a meeting with Essay Stands? A couple. Well, not many. OK. We are on the core committee, as she mentioned, that we were trying to start a collaborative of all the different organizations in the city that are working to this end. And a group of young people decided to take it on and beat it. And so we're just delighted. So Essay Stands and the letters behind it are hashtag SA sin miedo without fear, if you know that. And if you remember that the policy goals that we're working on have to do with, number one, reducing the number of people in jail to cease unnecessary collaboration between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities to ensure accountability and transparency from all local government entities and to prioritize constitutional and civil rights in the administration of law enforcement and municipal and county administration. You aren't seeing it there because that was none of the slides. That's OK. When we get to the slides, I'm sure we'll have it. He's working on it at this point in time. Recently, within the last couple months, this is coming up, there has been a good number of pieces in the paper about site and release. How many of you are aware of this? Raise your hands, please. Oh, great. That's much better. OK, so this is an update. And it's done. This PowerPoint is done by Carlina Canisales, who is one of the leaders of SA stands. And she asked if we would present this to all the different groups. OK, well, this was one of the events in front of the city hall when we began this work on site and release. And it has come to fruition that you'll see. These are all the different groups that are on the, let's see, on the left. Yes, that would be the people that are on the board committee, the organizations, and on the other side, friends. So what is it? Can you all read that? Do I need to read it? OK. You'll notice that this is not focusing in only on immigrants or refugees. This is speaking to the total population. And this is why it is politically possible, because it is important to all of our people. Yes? Well, it went too fast. Oh, I'm sorry? Do you have to, if it's a handout, hold on a little longer. I can send it to you. I do have the PowerPoint, but I don't have a handout, no. Are you OK with that? Mr. Schrager. So how did we get there? In May, we started publicly asking about this. In September, we held meetings with every city council member. In October, we launched the campaign. In February, we got a clear yes from the DA, the chief, and the city. If you will remember, the new DA had this as one of his priorities. So we knew in working with him during this time that he would be with us on this. And next month, they're going to start implementing it. OK? Both the sheriff and the police? Yeah. Well, we're working. We have next to go to the county. So we have to work with the sheriff. But we have been working with him. It's just we don't have everything in order yet with him. But according to the DA, all of the back stuff is ready. He has agreed to all of the policies for how we do this. Does that help? Good question, Mr. J.D. So what are these low-level offenses that any of you could get caught for? Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. I must have hit something wrong because it's not going. What did I maybe touch one of these others? It didn't go. Let's see. Try again. Oh, there it went. OK. Possession of marijuana, you all want to know this, right? Less than two ounces, OK? If you get caught with this, the police can stop and can give you a citation. And they don't take you down to the mags office, right? OK, that's the point. Because our concern with migrants, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers is that if they get caught down there, then immigration gets called. And they have a possibility of taking them at that point in time. So this is what is quite important to us. But it is important to everybody, not to have to go down there, right? Criminal mischief, up to $750 an hour, please don't do that. But if it happens, no, someway, the example there, if you throw a rock at somebody's window because you got mad at them, they call the police on you. OK, all right. But anyway, theft of property. I like this one that he listed, you know, not paying the check when you go to a restaurant. You walk out on it. We were celebrating Sister Denise's. I have to tell this on me. We were celebrating her winning this award. And I walked out without signing for my bill. Luckily, my sisters JT and Pat saw it, and they signed for it. But I would have been OK. So anyway, that's up to $750. Contriband and Correctional Facility. All right, we all have friends who are in these places and contraband there, if it's not big. And we could just get a site on that. Driving with an invalid license. I don't know if it's ever happened to any of you, but the license was expired and you got stopped. OK, here's the possibility. But it doesn't mean yet driving without a license. That's not included yet. Sorry. All right, what happens if I'm being accused? All right, if it's the first time an officer can use discretion. I mean, they can take you down to the bank. But they can use their discretion to give you a citation the first time after that something else can happen. No, but there should be. That's their, this is coming directly from Chief McMen. OK, so then how does it work? Yes, with the DA, with the DA, they have worked this together to say that. That's what they should do. But they have the discretion always. If you have something else, a previous record, outstanding warrant or something else, the discretion of the officers again. And what happens after you get the citation? You have 30 days to report to meet a prosecutor to review this and assign the appropriate diversion program or services. If you complete that program and give all the documentation, then your charges will not appear on your record, which is fantastic. And if you don't show up, there could be a warrant for your arrest. Those are the policies. The process, you can't read that, and I can't either. But I did copy it out so I could see it. So first, the officer confirms if the offense qualifies for the site and release. Determines whether to make a custodial arrest. And if cited, the ticket will instruct the person to report to the re-entry center within a set time. In Bear County, the cited individual reports to the Bear County re-entry center reviews the offense and assigns them to an appropriate program or service. The person enrolls in a program. The county monitors the progress, ensures completion. And the fourth step, there's a successful program completion. They document that that's done. They maintain a record of this, the participants. And the offense will not be on your record. So that's the process. What if I'm wrongfully arrested if you believe that? We just say complain to SAPD directly, or contact your city council member. Email us at sastans1 at gmail with your information. And we will do what we can to support you. That's it. Simple. This is where we are right now with this policy that starts next month. And then we continue to now work with the county. The county ensures. So currently, without any driver's license, you'd be arrested if you were stopped for a significant offense. However, is the police department currently observing my equalize and driver's licenses from Mexico and other places? Yes. And so on and so forth. Can you all hear what he said? If not, we could use a mic. But did you all understand what he said? No. OK. Do you want to let him do it again? Explain to SAPD. Come on, come on. It's like to hear your voice down. So you can be arrested, even for a minor offense, without having a driver's license. But I believe the county and the city is accepting as alternative identification or alternative driver's licenses, such as my equalize of driver's licenses from Mexico and other countries. So that would be a major help also. Right. Right. OK. That's a big thing. And the comment that Chief McManus has made to push this is that if they do a site and release, the officer takes about 25 minutes. If he has to take you down to the magistrate's office, it will take an hour and a half. So he figured out that over a year, by using this policy, we could save the total work of seven officers that we could leave on the streets for our security. That's the difference. And that's why it's politically accessible right now. Yes. Will they never be considered to be moved to be law instead of policy, because discrimination happens all the time at the discretion of officers. They will give it to some, but not to others. We're looking for a policy that is written, that it would be a law. We're working with the city on that. Yes. And that's the next step, really. But this will be starting now. As a practice, I think it'll give them some kind of an idea of how this might work. Anything else? Very good. OK, let's let it go. I ask people to come up for our ministry reports from our various side of the sea committees and groups. Advocacy and education. Sister Pat here. I don't know why you have to do that. It's the Sharon show. It is a brilliant, but you know how that goes, huh? Sister Pat had indicated to me that she had to ask someone else to do this, so sorry. Sorry I got caught with it, but the things that we'd like to tell you about is that six members of our committee were present at the immigration lobby day in this month. Earlier in this month. And we had a pretty good experience, especially since Menendez's office had offered this bill against SB 4. So it was a great day to be there. Five people were at the city council meeting when this site and release was presented by Chief McMenus. We wore our vests to show that we were present there, supporting that. We're working at this time on a handout bill for lobby. One side is going to be this. Children do not immigrate. They flee with all kinds of quotations from different people about this. It would be our ICEWC handout. And this was put together by our Mary Grace. Thank you. And on the other side, we're going to put there a basic statement about who we are that Matt has written, and also our issues. The issues that we've been working on with the bills are migrant laborers, child care licensing, DACA, asylum seekers, detention centers. Those are the major issues that we've been following with the different bills. So our committee today in the meeting was going over some of the bills that we see that are going at this point in time. We don't know how far they're going to go, so we're not sure exactly if we're going to write them on the back here. But we're going to try to keep you updated with emails urgent to take action if you can. Does that summarize what we said? Advocacy, but yeah, OK, that's it. All right, and the upcoming lobby dates that if you'd like to participate, Rita is having one of us today. Sorry, that's why some of our people aren't here. March 26 is the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops. Texas Impact is March 28, and I'm missing the C3P. They don't have them. They don't have them? OK, I didn't have that one. But anyway, if you'd like to participate in those things, and