Good afternoon
and welcome to our second
You Know Your Rights
During ICE encounters events.
And before we get started, I'd like to take a moment of silence for
Renee Good
and Alex Pretti and others that we lost.
Thank you.
And it's good to see your smiling faces today.
Sorry for the delay.
We're having some technical difficulties connecting our program to the screen
behind us, so we're going to go ahead and do that for today.
And do a verbal presentation.
My name is Terry Solomon, I'm the City of Albuquerque's
Intergovernmental Tribal liaison
And it is an honor for me to speak to you today
from the traditional, unceded homelands of the
Southern Tiwa Pueblo people.
Who are the caretakers and nurturers of this sacred time since time immemorial,
and I'd also like to introduce our esteemed colleague
from the Navajo Nation human rights commission...
she's the interim director of the Navajo Nation investigation.
Good afternoon.
yá'át'ééh
Terry said my name.
I'm Dhaliwal Cho.
I'm a policy analyst with the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission.
(Speaking in Navajo)
I want to thank everyone
for joining us today and for, listening to us.
I want to especially thank
the City of Albuquerque for hosting this especially, Terry here
who reached out to our office to say hey, Navajo Nation Human Rights
Commission. Let's do a go here rights seminar again,
because you know, I'm hopeful, again that such we're here and,
I, you know, as,
just very briefly as Native Americans, as the first Americans.
This type of gathering is so important
where we educate ourselves
and educate each other and as a whole, I view
this gathering as another way of, strengthening our shields,
our shield that we all have.
And and us natives, all of us New Mexico natives all throughout the country.
You know what I'm talking about.
The shield that we have.
And I say that because we know that knowledge is power, right?
So, that's how I view this event.
I'm very thankful for everybody's, participation in this.
And we have representatives from the Navajo Nation here.
Other than my office and our partnership human
rights office, we do have a table out in the lobby.
We have our senior public information
officer, Tiffany here, another policy analyst, Shanaya.
And our.
We have a human rights investigator.
Brandon is also out there.
We have representation from the Navajo Nation.
Vital statistics and identification.
Mr.. Ron, don't think leaves the office.
Will be presenting later this afternoon.
He's here with his staff.
And they're also at the lobby.
Auto operation, Rainbow bridge.
This, synopsis. Jim.
I always say her name wrong.
Her eyes, her cheeks.
Here am to also provide information.
So thank you again.
Yeah.
Darlene next to back to move to the mayors video
mayors and provide us a welcoming and let me know.
Knowing your rights is critical for all of us,
and especially during these tough times.
We know that the targeting that's happening by the federal government
and Ice is literally attacking people of dark skin.
And unfortunately, that, of course, includes our Native American community.
So we're explaining today everyone's rights.
But in this case,
especially tailoring it to folks in the Native American community.
I hope you know that Albuquerque has, of course, a long,
more recently, cooperative history with our tribes around us, that we respect
sovereignty, that we have a government
to government relationship with tribes around us,
and most importantly, at a high level,
we're committed to civil rights for all of us.
But especially during these times, people of color
and in this case, especially the Native American community,
which has been unfairly profiled, by Ice.
So our team is going to walk through the details on this, but no,
they're we're committed to be there for you to help with education
and also to make sure that in Albuquerque, everyone knows.
But you also know that we do not in any way cooperate with Ice.
That's against both our city ordinance.
It's also against my executive order.
It also means that we don't track information,
so we will never share your information with Ice, whether it's from a license
plate reader or whether it's from an interview with APD.
And in part, that's because we also don't save those things.
So by law, we don't actually retain any information about citizenship.
And so whether you are a citizen or you're not.
And to know that at least in Albuquerque, we're doing all we can to defend our city
to defend you and make sure that we protect your civil rights. go.
So our next message
is that for today will be,
for me, it is an honor to present with us today.
His name is Preston Sanchez.
He's an attorney with the, ACLU of New Mexico.
And at last year's exam, he did a wonderful job at presenting,
rights and issues there.
I see countless so
far, as are some.
Thank you.
Very.
See him up?
Oh, let's see when I started this, good afternoon, everybody.
To all my friends who are here with us in person and to those who are,
tuning in virtually, please, we see the comments that are coming in.
If you can't hear us, let us know so that we can,
make sure that you can.
