00:00Good morning. I am a high school teacher here at Dio High School, actually.
00:05And I don't know if I have it so much as a question, but more of a concern about what it's like being a high school teacher, especially here in this community right now.
00:15Not so recently, but a few months ago, we saw a lot in the news about ice raids.
00:21And, you know, it was a big worry about, are they going to come onto our campus?
00:24And though I trust my administration to keep us safe, to keep our students safe,
00:28I worry about that on a daily basis.
00:32I have no way of knowing which one of my students are here legally, or even if their parents are.
00:39I don't care if they are or not.
00:41My job here is to teach them.
00:43But it's very hard to teach them when they are as worried as I am.
00:47I worry about if they're going to go visit family in Mexico, are they going to be able to come back?
00:52I worry about, you know, why should I worry about if they're doing their homework,
00:55if they don't even know if they're going to make it tomorrow, if they're going to be picked up tomorrow,
00:59if their family is going to be picked up tomorrow.
01:01And this is a huge concern, not just for me, but a lot of my colleagues.
01:04And I guess, again, not so much of a question, but I just want to throw that out there so that you understand
01:10that we as a community were scared of this happening to us.
01:13And if there's anything that you can do, any influence that you have to have to stop this,
01:19to help just put an end to this so that we have one less thing to worry about in education,
01:23we would really appreciate it.
01:25Thank you for teaching our kids.
01:33Agree.
01:34And I will tell you, Border Patrol and ICE used to have a longstanding policy that they would not go into certain areas
01:45for enforcement purposes, churches, clinics, courthouses, which has been thrown out the window, schools.
01:53And actually, that policy, just for everyone's information, that policy originated here because in the early 1990s,
02:04we had a Border Patrol sector chief sending Border Patrol agents into Bowie High School.
02:10Do you all remember that?
02:12To essentially make students and teachers and administrators prove that they were in the country legally,
02:21that they were following people home, coaches home, personnel home,
02:27following students who were walking home, El Paso sued.
02:30And it was Bowie High School administrators and an organization that I was an activist with,
02:36the Border Rights Coalition.
02:38And the agreement, the settlement agreement, was this policy,
02:42which Trump repealed as soon as he became president.
02:47Let me tell you what I did do.
02:49I immediately called the Border Patrol sector chief here, the ICE acting director here.
02:56I called local elected officials, mayor, county judge, superintendents, others.
03:06And seated at the head of the table were our Department of Homeland Security leaders here in El Paso.
03:13And I asked them both, will you be doing this in El Paso?
03:19Our local community needs to know.
03:22And they need to know what should they prepare for.
03:26Should they be scared for their students?
03:28Should they be scared for their patients in the hospital?
03:32You know, CEOs.
03:33Should they be worried that anyone's going to, you know, that ICE will bust in through their doors, etc.?
03:38I also said, I need you to give me phone numbers for each one of these superintendents
03:45and for the mayor, the county judge, etc., because if they hear of this happening on school property
03:52or on county property or on city property, who do they call?
03:57I want you to give me a number.
03:58And they did.
03:59They gave phone numbers, so we make sure that the superintendents have it.
04:03They assured us they were not going to be doing enforcement at the schools.
04:09And if we, if any superintendent heard of that, to call them directly.
04:15So I did that right away.
04:18Convened that.
04:23If it ever does happen, and we're having quarterly meetings so that there's accountability here locally.
04:32So I'm doing everything I can to continue to convene people so that the local DHS folks are in front of community folks
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