we would encourage you to take one of these sheets, flyers, once we get this together, to represent us there. And if you have an IWC vest to wear, be present. OK. Sister JT helped me recently with a big piece. I don't know if you just saw the Trump budget has come out. Yes? All right. He's suggesting 10,000 more detention bans in his proposal. For families. For families. For families, yes, that's what I mean. So if you've been lobby against that as any way you can. And then there is an organizational sign-on letter that we have here. And we'd just like to let you know that our leadership will be looking at this as a possibility of signing together. That's what I have. OK? Yes? Sister, I'm just being doubted here. It says pilgrimage and protest Saturday, March 30 at 2 PM at South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilly. Do you know? Does anybody know anything about this? Who's coordinating this? Is there anybody who's going to be there if they need to? Did you all hear what she was asking? It was on that thing about the Saturday, the 30th event. And the group that is doing this is not the attention watch, but what group did you say? Sister, you did not put that hand out in the end of the letter. I don't know. I have this event in my counter. I don't know where I got it from. And I don't know any of the details. OK. I have seen it also in an email, I think, from Sister Denise telling us about it. One of the persons who is leading it, Basha, is, what's her name? Ina. That's Sumer. Ina, it's coming up at the bus station with the Japanese people in their own neighborhood of the city. That's the one, too. I think she's doing that same one. I thought you were going to be pointing it out. No. She is going to lead this. And they're going to Crystal City because she was part of that internment camp in Crystal City. She personally had that experience. And she's a psychologist who came a couple years back and went with us to Karn City to visit the women and children in prison there to see the situation and to experience how much it is like hers. OK, so she, with whatever organization it is, is leading this event to habit. You can go with her. If you want to, to Crystal City, to see that place. And then later they're going to go over to Delhi to protest. This is my recollection of it. The 30th, it's on the bottom of that sheet that says defund hate, I think. In the middle. In the middle. In the middle. I thought it was in there. So if you, they're on the table. That's some of those flyers. Thank you. Faith community involvement. We're having a volunteer appreciation dinner.  Friday, May 17th at 6.30 PM. More information will be coming. But I just wanted you to be able to mark your calendars now for that particular day so that we can have an opportunity to thank you and appreciate all that you do.  And it's over on the table. As you came in, you may have noticed it. And if not, be sure and notice it when you come out. It was just a very wonderful thing to have you acknowledge for all the work that you do at the airport, at the bus station, sheltering families, shuffling papers, whatever it is that you do, it is appreciated, even beyond these walls. Collaboration committee. Just one note. Just one note. At the beginning of this slide presentation is the Chinese.cc address that all of this information is on right now, we're showing what is available to you. And if you're looking at this slide right now, Tino is going to press this. There is a link system that allows you to go through it a little bit easier if you're working on a computer or a laptop, or even on your phone, you can use that. So right now we're going through, and Sister Micah, Susan Micah is going to be next. Thank you. The fundraising, yes. Thank you. Sister Susan, I have fundraising. Lena is not here today. She's ill. And I have no information currently except to let you know that she is working very hard. And our best source of income is through grants, through various denominations. If your denomination or your faith community offers grants for public service, we would be glad to apply for them. Lena is very good at that. Sister Susan? A short, people have to adjust here. Or else don't. Sister Susan Micah, for those that are new, I'm with the mid-18th sisters. Our monastery's in Bernie. And Ruben is not here today, but he helps us put together a lot of the information that our handout is, this one, I hope everyone has a copy. I'll just go through some of the stories quickly. If you don't, maybe somebody at the back has a mouth for me. So what we try to do is just keep track of a lot of the court rulings. That's like that first homepage. And then some of the activities. And I know that's where you were showing the Dilly event. We have a link there, if somebody has their computer, if they wanted to go to that. But I think that's what we, that was the information that we had about the Dilly on March 30th. And so it's in the middle of this page. Keep going, keep going. It's on like page four of the handout. In the middle, it says Popermission protest. And then there's a link there to a Mailchimp. And then we use the city's information as well as many of the, a bunch of the information that we get from the Interfaith Welcome Coalition to try to just have a lot in one place so that you can use that. And the last section is like articles that are on our issues. And so we just continue to see our mission as part of the larger mission of IWC just to document so much of what is going on. I mean, we can't do everything but we do our sliver. And so we, this is expanded. We used to have like one page and now it's, I don't know how many pages it is but it's quite a few. Just trying to keep track of all the different pieces of this work and some of the apprehensions, some of the things to the numbers of migrants coming across. Some of the hearings that have taken place in the last few weeks. Again, excited that there are actually hearings in front of Congress on these issues after so many years of not having some of this before our committees in Congress. And then Rubin insisted that we put in this one, 19 men removed from a bus in Tomolippus and kidnapped. He got that out of some of the Mexican news and it seemed like the only persons taken off the bus and kidnapped were immigrants, not others. So he wanted to be sure that we put that in. The detention centers, we participate in the bi-monthly calls on that in order to try to document the numbers that are in Harnes and Dilly and we have that in the front part. So as of March 2019, 400 persons were in Harnes and it was estimated that 1,500 individuals are detained in Dilly. And they also talked about babies, small children that were under one years old that were detained there, that they were very concerned about those and also their health. And we put in here too that the number of people, the mothers in Dilly were concerned about the purity of the water. They were talking about the water that was coming out or that they were exposed to. It says a number of them have stated that the tap water in the detention center is dirty and potentially unsafe and it is making them feel sick. And itchy after they take a shower. So, you know, this is something else. I mentioned at the last meeting, our sisters bought shares in Corsivic and the geocomponent group. And I know the sisters, the daughters of Charity also have shares in those. So when we meet with them as shareholders, we try to raise those kinds of questions because they have no idea really what's going on. So we wanted to be sure and put that in after that was mentioned several times on the last call. And then the next couple of articles talk about the babies that were in the detention center there. And I think they mentioned one was held until their first birthday. So they couldn't be called a baby anymore. I mean, just strange, strange. So, and then just documenting some of the things that have come out now, sexual assault of detained migrant children reported in the thousands since 2015. The article that came out, Trump administration will ask military to shelter up to 5,000 migrant children. Just, you know, more things about the medical conditions, the mumps, the outbreaks. And then a third migrant died in border patrol custody. And then at the very end, not the end, but the end of that page, the judge, you've heard his name before, Dana Sauron from San Diego, he now extended authority to more family separated at the border. That date had been June 26th, 2018. And now he's extended that back to July 1st, 2017 because of all of the evidence that has been presented to him that says more children were separated before this formally came into being a policy.  So I just give this man so much credit. I've read several articles about him and he just decided that he had to be involved and take these under consideration and make determination. And then on that next page, House targets family separations policy in first Trump subpoena. So this decision by the oversight committee will compel the heads of justice, homeland security, health and human services to deliver documents to the lawmakers. So this is just so exciting in the sense that we're actually gonna get some of these documents we do hope. And then the next section is about the border wall that's still very much in the news. And then of course, in the new budget Trump is asking for 8.6 billion in the new budget. And you know, Sister JT was just telling us and Sister Sharon a little bit about the money for the detention beds and all of this. And hopefully in the next little while more analysis will be done and we'll try to document that in our next handouts to you next month. And then we just put in this one bulldozer sat idle at the border amid legal confusion over the emergency. As you know, well, they're voting on this today in Congress and it's expected to pass. Four of the Republicans have said they will vote that this is not an emergency. So that would put it over them and mount me to win. And so we'll see what happens with some of the others. And then just other things, just several other things here on things that the house is trying to pass and some things that this one thing too, I don't know if anyone had seen that. The US has sent back 240 migrants to Mexico under this experimental policy where you're supposed to stay in Mexico and file your paperwork. And while your asylum claims are being processed. So we just tried to document that as one of the first articles that we had seen about numbers because you oftentimes hear things that are more nebulous. So anyway, and I just wanted to add also that this week JPMorgan Chase has decided now that they will not do more business and lending to the Corsivic and the Geo group. So the prison systems. And it also came up in the hearing this week where they were asking the person that's in charge of Wells Fargo, he was pretty well-grilled. And at one point also asked about keeping the children in cages. And so he says that they don't do too much work with our lending to the prison companies. And so we meet with him as well of that own Wells Fargo. So it'll be a continuing process, I think of trying to say to