Okay.
So sorry about the technical difficulties that we're going through.
Hopefully it'll get resolved here in a second
automatically.
There you go. Let's turn it. Also.
So again, my name is Preston Sanchez.
I'm an attorney with the ACLU of New Mexico.
In a second, I'll give my colleague here a special guest, chance
to introduce herself.
I'm Amos in Laguna Pueblos.
I'm also Diné, born and raised here in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
And I've been practicing attorney for the last 13 years or so.
One of my favorite specialties is coming and speaking to folks about what
their rights are during police encounters, during encounters with law enforcement.
So this is a time the this is a time this, conversation or discussion to have.
And I think what we want to try to do today is to present to you all some,
you know, so the big information, what are your rights?
How do you deal with police officers? How do you deal with Ice agents?
What what to expect?
What is going on right now out in the world?
What are the concerns and fears that you all have, and how do we address
those concerns and fears using the information and knowledge,
about your rights and how to deal with those encounters.
So we want to make it very practical so that it's,
you know, something that you can take home,
share with your family, share with people that you know are traveling to and from,
the reservation and other destinations.
We want to make sure our goal at the end of the day
is just to make sure
that folks are able to travel safely, get home, get home safely,
and not have to worry about these, you know, encounters
with ice and ice enforcement.
Is there an echo?
There you go.
Okay,
so many of you, and we don't have the slides here to show,
but many of you have seen most recently in the news,
a bunch of different headlines that are causing fear amongst our folks.
For, for example, I'll read off a couple tribal
nations, urge citizens to carry ID as ice rates increase
Navajo Nation leaders raise alarm over reports of indigenous people
being questioned and detained, or in immigration sweeps.
Trump immigration raids snack snag U.S.
citizens, including Native Americans, raising
racial profiling fears.
Now, you might have thought that you just heard on the news
and heard me read from yesterday's news, but these are news headlines
from a year ago.
Nothing has really changed, as you mean, as you may have noticed.
And so we're here to talk to you about those issues and concerns
that are ongoing.
And our goal today, as I mentioned earlier,
we have two goals.
We want to address your concerns about encounters with Ice officers
off tribal lands, off reservation lands.
And we want to empower you with knowledge
about your individual rights.
And showing you
how to deal with Ice encounters.
And the reason why we chose off reservation, off
tribal lands is because right
now, as far as I know, and you might correct me if I'm wrong,
but everything that we've heard in terms of Ice
having any sort of presence on tribal lands has so far just been a rumor.
We haven't heard any actual substantial information to confirm
that Ice has moved into tribal
lands, is trying to detain indigenous people on reservation lands.
So what are what our main focus is here today is to ensure
that if you're traveling off reservation, off tribal lands, that you know
how to deal with Ice agents, Ice, and law enforcement, generally speaking.
And so we want to talk to you about what those rights are under
the Fourth Amendment, under the Fifth Amendment.
And then, as I mentioned earlier, my colleague here
has some very special information to share with you about
what do you do if you're a bystander watching something happening
and you want to help, you want to do something,
but maybe you don't know exactly what you can do.
Well, there's rules.
There's there's things you should know, but there's also ways
in which you can help, in which you can offer assistance, which you can record,
you can document the information, and you can provide that information
to somebody who can use that information to help
those who are getting caught up in these rates.
Okay, so it's not only to protect your individual rights.
I want to show you how to do that, how to assert your rights, but also
what to do if somebody else is caught up in this scenario.
And how do you help them? Okay.
So before I go any
further, I want to give me a chance to introduce herself.
But also she's going to explain to you who are ice, who is ice,
who is Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
who else are enforcing immigration laws in New Mexico?
And, you know, and what do they look like?
How do we know who they are?
And so real quick, I'm going to turn it over to Emma,
and she's going to talk to you about that for a second
by using me here.
What else?
Nope. Nope.
No, I'm not putting guys up.
So I'm I'm running a PowerPoint slide.
All right,
I hope I don't get any better.
Any better this time.
We'll use your voice just fine.
Okay.
Thank you. Turn out great.
Hi. Hi.
My name is Emma O'Sullivan. Candidates running with the ACLU.
I've been an immigration lawyer for ten years.
So much my background and my specialty.
Just let me be here with you today.