them that, what are you doing and give us the figures? So, but this was very helpful. Some of the religious shareholders and others had met with JPMorgan Chase and many other groups were pressuring them at the last year's annual meeting and disrupting and raising questions. And I think they also went to the CEO's apartment and were protesting outside of that. So a lot of different groups are putting pressure on all different levels. So I think you can see that some of this is coming to fruition little by little. So thank you. Moon is on accompaniment this morning. I'll tell you that we are offering, she is offering a training at our Lake University and it will show the date up there in just a moment. I didn't have the, I didn't, she texted me this morning and I didn't get the details of the what classroom and so forth. So I added her email address and it's also on your, I'm wanting to say order of service. On your, there it is. Okay, new brand three. If you're interested in going, I believe that accompaniment is a very important thing that we do, keeping people out of sanctuary is better than taking them into sanctuary. It's still a prison, it's just much nicer. But, and here's a good reason why that is true. The second part of Moon's announcement. She says, dear San Antonio Sanctuary Network team, we have a special request in support of our dear friends Hilda, Ivan, and Alio de O, the three individuals currently in sanctuary in Austin. I just denied our beloved friend's request for extended deferred action from deportation. Because we will not accept this denial of their freedom, we need to come together to show ice we are not backing down. There will be a rally in support of Hilda, her 12 year old son Ivan, and Alio on Tuesday, March 19th. That's next Tuesday, right? At 9 a.m. at the ice office in San Antonio, 3523 Crosspoint Drive. I didn't put that address up there. Or you did, thanks Terry, you did. ISA has approved five months of deferred action for them as they were pursuing their legal cases after they had lived isolated in sanctuary for more than a year. Even though the circumstances of their legal cases haven't changed, ICE has denied another extension and has required our friends to check in at the San Antonio Field Office Tuesday, March 19th, the day after their deferred action expires. We know ICE has targeted our friends and denied the extension for political reasons and in retaliation for their advocacy for themselves as the silent seekers fleeing violence. If you're able to join us at the ICE office rally, please respond to this email or that is again, moonbedbrent3atgmail.com. Sister Denise, Art Jan, excellent. Good morning, Sister Denise. Excuse me, it gets back tonight for which I'm very grateful. I can summarize what's been going on at the bus station to words, very, very busy. I did, just to give you a snapshot, I just added up the backpack's given since the first of March until today, and it's 698. I mean, it's just been extraordinarily busy. And so just a word of acknowledgement to the Saints and heroes who have made this possible. I mean, the frontline volunteers at the bus station but also, I mean, this is an extraordinary effort, the people who are making the backpacks, the people who are providing the travel lunches and providing the overnight hospitality. I mean, everybody has just been stretched and stepped up and it's been extraordinary. Just one little update, I mentioned the last time that we had been requested by Corporate Greyhound to put together policies and procedures. And so we completed those and gave them to Corporate Greyhound and it just somewhat formalizes expectations that we had of them and they had of us. And we've also shared them with other groups in Dallas and in Houston and other cities when they reached out to such a degree so that they can benefit from our experience with Corporate Greyhound. So I think that's it. For the next person I've been, I'll add about what I saw here, so I'm not contagious, okay. Barbara, airport? We don't have as high of numbers at the bus station but just in February, we were, we had quite a few 822 families. That's from Dilly. I don't have the cards total. And it's just, you find out usually in the morning of your day, of the morning, how many are coming and sometimes if you're lucky the night before. So often we have to scramble and send out all calls sometimes for extra volunteers and they've been so good to come in and help out especially I see Tina over there. She's big. But we've gotten more medical supplies now for the airport, we appreciate that Mary Grace. And we've had some issues with the protocol for taking the little children through security with their moms. And so it was explained to me by a TSA officer the last time I was there because I had taken a small child through the small machine that's safe for the children because the mothers have often have ankle monitors. And so plus they have to go through the adult machine. And so I was carrying a little boy through and he was fine till I tried to, you know till he realized what was going on even though you can see his mommy. And so I picked up the child and he waved his hands and so then the little machine went off and so I went through three times trying to help this little, and I felt so bad I had to hold his little arms to get him through. And a TSA lady came up, she was very nice, they've been very nice to us. And so she said, no, we don't want you to have to have the situation.   And but the older kids do well and I can go through with them and but again it's the little ones that it's very tough. So that's been worked out. And then also, you know what it's like to have a plane connection to another you know you have a connection through your flight like in Atlanta or Charlotte or somewhere and it can be very scary to make your connection if you even if you speak English. And so we give them a form that says in English help me, I don't speak English, help me find my connection. We fill that out for them to show to an employee but of course finding an employee of the airline when you get off is not always, you know, that easy. And so, we just tell them, look for someone and only four of them, you know. And so, but Delta is doing something wonderful and I wanted to give them credit. They, when you, when we print the families tickets at the end before it's the screen is empty we hit, it says itinerary, we can print the itinerary. And so it'll say like they're going to Atlanta and they're going on to whatever. And then if I give, I print that out their little vouchers and I give them to the gate agent or the ticket agent they put it in their system and someone is waiting for them in Atlanta and I mean Atlanta's scary and it's a city, you know. And so it is so wonderful. So I told the Delta guy, no one else does this. None of the other airlines do this and I'm thinking we need to maybe talk to all and maybe we can get something going on that. And then this last time the agent at the gate even I said, well I have four mothers here, I want to make sure. And he goes, well you know what, I'll just board them early. So we boarded them early before all the other passengers are, sure the other passengers weren't real excited about that. But, and then also just a little neat thing that happened Tuesday is I guess some students from Baylor had contacted the Midnight Church, John Garland and they came down on their spring break and wanted to help with the airport, five of them. So we managed to get them all security passes which wasn't easy. So they got to go through a little bit of that experience and they had to leave at one but they had a chance to go through security with the kids and the moms and help them put all their stuff in the bins and all that and they were so cute and they were playing with the kids and coloring with them and I heard them talking to each other and they were going, oh the little children are so sweet and they just were so loving to the children. It was very nice to have their assistance. So I think that's it. Joe, do you have anything to add? I have something to add. I have, the total numbers I have, these don't all, oh yeah, it's kind of hard to keep track but the total numbers I have for the airport are 1010 for County Carnes and Dilly Bow and for the bus backpacks, that's not people, that's backpacks given out, I'm sorry. And for the bus backpacks, 2051, so we have over 3000 February. For the month of February and that's kind of early to have that kind of crowds, it's very early. 2051 backpacks at the bus station, 1010 backpacks at the airport. So the families, you know, might have at least one child. So there were more people than that going through today. Sheltering, do you want to say anything? In the month of February, we were able to shelter 50 families and 50, which was 122 individuals. And that was among the Casa de Maria y Marta and Casa Nacho and host families and hotels. So there were a lot of different ways that were being helped. Most of these were from the bus station. Most of the families being stranded are at the bus station. There were 33 families stranded at the bus station and 10 families at the airport. Now we had a couple of individuals through races that needed overnight shelter that we were able to help out. Changes are happening at La Casa, Casa de Maria y Marta. It's been an interesting ride since we opened back at the end of August with the full intent of only doing overnight shelter, just overnight, no long-term shelter. We were met with families that desperately, desperately needed shelter and had no place to go. And so we kind of unwittingly, compassionately had several families that we were sheltering long-term. And we know that's not what we set out to do. And so we're right now in the process of the last month, I guess, it's been about a month. La Casa has been kind of, not really shut down, but in a serious period of transition, where, as John calls it, we're devising La Casa 2.0, and that's being worked on right now. And we should be up and running again, maybe tomorrow. So we are enormously grateful to every family who has so willingly offered their homes for shelter. Chilly can tell you that it's a blessing to the family being the host as probably as much or more than it is of listening to the family being hosted. We do need more families who are willing to do this. So if you or you know anyone who is willing to do this, let me know, please. So, no, no, no. It's going back to the original intent, which is overnight shelter. And we're working out, what about the long-term families? Thank you. Did anyone here go to John Garland's presentation on trauma-informed care? Wasn't that a marvelous thing? That was just a marvelous program. Excellent information. Terry, do we have some reports from collaborators this morning? We do. Can they all come to the front and do it this week? Yes, if you are a collaborator with a report, I wonder if you would come up and sit right along the front row here. And that will save us a little time in jumping up and down. I'm hogging the microphones today. Hi, I'm doing this one for Anne. And this is one that she sent out to me. Someone else was asking about other approaches, but this is one that she sent that is going to happen in May in El Paso. And it's kind of like the pilgrimage in Spain on the Camino. Yeah, so this one is going to happen in El Paso in May, and it's to bring attention to border and immigration issues. I think it's a little incomplete. There was another part of it that had an actual link where you could register, but we'll change this slide so that people are interested. They'll have that information available to them. Like Terry said, you can just click on the link and when you go back to your office, you go home or whatever, this thing will come back and you can see all the info that's been up on the screen today. So that's this announcement. I'll have a couple more as the slides come by. Okay, I'm not good at following structure, so I just put four things down and they got listed as what and where. So I'm going to go with what I have and not with what's up there. First of all, we have discovered a need based upon some of our work with some of our collaborating border ministries. So I titled it here, Asylum Companion and Congregations. I just heard 50 families were hosted here. We've got 50 families down at the Holding Institute in Laredo, currently La Posada de Providencia. They're at capacity. There's a great need for people who are in the asylum process to have someplace to go if they don't have family who can host that. And so I don't know if this already exists. If it doesn't, we're trying to develop something based upon some other resources that existed within the United Methodist Church. Does anybody know, first of all, if anything exists in any other tradition so we don't have to reinvent the wheel? Something where we could connect a family or an individual who's in the asylum process with a church that would want to host that individual or family, provide for that individual or family, help facilitate their integration, take on the real responsibility for the duration of their asylum process of making sure that their sort of Maslow hierarchy needs are met at least the first couple layers, the bottom layers I should say. Does anybody know anything about that? Because I really don't want to do work that's already been done, if we can avoid it. Does it just with sanctuary or with asylum? Because this is kind of a reverse sanctuary. Work with the families that are seeking asylum and then when they see a dicey like what happened to Hilda before and her two kids, they take them out of the world. But anyway, I contact the folks in the sanctuary and I work that off so we might get some idea. Okay, and what we're hoping to do is to not work with churches across the country, especially in areas where immigration court is more asylum friendly. We can get people connected to those locations and have them housed and supported. That would be ideal. This next one, this is kind of negligence. Crystal City, there is a recording artist and graduate student from Brown University who was put in contact with me for, I don't know what reason, other than he knows somebody at J. Fund in Boston. And he's coming down, he's an Asian ancestry and he would like to record a song that connects what happened to Crystal City with what's happening now and kind of make that connection more clear. And he's looking for opportunities to touch base with people, learn about the issue. He's also offered, this is the part I'm not an event coordinator, he wants to perform for either a fundraiser if people would like that or just as a therapeutic recreation offering for organizations that might benefit from something like that. So I put that out there if you're interested, let me know. And then for J. Fund locally, we are recruiting for volunteers who would assist us with a new approach to connecting with undocumented persons that we might be able to offer legal services to. We're calling it outreach education intake facilitator, but it would be going to places where undocumented people are already congregating, food pantries, clinics, things like that to, so as not to put them in a position they have to come to us and try to offer screening and services. So if you know anybody who's Spanish speaker and might be interested in something like that, also please let me know. And then we're starting a mission to the border to offer services there. I just wanted to put it out there so the universe knows it's gonna happen and that will guarantee the funding will come in. Okay, that's all I have. Do you have a friend or agent, singer friend, know about that Sydney Ena who will be here about the same time? No, I'm neither did I. Will they just put this together? It would be. If anybody can help me do that, I'd love to. Yeah, it'd be great if they could. Is she here locally or is she? No, she doesn't have a form yet. Okay, so. There is now, but she's been here, she came back and was 15 and she testified at the VFPS here when we first started really speaking out about the whole picture of his team. Yeah, it'd be great to put them in touch with one another. Okay. Question. Yeah. Justice for our neighbors, it's immigration ministry, immigration legal services ministry of the United Methodist Church. Yes. Who's next? This is Moon's information again about the accompaniment training, so thank you. We know why he chose the Texas internment camp which was so different from all the other Japanese internment camps. I'm just curious. I'm just curious. Oh, it is the closest one to the border, probably or at least the size of California. Yeah. Interesting. Very good. My Christian Center for Human Rights. Oh, hello everyone. As I said earlier, this is my first time here, but I worked for the Migrant Center for Human Rights. Has anybody heard of us before or has none? Okay. Well, yeah, she's absolutely amazing.  People who are in Peersol, Peersol is another detention center is within this area. We've heard about daily crimes. Peersol is one that wasn't not receiving legal aid because basically organizations like Raiz is and all that, we're already like super busy trying to take care of what was happening in the crimes in Delhi. So I tried to follow the set up as much as I could. So that's who we are. Migrant Center for Human Rights. And then I have some really great news. Just this past week, we won three cases that people have received their asylum. And from all the people that are right here, it sounds maybe like very little, just three cases, but it's really, really a great effort. And this was quite interesting. They really want to highlight that this was possible because of all the help that we received from you guys, from your donations. As you can see here from the three cases that we have, this is about $2,550 worth of donations. All of this was based on donations. This is all the work from translations to the legal work, filing, meeting with the Chinese, getting their declarations. And all of this money was donated a lot from you guys. So thank you, thank you very much for all of this. It's thank you for this money that we're able to help a lot of people. And as much money as we have, there are more people we can help. So yeah, this is just a summary. We had two people from Honduras and one from Nicaragua that were here for police violence, sexual identity persecution. And the person from Nicaragua was political violence. He was being pursued by the police forces. And as we know, there's a lot of community corruption and that's why we were not able to seek help in their own country. Other news that we had, we had some collaborations with some psychiatrists from New York. And what this helped us, it actually helped the two persons from Honduras and they gave them assistance on. And I think this helps connect on how we're helping people, yes, in their immediate need for legal assistance, but also in that transitional stage after all the trauma that we've seen, that's a lot of what people go through. And having someone and know that there's support in that sense, it's very, very important. And so the migrant center of human rights is really trying to make that connection and help it in a transition, not just in their immediate release from the tension or obtaining their asylum, but also helping them get them back to their feet. And, yeah, to get involved, mostly we need some people who might be interested in doing translations or interpretation. And also we have a newsletter. If you are interested in learning about a newsletter, do a get down your email. We do that one to about two a month. And it's basically learning about what's going on in the news with the legal perspective. So how is everything that we're hearing in the news actually affect the legal process that these people have to go through? And, yeah, that's a way to get involved and you want to share some of those news. And so people have been saying, basically getting some of those donations if you don't know of grants that we can apply to, because as we said, it's thanks to that many of those donations that we're able to help as many people as we've been able to. Any questions? Okay, thank you very much for your time. Hi everyone, my name is Julia Patach and I'm with the Dilly Pro Bono Project. I think a lot of you are already familiar with our work, but we represent all of the women and children in the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilly. And our goal is to provide services to all of the women who request services. So that's not an easy task. We have usually over 2,000 clients to serve at any given time. So we're launching an exciting new project. This is a way to build additional capacity for our team. We have a small staff in Dilly and then we also have volunteers who travel to Dilly from across the country. So we're hoping to build a network of volunteers across the country who provide remote legal services even if they can't travel to Dilly, Texas. So we're launching a few different pilot projects and we're hoping to launch one pilot project here in San Antonio. So we're looking for Spanish speakers who would be willing to meet in San Antonio on Saturday mornings. For the purpose of the pilot project, we're asking volunteers to commit to 10 weeks. And what volunteers would be doing is they would be providing telephonic legal services to clients in Dilly. They would be meeting at the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid office. We have a call center type set up there and we'll have a staff member supervising all of the volunteers. Volunteers will be assisting clients with preparing for their credible fear interviews. Those interviews are very important because they're the first step in the process to apply for asylum and also what most clients have to go through in order to get released. So if clients aren't able to get preparation for that interview, they're less likely to be able to push through their asylum cases down the road and be released from detention. So for the purposes of the pilot project, we are only recruiting Spanish speakers because most of our clients speak Spanish. But in the future, there may be additional opportunities to volunteer remotely with the project, even if you're not a Spanish speaker. So I have my contact info