And. Yeah, like,
this is just hoping to provide you guys with the information you need to know
to protect your rights and your loved ones when you're interacting with that.
I wish you guys this their hard work, trying to be really great.
Everyone on zoom is going to Google, so hopefully you'll have access to them
at some point in time.
So so as a quick rundown of, what it what is it that we're dealing with?
What is ice?
What is ice enforcement?
So, I suppose the of police agency under the Department
of Homeland Security, it's a federal agency.
It's not,
investigating crimes like the FBI does or investigating civil immigration.
They have a few bureaus underneath the umbrella of Ice.
They have, what's called pro, the enforcement and removal operations.
They also have each side, which is homeland security investigations.
Those are all just kind of different chunks of ice.
You also might see them now under this administration collaborating
with Customs and Border Protection, which is a separate agency
together underneath the Department of Homeland Security.
So, that, that that might be another agency
that's doing Ice, immigration enforcement in the United States.
And they're being deployed all over the country,
not just in the borders on such important to know that you might she,
she border patrol working in you know, we've been in
she continues to implement a showdown, for example,
other places where where they're being deployed, these big operations,
local law enforcement also can be deputized to work with Ice
and to to do Ice enforcement under what's called Swedish agreements.
We just outlined those in New Mexico this legislative session.
So you can see that happening in America.
It is important to know, though, that they they might come in in
other parts of the country and they are, they are legal in Arizona.
And there are tribal entities that enter into 20, 70 agreements also.
So if you're if you're operating on tribal lands, such important information
to know is do they have that kind of agreement to do it in person.
So that's important to know.
Why am I officers
or the Border Patrol where others were enforcing immigration laws?
Why might people somebody overcomes a Native American citizen.
1 in 5 Ice arrests.
Now since the penetration there has been due to blatant racial profiling.
So that's something that I don't have to give
you guys a mixed picture of racial profiling.
But that's, a big trend that we've seen a huge increase in super blatant,
no warrants, no criminal history, no innovation history.
That's that's something that's happening pretty commonly.
And, and increasing under this administration.
They also have routine checkpoints, throughout the country.
There's one patrol checkpoints in the 100 mile border zone.
Sometimes we also get shot up in the interior for different reasons.
There's also things like workplace readings from an agent
that, they.
Need.
Okay.
So, so, yes, we're used to another thing that might happen is immigration
investigating, particular employment
where they're looking for a particular person at their job site,
something that happens, and then or an insurrection certain
basically just a community at large to try to
that was increased under this administration.
So what are you trying to find out?
What what information are they seeking?
I stopped
somebody they're trying to figure out if they can remove you from the country.
And in a nutshell, if your husband, they can remove you from the country
and she cannot be deported.
If you're used to this.
In a nutshell, if you take nothing else
away from this presentation today especially, I talked to one.
They want to be the one to be finding
somebody that they can remove from the country,
and that can be somebody who's undocumented.
They can be somebody who hasn't been incarcerated, who committed an offense,
but it makes them deportable, you know, major crime.
But mechanisms are not there for such an important provisions.
You know?
Yeah.
Identify one partner in her community so that they don't tend to where
standardized requirements often be, where something that just believes
in big letters and nice and tidy letters, they don't tend to wear,
you know,
these you kind of get them just covering the story about numbers.
But you can always ask somebody like one of the 1800.
Government.
Right.
So I think what makes a great point is even young people
or even to with their this is
when it's time to do the system
or to determine if you're a removable.
And so today this whole presentation was called upon by, our friends
at the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission, along with, a bunch of other,
relatives and allies who really want to ensure that indigenous
people understand how to understand what's going on
and how to utilize your rights to address the concerns that you may have,
the fears that you may have about being stopped by Ice agents.
Right.
But what you should know is that as a U.S.
citizen, you are not removable from this country.
So I hope that alleviates some concerns, some fears right off the bat.
Now, there's also a reason.
So beyond just, you know, having just to know your rights is one thing,
but to know how to assert them is equally important in my opinion.
And so I want to jump into how do we do that?
How do we talk to police officers, law enforcement, Ice agents?
How do we ensure that they know that you know your rights?
Because it's not
enough to just say, I know my rights and not know exactly how to assert them
or when to a certain, okay, so and it's not enough to just be silent,
right? You have a right to remain silent, but
it's not enough to just sit back in silence.