up there. Julia at caraprobono.org is my email. You can also contact me on my cell phone if you're interested and I'll be hanging around after the meeting as well. Yep. Do you have to be an attorney or a paralegal to do this as a Spanish speaker? You don't have to be an attorney or a paralegal. We're going to provide training. The training will include some training about the legal standard, some training about some of the technology that we're gonna be using. And then it'll also include a hands-on training in Dilley where you'll get some experience interacting with clients and doing these interview preparations in person before doing it telephonically. Yep. I'm a little confused about the Saturday from nine to 12 depending, is that the training or is that the volunteer commitment? That's the volunteer commitment. So we're kind of at this point, it's the first time that we're launching this project. So we're trying to kind of gauge what the volunteer interest is here in San Antonio and then we'll be setting the training dates and the actual start date and end date of the pilot project. But we're hoping to get volunteers to commit for a period of approximately 10 weeks. And it's really important that we have a group of reliable volunteers just because our staff in Dilley will be relying on volunteers. But we also understand that it's possible that people may have some commitments that we're asking a lot to get up here Saturday morning. And so there's a little bit of flexibility there with missing a few weeks. And you're welcome to distribute this information to your networks, to people in your community if you work for an organization. And I'm also happy to send you some additional written information about the project. I think that the training will be about a three hour training, one night in San Antonio. And then the Dilley training will be probably be a day long training on a Saturday. So from approximately nine a.m. to five p.m. Any other questions? Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Good morning everyone. For those that don't know me, my name is Maria La Caso and I oversee the bus station project at Raises. Just a quick update on our numbers. In the past month, we've talked to close to 500 families. This number only represents the families that we compete in intake with. Since looking through their paperwork and take some time, we don't get to compete in intake with everyone, but we make sure that everyone takes the information that they need. 31 of these families will be referred to our partnering organizations. We continue to see family separations. I know in the past two weeks, we've come across five. And so what we've done is do our best to connect families with their children and provide other homes as supportive possible. And lastly, right now we are in need of weekend volunteers as we expand into the weekend. So if you know any Spanish speakers that would like to be part of our project, they can contact our volunteer team at volunteeratRaisesTexas.org. Thank you. And I'm Nate Rother. I'm also with Raises and I am in charge of our bond fund. And so kind of big news. On March 1st, we kind of relaunched our bond fund in a big way and it's focused on taxes. So that's really important for y'all. If you know someone who's in detention in Texas or who's in detention in another state and is coming to Texas or who has court in Texas, we can probably pay their bond. So please let me know. And that's our address for the bond's email. That comes to me and the whole bond staff. And there's a huge need in Texas because we detain a lot of people here. So let's get them out. Bond is an easy way to do that. Yes. Yeah, that was a big one. This is part of it, for sure. Some of that is going to bonds. What? Oh, yeah, I wish I knew. But we're not asking for money. We have money. We're asking for referrals to the bond programs. We could use the money to pay people's bonds. To donations? Yeah, but please donate too because we still need money for more bonds. That's not going away. Yes. So now they're going to pay for the bond? Yeah, then before the bond fund originally was kind of a crisis response when we first got all that influx of money to pay bonds for parents that had been separated from their kids. But we also knew that there's lots of people locked up who don't put that criteria. So we were paying that too. Now this is kind of a mix. And to kind of equitably think about how we're going to determine which we can pay and which we can't because unfortunately we can't pay all the bonds, we're focusing on Texas, right? There's the highest need. Yeah, the median bond nationally, it's been $7,500 for the last year or so, but in the first months of fiscal year 19, it's gone up to 8,000. And that's what our data shows too. The lowest is $1,500 by law. You have to post all of it. And the interest rate on an immigration bond is capped at 3.5%, even if the Treasury sets a higher rate on Treasury bonds. What people get the bond money back if the person continues to show up? You should rise to get some of that back too. Right, when the case is over, so that can either be when the person wins relief or if they comply with the deportation order. But that takes years. So we're not going to see money back that we spend on bonds for years. What are they spending? So far, I'd say we've had 10 people who've gotten scheduled for hearings out of more than 300, so it's a long process and it's messed up. I'm Gino Beirose, I'm the immigration agent for the City of San Antonio, so I owe a little partial. I'm here to announce four on behalf of Ann Beeter, which is at the planning meeting for this, a new initiative that's being launched by the Faith-based Initiative. Sorry, a new project's being launched by the Faith-based Initiative. That's called EGOL and SA. And it is basically a year-long campaign to bring attention to compassionate work that is being done here in San Antonio and kind of bring us all together into the same hashtag in this world, everything's a hashtag. So we're bringing it all under a hashtag or having a website that's set up for it and all of the different events that are going on over this next year are going to be done basically under the umbrella rubric of this EGOL and SA campaign. So once it's going to kick off, it's going to kick off very soon in April. April the 5th is Golden Rule Day and the whole idea behind the Golden SA is that it's sort of, it was an idea that was brought over from Dallas, that the Golden Rule is an idea that is common to all different faiths around the world. Everybody has a different interpretation, but it's all basically the same idea. Treat others as you want to be treated, right? So the idea here is that is very much the core idea of compassion. Compassion is the same core idea. So EGOL and SA is a celebration of the Golden Rule, it's a celebration of compassion and it's going to be kicked off right on the eve of Golden Rule Day which is April the 5th. So on April the 4th, I'm going to like the skyline of San Antonio Gold and that is going to be the way that we'll all know that this is going to be a year of compassion, okay? There are a lot of different ways to be involved in this campaign. We're trying to make it as easy as possible if you just want to say, hey, we're doing compassionate work here, we want to be a partner, we'll just run the website, right? If you want to pledge to do some more compassionate work over the next year and say, here's what we have been doing, but here's what we're pledging to do in the future, we're pledging to be a compassionate church, we're pledging to be a compassionate university, we're pledging to be a compassionate nonprofit, we're pledging to be a compassionate company, we're pledging to be a compassionate university. We'll have you officially recognize this as an official, compassionate church, university organization, right? For businesses or any place that has an office, they're going to be designing like this badge that you can put on your window, it says, I am officially the Golden Essay partner in this, okay? So that's kind of the idea, we want to just bring it out and make people aware of it because it is going to be going on all through the next year and we want to make sure that everybody is receiving the kind of recognition for the compassionate work that they do and it's very important for us to support each other that way. So that's EGLE and SA, starting on EGLE the 5th of this year. Thanks, next one, I think I might too. This was one that was forwarded to me, this is an event on March the 19th of next Tuesday. The anti-defamation of the Mexican consulate, having a valuable training on understanding bullying and cyberbullying at the Mexican consulate and the contact information there is for a friend, Gatino Figueroa, who's at the Mexican consulate. Next, is that next March or next Friday? Our late Lake University Center for Mexican American Studies is having a Dream Beyond Symposium which is focused on dreamers in San Antonio, it's an all day event from 8.30 to 4. And it is at the province west social room. They are asking for people who are interested in going, it is free, but they're just asking for you to register in advance and send your registration to the email above. They will be serving on like breakfast, lunch and refreshments. And I think they may actually, if you are subscribing to my newsletter, they gave me a one page sheet with the graphics and all that. So there might be a little more detail on that one. But if you want more information on understanding, you can just contact the person on that one. Next. Refugee Council, if I say this is one other campaign that is going to be launched here pretty soon, they're having a week of action that runs March 25th to the 29th. And the campaign that they have is called, it's very interesting, it's called Where Are The Refugees? And the reason why they named it that is because the United States is not accepting the refugees as it had been in prior previous years. I've gone and they were at one point accepting, I think it was over 80,000 a year. They kept lowering the cap down and not even allowing the people to be resettled to the cap number. So in the last year, I think the cap was about 45,000 and they didn't even reach 45,000. So they did this year and said, well, we're gonna reach 45,000, so we should lower it even more. So the statutory cap is now even lower than it's ever been in probably the history of the refugee program since 1980. And they are coming with this campaign as the Refugee Council USA saying, Where Are The Refugees? We need to, at the very least, devote to our commitment to resettle refugees in the United States and meet the very low cap that you set and we should even be increasing that cap. So this group, Refugee Council USA, has come up with this campaign. They have the website up there where you can get more information about it. They're looking for prominent public and political figures to record short videos asking for refugees, providing a brief statement in supporting bringing more refugees into the United States. And they're looking for volunteers to record videos, could be posted on social media for that week. They are also looking to put together an event here in San Antonio to just bring attention to this issue. They reached out to me to try and help them find a place for that. So there'll be more information of that forthcoming. But if you are interested in being involved in the contact person there, her name is Aisha Hassan. She's new at the Refugee Council. So you can go ahead and email her directly. Akadere Medica is having citizenship information sessions at La Thinevada University United Methodist Church. They are a service provider that does citizenship classes. So part of that is they're now helping people understand what it takes to apply for citizenship. And they're doing these information sessions. The next one is on March 23rd from 10 to noon at La Thinevada Church. And if you want more information, the contact information is there. Might have one more. You did the answer so well. I'm Tom Hager over the last five years. My business card has morphed from Presbyterian pastor to retired Presbyterian pastor to grandfather of 11. It just keeps getting better. I'm here to say thank you. Wow. Thank you. Two months ago, I came and said, help the group of four from the state of Maine who could all live in our house when they're here for five days became a group of 20. We don't have that much room. Travis Park United Methodist Church said, we have that. Can they still use the word United in the name of their title? No, no. Said, we've got room. Come here and stay with us. Last month, I came and said, we've got a place for them to stay. Now we need to be good stewards. They want to do hands-on generous and they want to do head trip advocacy training and skill enhancements so they can cause faithful mischief when they go home. And you all once again responded, I've mentioned your names, but I mispronounce some of them and forget folk. And so know that you've made a difference in the lives of 20 folk who arrive on Saturday and will have four very, very full days. The easiest way for me to thank you is to paraphrase a wise rabbi from almost 2,000 years ago who said, looking at folk just like you, holy smoke, thank you. Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in a few small things. And then you took on little sized things and we're faithful in that. And then you took on giant things and we're even more faithfully generous in accomplishing them. Wow, Jesus said, thank you. Wow, Tom says, thank you. That's our speaker for next. Oh, okay. You have a busy couple of weeks coming up if you try to do all of those things. But pick a few that matter to you in particular and join in. I have one more to announce on Saturday, March 23rd, next Saturday, Reverend John Garland will again be giving a trauma training. It will be at Sunset Ridge Church of Christ, 9 to 12 a.m. And it will also include an update on immigration issues in San Antonio. So that's another opportunity for you. Our speaker for our next meeting, next Thursday is Sister Pam Bergensky. And Terry, her connection, please remind me. She works down in the valley. She's an advocate for migrants in the valley. An advocate for migrants in the valley, that's where I heard her name. Tom says, this goes back three or four years ago. She was one of the first people to put out the gallon jugs of water in the trails that around South Faris and all that the migrants use to come up. And she's been very instrumental in getting her community. She, they're from Ohio. They're a religious community of Aston, Ohio and people in her community. She's educated them. And I know some of Joyce, what volunteered at the bus station are at the airport for three weeks. She's been very instrumental in spreading the word to areas that don't face this so close and personal like we do. Good. Thank you very much. Are there any other announcements that you would like to make? Okay. Well, I thank you very much for coming today. Our leadership team will be meeting briefly at the end of this. We are participating in the Begolden SA. And so we just need to sort of officially put our stamp of approval on joining in. Thank you very much for being here and bless you for all of our good work we do. The card for Linda is still on the back table. If you can sign. Thank you.


Hello, everybody. This is Tony G. I'm a psychic medium and and I've been wanting to do this for a while, but for some reason I've been really super hesitant Usually on my radio show messages from above on Blog talk and I heart and iTunes yada yada yada people call in I answer their questions and And there's a lot of interaction so coming on here and just talking which believe me I can talk I Can really talk but it makes me a little Nervous Because sometimes not everybody loves my messages Sometimes there's some hard truths. Sometimes there's things they don't want to hear or know so for the messages today that I'm going to channel because I I am a Channel so I channel Information from angels so for the messages. I'm going to channel today Please whatever fits you whatever fits your life, whatever it's where you are in this space and time Allow it to come in and really if it doesn't fit you It's okay It might not this message may not be a message for you right now today Maybe it's for a month from now Maybe it's a year from now or and maybe this is a message you need to hear for somebody that you love and care about Oh, that's good. I do that a lot when I'm Talking to my angels and thanking them for sending that guidance in so one of the things I definitely want to say is I Was going to do this yesterday and then I was going to do it this morning and then finally I just said Let's just test out this live stream thing Let's just see if I can even get on and do this and when I'm nervous I play with my hair just so you know It's not a vanity thing. It's just nervous. No And then when it worked I said, okay, just it's now we're never start doing this just start going live So enough about that. Let's get to the messages because that's really why you're here So on my radio show One of the things I really love to do is start with a clearing Let's clear something that is holding us back. Let's clear something. That's going to catapult us forward So the first word I hear is stuck so many of us are stuck right now And what I'm going to say is let's get unstuck. So I'm going I'm going to start the clearing now I'm that hits me right here.  If you don't it's okay I I'm going to say right off the get-go Being stuck is no fun because in our head sometimes we understand We are the ones that that are stuck or sometimes we understand somebody we love is stuck and it's Crazy to try to get through this right and we just we want to get through it We want to get through it. We want to get through it and we're just Shh We're taking steps, but we feel like it's quicksand so clearing that hole being stuck thing is really important Okay, here we are December 1st. Yeah, we're already at December 1st Congratulations, you've made it this far in this year. The first thing I want to say is Congratulations because here we are December 1st. We have Made it this far with this Kind of ridiculous year, right? It's been a pretty freaking ridiculous year and now We get to make it through December For some of us December is going to be chaotic. There are going to be a lot of truths revealed to us there's going to be a lot of Things coming out some of them we want to know but some of them We were not expecting things taking us by surprise things I Feel like okay, so for some of us. This is going to make us really unhappy Okay, but brace yourself Don't don't switch channels yet because everybody wants to know Everything's going to be okay. Everything's going to be Perfect and my situation is okay and everything's going to work out Everything always does work out it does maybe not the way we See it right now, but it does work out We're resilient if this year has taught us anything. It's that we are super resilient We have this never say die never say quit About us and and here's the beautiful thing if we find out something that we we really that makes us a little unhappy Or we really didn't want to know guess what? It's only going to help us because then we can move forward in a positive powerful way With things that we really want in our life and things that we really really need in our life for example, if you're working at one job and they are saying You know, this is this is as far or as much as we can do for you right now And you're really in that place where you're saying God, I I just I want more money I want I want to be able to be promoted I want to be able to make a difference if that job is swept out from under your feet. That's a prayer answered Okay, and I said this on my radio show on Monday yesterday That Sometimes if we've been out of work for a while and we didn't take any we couldn't find a Job for somebody working for somebody else. Sometimes we have to take that step we really have to take that step to Create our own money create our own job and this can be something like Starting your own ride-share company. It could be something like baking from home. It could be something like And with a C19 with this year the way it's been if you have any baking skills at all Let me tell you you could have started baking for your neighbors who could not get out That just came in. That's all I love the way they do that. That's so awesome It's not too late. You can still hook that up. You can make pies for the holidays You can make cakes for the holidays my mom and this is in my show on Monday. My mom is so Amazing in the way that she taught me this entrepreneurial You can do anything thing. So when I was growing up my mom Like baked wedding cakes. She made chocolate eclairs. Do you know how freaking hard it is to make chocolate eclairs? I do because I have never mastered that My mom is one of the best Italian cooks even though she's not Italian. She's one of the best Italian cooks I've ever met okay Beyond that Yes, beyond that. Let's move beyond that if your skills are not in cooking Maybe they're in writing. Maybe you're great with editing and grammar Maybe you know how to add that special flair to something just because you don't have an Education Like a school education in it doesn't mean you can't throw your card or your number out there and say hey Listen, if you need help with this, I can help you with it even accounting Just because you don't have a degree in accounting doesn't mean that you can't help other businesses with their accounting Finding being helpful and finding tax stuff now for you whatever you do right now Whatever you've done as a career or something. You've really wanted to do this message is coming through so strong so strong Whatever it is Jump make that jump. It's time to jump and if you make that leap of faith you are gonna be Rewarded Seriously reward it now if you have a day job and you want to jump it doesn't mean quit your day job and go full-on Into this other thing you can you can half-time my mom always had a full-time job and she was doing her what we and her side jobs were Massive, I mean she cooked for an Italian bakery And when I say my mom made wedding cakes, let me