You have to say, I have to say something to assert your right to remain silent.
So why?
It's important to know your rights.
I mean, as we talked about earlier, there's a huge environment right now
that we're dealing with, where executive orders, mass deportation
rates, immigration policies and profiling practices are happening.
And this is affecting tribal communities.
And as Emma just stated, you know, your rights as a Native
American citizen of the United States, meaning
if you're an enrolled member of a tribal nation,
a federally recognized trial, then you are a U.S.
citizen. You're dual citizen, right?
You're a citizen to your tribal nation,
but you're also a citizen to the United States.
And even if you're not an enrolled member, if you were born in the United States,
you're a tribal member to a tribal community, you're a U.S.
citizen. You cannot be deported.
Can can the US deport Native American citizens?
That's a question. No.
Can the US arrest Native American citizens
for immigration violations?
And says no.
And the answer is no.
Can U.S.
immigration agents stop you if you're
a Native American person?
The answer is yes, right?
They can.
And that's what they're doing.
And it's the color of my skin might be good enough for them to stop me
and ask me some questions. Right. And that's what we're dealing with.
So I want to talk to you a little bit about what your rights
are under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
And then I want to talk to you a little bit about what
your Fifth Amendment rights are on the United States Constitution.
So in legal or illegal speak, the Fourth Amendment basically secures
your right to be free against unreasonable searches and seizures.
What does that mean in real world terms?
So how do I how do I convey that to my high school nephew, for example,
who doesn't maybe understand
all the legal technicalities of the Constitution or other laws?
Right.
Well, it basically means that it protects your rights to be free from searches.
You know,
oftentimes when police officers or law enforcement pull people over
or stop them in the road, they often want to search inside their pockets.
They want to search their backpacks, they want to search their vehicles.
They may show up to your house and ask you, can we take a look inside?
That's a search.
That's a request for a search.
And under the Fourth amendment of the United States Constitution, along
with analogous law under state law, state constitutional law,
you do not have to consent to that search.
And we're here today to tell you and encourage you not to consent to searches.
And there's a simple way to say that
anytime an officer asks you, hey,
you don't mind if I take a look inside your car?
What I do?
That doesn't sound like a question, but it is.
Oftentimes, officers may make it sound like you don't have a choice.
Like, hey, I see your bag.
That's your bag, right?
You don't mind if I just take a look around here?
You don't mind if I take a look inside?
If you're that person that
sitting here asked that question, it may not feel like a question.
They may not feel like you have a choice in that scenario.
And it's actually really nerve wracking when an officer does that.
Right. It's intended to be that way.
It's meant to scare you.
It's meant to make you comply with those requests.
But it's a request. It's a question.
So when an officer asks me, for example, Mr.
Sanchez, can I search your bags? Can I search your stuff?
Can I take a look in your car?
The answer is an officer.
With all due respect, I don't consent to searches.
Guys, can you guys,
Simple language, easy to remember.
Something that you can take home with you today.
Officer, with all due respect, I don't consent to searches.
And I'll get into another scenario where.
What happens if they do it anyway? Right. We'll get into that.
But I want you to remember the language here today, officer.
With all due respect, I don't consent to searches.
Moving on to the Fifth Amendment,
the United States Constitution.
Fifth amendment
is your right to remain silent.
It also is in criminal matters.
No person shall be compelled to incriminate him or herself.
So how do I start this right to an officer?
Because, like I said earlier, it's not enough to just take a vow of silence.
All of a sudden when they come up to you and just be quiet.
That's that's not what's meant by your right to remain silent.
Your right to remain silent means you don't want to answer.
You're not going to answer any of their questions.
You're not going to talk to them. You're not going to give them any information.
How many of you have watched the movie, for example,
where a cop is chasing down
a robber or somebody who was a criminal, right.
And this is we're talking about a movie now.
The cop catches the guy, throws him on the ground,
starts to put handcuffs on him.
What are they saying?
I think everybody has seen a movie, right?
Where you know exactly what they say.
You're under arrest.
What do they say next?
If anybody knows it, it's like,
what else?
What do they say after that?
And they say this department.
Yeah. Yeah.
So some of you guys, you guys are familiar.
So they say you have a right to remain silent.
Anything you say can and will be used against you.
Those are your Miranda rights.