explain something here. This wasn't a Flat sheet cake although she did some full sheet cakes full-on decorations that were Blumazing, I mean and she never took a class how to learn this never ever took a class like how do I make wedding cakes? There wasn't Google back then she didn't Google this. She just intuitively jumped into it, but my mom made like tear wedding cakes with stairs and tears and decorations and beautiful creations of wedding cakes that Tasted amazing. Okay, so we all have that in us. It might not be in cooking. It might be in computers It could be in home stuff Decorating organizing. Who knows? Okay, so let's go on a bit I can I don't know why I was so afraid to do this once I stop talk. It's not it's not getting me to talk It's getting me to stop talking. That's the problem But I do have to be mindful of the time because I do have clients this afternoon So as I move forward with this message all through December be hyper vigilant hyper aware Make sure you're paying attention to what's going on around you There are so many truths coming out through December When you hear the truth and this isn't only in your personal life Family life. It might be in your work life. It could be Locally to your city or state, but definitely and I want you to pay attention to this Seek and you shall find says Archangel Michael seek and you shall find Archangel Michael and Mikhail is the angel of guarding guardian protection safety and The message I'm getting right now and I wear this because I see him a Lot I mean a lot he pops up The message I'm getting right now for him is we meaning the angels are Bringing the truths to the surface. We want you to seek them out and these are global truths And I understand there's so much going on It might be overwhelming to take it all in at once But what they really want you to do is start like baby steps baby feeding yourself these truths So that we without the truth. We can't move past What we've been stuck in so if we have these truths, right? We get these truths and we start moving forward with these truths we individually and globally Can create a new existence? Where we're no longer putting up with things in our personal life or our universal life Well stated good job So by all means if a truth comes to you just look up and say thank you I am blessed and do the best you can with that truth. No, it's a blessing in disguise There are a lot of eclipses coming up. I am not an astrologer. I am not a tarot reader I'm a channel in all my personal readings. I I You know people I say they make a list of your questions come on in ask them the angels will answer them for you And you know, whether I'm on the phone with somebody whether I'm on WhatsApp with somebody whether I'm in person with somebody all those messages They come through the same. They're really powerful. They're really amazing and people Oh Always and most people come back even a year later and say everything you said happened exactly as you said it and I say no No, no, no, that's not me look up and thank your angels because they're the ones that came through for you And right now they're coming through saying listen We want you to be free from your past we Really really want you to embrace everything That can come to you everything you've been asking for Everything you've been wanting we can bring it to you. It's already here like I Want to grab things, but I have nothing Except for post it pads with my list of things I have to buy in front of me I swear to goodness. I was not expecting to do this, but I had to force myself to do it so that once I do the first one the rest of them will fall in It's that Gemini thing The one twin is saying go for it the other twin is saying we can do it tomorrow. Okay back on track They're saying here's Here's everything you want Here's everything you want. Okay, this is everything you want But here you are. We've already brought this to the surface for you. It's right here. It's it's it's it's two feet away from you but you have this line in the Sand that you won't let go of all these things because you think all of these things are So important and you're so afraid that if you let go you're gonna be making a mistake. Oh I feel that if this is for you Pay attention and I feel you because I'm You know, we all have been Or are in that space with something, right? So if if you hope that gave me let's clear that right? Whoo, and I hope if you feel these clearings, please let me know Whether you're listening live or re-listening it's just as effective and if there's somebody you love that stock or You just want these clearings for by all means Energetically bring them in or energetically send it to them too. I have no problem with that Okay, so we have these things and we want them, but we don't want to let go of what we already have, right? We have this comfort zone with what we have and we need to hey guys. How are you? We need to really really really really really get out of our comfort zone Because our comfort zone Keeps us stuck in the muck now. I'm gonna tell you and it's so important for you to understand There's a comfort zone with everything and in future Livestream things that I'll be doing We're gonna talk about energy comfort zones, but more importantly we create what we believe not what we want and One of the my favorite things to do is to help people clear their old beliefs where they've been stuck and What's been going on with them? Okay, so that they can break through to this new space Where they're actually getting what they want, right? They're actually Upping their income to a new comfort zone They're actually upping their relationships to a new comfort zone And to me, that's that's everything and what's at the bottom of those? Comfort zones that we're in right now is fear. We're comfortable. We don't want to be Doing anything that will compromise where we are so we want to Kind of stay here We'd rather stay where we're comfortable and know we're okay then let go of this comfort and then end up Maybe worse off, but what if and I have a book called what if a transformational journey And what if is my favorite statement because whenever we make what if statements? It's usually what if it goes wrong? What if this job isn't better? What if you know, it's always a negative. What if these are positive a Way to transform those what ifs into really positive like Good goodness. So but what if we get out of that comfort zone? Right get out of the comfort zone and jump into something new and what if it's amazing? What if it's everything we wanted? What if it's joyful and beautiful and so future all the future? videos Will have clearings. It's just what I do now back to December into January It might be a bit tumultuous Globally locally and even in our personal lives now, that's an easy call It doesn't take a psychic to us to say that we're coming up on the holidays. It could be tumultuous, right? We we have those family dynamics, but I'm gonna say that some of this is these disruptions Let's let's call them disruptions are from underlying underlying Unresolved Situations that are coming up and saying hey, let's fix this once and for all Let's let's get past this some stuff inside of us some stuff with other people and some stuff like at work or and some and even things Like on a local and global level We We have to embrace Whatever truths come out and and again December is all about these truths. Oh my goodness Reveals reveals reveals some of them will be good They really will they really really will now as we go into January. We're going to see a calmness start some answers come in some Resolve Right, it's about freaking time We really need some resolve to some of the things that have been going on We can't stay in this limbo whether it's in work relationship Career finances of it globally. We have to have some resolve. We have to have some good solid answers We do we deserve on right this is our planet and It's up to us to shift it. It's up to us to get those answers. It's up to us to make that progress, right? It took me a long time to understand this statement You are not in this world this world is in you and What you believe and what you think is what is created in front of you now?  I Have I'm not bragging. I'm just saying it's possible and Even while I was doing that I still didn't completely comprehend that on every Possible level that it can be comprehended. But once you get that Right, you are an energetic being pure energy that is attracting and Meshing with other energies that are just like you and if you have this intention this really cool intention to be More successful you're gonna start meshing with other energies or keep all things Groups that are wanting to be more successful also True fact prove me wrong have that peer-true intention and Hold it for a minute. Okay. Don't say I I thought that for five seconds. It didn't happen. So boom You're wrong. You have to hold it and you have to really put in some Energetic work and thoughts towards that. Okay, and once you do that you're just gonna automatically start Hearing things seeing things being introduced to things. Okay Now in January, I want to get see guys. I can talk forever I could really in January. We're going to be in this space where we're getting answers where there is resolve Where things are finally so clear some of the dust is going to start to clear for us Which is good and then by the time we have February we'll move up more even more for more further ahead That's my public school education coming out Yeah, awesome We're going to move We're gonna make leaps and bounds, but I'll I'll be back Spontaneously and sporadically doing more of these videos But I want to say between between now and the next video the most important thing for you to embrace is the Knowing The 100% knowing that everything that's happening during the month of December is happening for you It's not happening to you. I also want you to and again. He's coming out he's saying hey, don't forget about us Archangel Mikhail and Raphael and Gabriel and Zad Kiel, they're up there. They're like popping up Right after the other meaning all of us. Don't forget all of us Include us and tell them We are walking with you. It's we can We are not exclusively with one person. We are Universally with every person at all times. It's our destined Honor to be here and to help people to create recreate Create recreate as they go through this dimension So if Mikhail is with me Michael is with me. That doesn't mean he can't be with you He's with everyone at all times their omnipresent and Call on them ask them Research them if you're not sure what's what find it a good a good a research Thing that makes you feel comfortable like though this feels comfortable. I understand this definition. I understand What the purpose is here? and Then use them not you know when we use the word use People think oh, I can't use an angel. It's like your car. You have it so that you can drive it You don't put it in the garage and say I'm not going to use my car. That would be horrible to use my car I don't want to use it Angels are here to be driven for I know yeah, okay. I get it. Yeah, you know, you know In the in the way that we would drive our car. They're here to be our guides on this plane in this dimension to make sure That we are ever evolving and that's what we are folks were ever evolving souls We have this ability to go as far and Expand as far as we want you are a brilliant a beautiful brilliant light Surrounded by the illusion of flesh and bones we're energetic beings and But we have to remember our sources light and the more we embrace that Light the more we can again create recreate Co-create and that is exactly why we are here To create recreate co-create. Okay one last thing about December Breathe Breathe just take some time and breathe make a list of what you want and Really focus in on it. Make sure you are Taking the time To say okay, if this is what I want what steps do I have to take? What will get me there and then just allow those steps to come into play if it's something that feels so forced and uncomfortable Maybe you're not in 100% belief of that yet yet You will be though you will putting it out. There is the first step. Okay, I Remember some plants glow grow and glow slower than others right, so sometimes You can have a flower that blooms and and and it grows in the early spring But others don't come up until the fall. I don't know anything about gardening, but they just told me to say that so I said it So if something comes up right away perfect if other things take a while, it doesn't mean it's not happening It just means it's gonna take a minute relax. It's just gonna take a minute, but don't let go Of the belief of it. There's a definite belief that goes with all of this. Okay Watching the time here because I do have to I do have clients that I have to take care of and again This is very impromptu Okay, what else do I want to say really quickly Before I sign off. I want to say thank you. Thank you for joining me here if you like this Awesome. Thank you for for enjoying it. Thank you so much again for joining me until next time Have an absolutely amazing rest of the day


Hello everyone, this is Gokul. I'm going to present our work on a web centric entity salience based system for determining notability of entities for Wikipedia. This work has been carried out under the guidance of Professor Vasudeva Verma as a part of Information Retriever and Extraction Lab triple ID Hyderabad. Coming to the motivation of a problem statement, the rate of creation of new Wikipedia articles is increasingly high and it's really about 16.5k articles per month and manually adding them is not really a scalable solution and is a cumbersome task. We should ensure that only notable entities that is the entities which actually require or warrant their own article in Wikipedia get added to Wikipedia. Notability is a test which is decided by the editors of Wikipedia which tells us about if we should include an entity's article in Wikipedia. This is based on several factors such as significant coverage about the entity on the web, verifiability of the information present, etc. Including this article edition process by verifying notability of entities would help greatly in the platform functioning in a much more efficient manner. There hasn't been much work done on this domain and majorly only one work focuses on this exact problem. This work has been implemented for the category of Indian film actors and relies on the two major notability criteria which are the reliable contents availability on the web as well as the coverage of the named entity in this content. Top reliable web domains for a category are identified such as imdb.com for film actors and we try to identify this entity's presence in such a web domain. This corresponds to the reliable web domain features as you can see in the picture to the left where a one represents there is an entry for that entity and zero represents there is no entry. And we also try to analyze the text related to this entity by using handcrafted entity salience measures such as the positional index, the first location, number of times the entity occurs in the first three sentences and number of times it occurs in the article. The previous approach failed to address the issue for Wikipedia categories such as biological concepts and theories and so on. We defined two settings to overcome this drawback of the baseline approach. Firstly we have the generic setting. This setting basically consists of categories that have large number of entities such as actors, films, cricketers, software companies where we can identify a required number of reliable web domains. We have constructed a data set completely from scratch including entities for many of these categories such as film actors, birds, cities, cricketers, films and so on. Note that we can identify web domains like crick bus for cricketers and imdb for film actors. For performing the final classification we focus on five aspects in total. Firstly we look at the domain specific platforms for example for categories like film actors we look at domains like imdb.com, filmibb.com which have been identified as reliable web domains and try to quantify the entity salience by using handcrafted entity salience metrics similar to the one defined in the baseline. Secondly we have the Wikipedia ecosystem in which we look at various things such as wiki data which corresponds to the number of relevant documents which mention the entity or are related to the entity in wiki data. Similarly the number of articles which are relevant to the entity or mention the entity in Wikipedia has a number of images and videos which are in wiki comments platform pertaining to a given entity. Next we have the social media platforms with the followers count on platforms like Twitter and Instagram which tell us about the popularity of an entity at a given time. Further we have query logs analysis which is being performed by Google Trends which tells us details regarding how interested people are about an entity at a point in time. Finally we have the online news web domains where we try to capture the number of news articles in these particular domains corresponding to a given entity. Next we have the abstract setting. This setting consists of categories that typically do not fit into this generic definition and for which the content is spread across the web. We cannot really pinpoint web domains like we did in the case of film actors and cricketers and so on. We construct this data set with categories such as conception biology, chemistry, psychology, karnatic ragas as well as computer softwares. But in this case as we cannot identify reliable web domains, we have to look for alternative ways to get the information about an entity on the web. To this end we define information distribution features. These have the intuition that if an entity is notable, its coverage on the web is high and more documents centered around it will be retrieved when we perform a web search. The idea we use is that we formulate an elaborate search query including the entity name, category name and some keywords like information profile and so on. And we perform a search on a search engine like Google. Of the retrieved documents, the top 15 are considered and we partition that into five sets such that the first three will be coming in the first set and the last three will be coming in the fifth set. These numbers have been chosen based on empirical experiments. For each of the set will be trying to pick the document with the most amount of the text. This is done to prioritize those documents which have more text because this will increase the probability of having more coverage about the entity. Entity savings features are extracted for each of these five documents which are text rich and presumably related to the entity. We also control on the search engine to ensure that only reliable results are retrieved. In this manner we have obtained a significant number of relevant documents for a given entity similar to the previous generic setting. For performing the classification in the abstract setting, we are relying on three aspects. Firstly, we have the Wikipedia ecosystem features which is really similar to the generic setting. The information distribution features which are sort of like a replacement to the domain specific features involves identifying relevant documents and performing their entity sales analysis. Finally, the query log analysis as given by Google Trends is similar to the case of generic setting. Coming to the final classification architecture pipeline, firstly, we have the numerical features encoding which consists of all the web based features we have discussed so far. Features like Wikipedia ecosystem counts and query trends are common for abstract and the generic settings, whereas the generic setting we also have social media and online news. The main specific features are used in the generic setting while alternately web information distribution is used for the abstract setting. All of these count features are captured into a single numerical feature encoding. Further, the text we have extracted from all the relevant documents in Wikipedia and from the information distribution documents on the web and reliable web domains profile pages. This text is further encoded using bird to pay attention to key parts of the content. Further, we also capture what we call the description for every entity which is either a Wikipedia page description if it is available or it is a web profile info which is either content from the most relevant Wikipedia article or the most relevant web document. We perform max polling to reduce the dimensionality and capture all the key signals and then we further pass it down through a feed forward neural network. We also opt in the categorical embedding for a category by passing its ID to differentiate across various categories. All of these encoding inputs are passed through a feed forward neural network and we finally arrive at a single number which tells us the final notability label. Coming to the results of our system, we have used precision recall f1 score and accuracy which are the standard accuracy metrics and we have seen that our system significantly outperforms the baseline we have defined. There's an improvement of about 9% in the case of generic setting which is depicted in the first table and there's an improvement of nearly 14% in the abstract setting. Coming to the future work, a drawback of our system is that it is primarily designed for single entities. These include actors like Shah Rukh Khan Salman Khan, cricketers like Virat Kohli and so on. There exists articles in Wikipedia which have complex titles which could have multiple entities or concepts like the list of collaborations of Tretman, Agatnam and Iyer Rehman and so on. There could be a non-trivial relationship with the category it belongs to such as there could be an island's article in the birds category. It is important to identify if a given title is simple or complex and also try to identify which are the entities involved in the title. We are working on incorporating these aspects into the system by using a graph-based approach for correlating the entities and concepts within a title. This would help in complex title handling as well. Thank you.