They don't say you have the right to remain silent.
Everything you say can may be used in your favor.
It may be used in your defense.
We don't know yet. It depends on how positive you are.
Your statements are.
They don't say those things
can and will be used against you.
So that means if you offer information, you're doing so voluntarily
and you're giving them information that if they think it's usable,
they will use it against you, okay.
And that's why it's so important that we don't answer
questions or give information
voluntarily unless you want to, unless you're choosing to do so.
So, for example, an officer may ask me, Mr.
Sanchez, how are you doing today?
I'll think about the question and I'll say, I'm doing okay.
I'm doing good. How are you doing?
But when it becomes invasive, right when they start to ask me.
Well, Mr.
Sanchez, where are you coming from?
Where are you going?
Who's with you?
What are your plans for later today?
These are all invasive questions.
Guess what? I don't have to answer those questions.
I can answer the questions that I feel I'm okay with answering.
But I never have to answer any question.
Ever that an officer asks me.
My lawyer can answer those questions for you.
So if an observer stopped me and said,
hey, where are you headed?
You know what I'm going to say, right?
And I hope that all of you will say, we'll know what to say in that situation.
And if you choose to say it, you can say, officer
with all due respect, I don't want to answer any of your questions.
That's the
second nugget that we want you to take home with you.
That's the second nugget that we want you to understand
and take home to your friends and family is
you never have to talk to law enforcement without your attorney present.
And that's the power of the Fifth Amendment.
Now, before we get into sort of the more practical ways
in which we assert
these rights during police encounters, I want to make sure that you all are aware
that there are consequences for asserting your rights,
and then there are consequences for waiving your rights.
This comes down to an individual choice that each of you has.
So if I say officer, with all due respect, I don't answer any of your questions.
There's a consequence for that.
Is anybody have any ideas
what the consequence might be?
I need I need you to say a little louder.
Somebody said it.
It's okay if you if you don't want to scream.
I'm sorry.
Possibly.
I think the first thing that happens
is you may piss the officer off.
Right? Somebody is not ready for that.
They may not be ready to to hear somebody challenge their authority.
Right.
Because like I said, they may ask you a question, but they but
to you, it doesn't feel to you it doesn't feel like a question.
So when you said officer
with all due respect, I don't want to answer any questions.
It's a little bit of a shocking situation for them and I've been through this.
I am somebody who practices what I preach, and so I've been in an A situation
with an officer and he's asked me to give them information.
I said, officer, with all due respect, I don't want to answer any questions.
And guess what happened?
He started
screaming and yelling, telling me he's going to take me to jail.
He's got all this white stuff
coming out of his mouth because he's cussing and yelling at me so much.
Again, another fear tactic.
I said, okay, I'm Officer, I'm not sure what you want from me.
And he said, I want you to tell me
X, Y, and Z give you this information I'm asking for.
And I said, officer again, with all due respect,
I don't want to answer any questions.
And he said, okay, you're going to jail today.
But that was another fear tactic.
Guess what? I didn't go to jail for that. That day.
He let me go.
The power of the Fifth Amendment means that you have a right
to basically neutralize the imbalance of power, right?
So when you're confronted with an officer
and they're telling you, tell me what you know,
tell me where you're going, tell me what you're doing,
and you feel like the power is imbalanced, right?
You're you're the person that's
being accused of a crime or at least suspected of a crime.
They have all the authority.
Your Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights,
they start to neutralize that imbalance of power.
That's what we want you guys to know right now.
So there are consequences for doing so.
Soto but there are also consequences of waiving your rights.
Right?
So, for example, if I got pulled over and somebody decided to
one of the officers asked me if they could search my vehicle,
I said, hey, I got nothing to hide, I got nothing.
I didn't do anything wrong.
Why don't I just let him search my car?
What might be a consequence of that?
Usually I do this presentation for high school students
and they're like, yeah, I know the answer, so I understand.
I'll give you an example.
It's not it's a it's an anecdotal example, but it happens.
I had a friend who did the same thing. He got pulled over.
He was like, okay, it's fine.
I'll let him search my vehicle.
Well, they didn't they they took it upon themselves
to basically search the inside of the roof of his car.
So the inside of the car, they pulled it down,
searched around it,
didn't find anything, didn't find any
illicit substances and illegal activity.
I said, all right, you're going to go take off.
Well, now he has drapes in his car, compliments of the police department.
Right.
There's other reasons for why you may not want to give up your information.
If they ask you questions about where you're coming from,
who are you talking to? Hey, what's in your cell phone?
Can I take a look inside this thing right here that you have on your lap?
Is that information that you really want to just give away?
Do you want somebody to see your photos, your videos, your personal belongings,
those kinds of things?
You have a right to privacy,
how you assert your rights.
And when you assert your rights, that's that's
your power to protect what's private and what matters most to you.
So there are consequences for waiving your rights.
You may be giving up too much information voluntarily.
You may be allowing access to private information and private things that you own.
But there's also consequences
for asserting your rights, like I said, and it may piss an officer off.
It may make them
stay a little longer to figure out why you're not complying with their authority.
That's okay.
As long as you're as long as you understand that there are consequences,
then you have the power.
So now it boils down to these four points.
Three more.
But I'm going to boil it down to actually five points.
The first point this is the hardest one.
This is the most difficult
rule or tip for dealing with police law enforcement, Ice agents,
anybody who comes to talk to you, who has who has a badge.
And that's to be calm, cool and collected.
How many of you have ever been pulled over and you saw those headlights
or those flashing lights behind you?
Anybody? Okay, what happens
when you see those lights turn on?
What happens?
You get all scared, right?
Your heart comes up through your or goes down into your stomach
and you feel like you're ready to throw up, right?
It's it's a it's a nerve wracking feeling.
I feel the same thing.
Be calm. Cool, collected.
And that's why it's important that you know these terms ahead of time.
In the event that you're asked questions, you may mumble it a little bit.
You may be a little bit out of breath, because it's
hard to say it in the moment when you're confronted by an officer
or a law enforcement agent or Ice officer asking you questions
and you may mumble it out, even with all due respect, officer,
I don't want to answer your questions, but it's because you're aware of it.
You've said it enough times in your head. You've said it to yourself.
You've said it to your friends
that when that time comes, you're ready to say it.
It's a it's a very nerve wracking situation to be in
when you get pulled over.
But to be calm, to be cool and to be collected will go a long way.
Okay. And that also means being respectful.
I always say, officer, with all due respect, how you doing, officer?
You know, anything to sort of let them know that I'm not.
I have nothing against you.
Just I'm not making this a confrontational issue.
I am going to assert my rights positively, competently,
but I'm not going to do anything to offend you. Right?
I have respect for the officer to be calm, cool, collected
is to be respectful as well.
Okay, the second one
is to remain silent and avoid invasive questions.
Okay. So you have to choose what's invasive.
It's subjective. It's a subjective tip.
So if I asked Emma.
Emma, how are you doing today?
She might say
snow.
One way to go about it.
Another person might say, I'm doing just fine.
How are you doing?
Right now?
If I said Emma, where are you headed?
What are you going to say about none of your business?
Another way to say
I would say, officer, with all due respect,
I do not want to answer any questions. There's two different ways.
You just got two different versions of how to do that.
My version is be calm, cool,
calm, cool, collected.
But also let's search your rights confidently and assertively
so you have a right to remain silent and avoid invasive questions.
Right
now, in this particular scenario that we're talking about Ice agents, right?
We're talking about what is it they're looking for.
And Emma just went through that.
We just talked about that a second ago. They want to know if you're a U.S.
citizen. They want to know if you're removable.
So they want to know
basically are you here legally or not.
And there's my there's my way of doing things.
My practice is I'm kind of strict.
I often never give officers any information.
I always tell them I don't consent to searches.
Go get a warrant. Leave me alone.
But I get I also recognize that many of you are just trying to get to
and from your destination.
Many of you have grandkids, kids who you want to see them get home safely
from wherever they're going.
They might be going to a football game or a basketball game away from
from from home.
They might be traveling to a field trip,
and they may be encounters with like, law enforcement.
Right?
And so they can assert their rights to remain silent.
They can assert their rights to be, to refuse consent to searches.
But they can also say if they're trying to just get through that interaction.
Hi. I'm a U.S.
citizen.
I'm also a citizen of this tribal nation.
I don't want to answer any of your questions,
and I don't consent to searches.
That should be enough information for any law enforcement, particularly Ice,
to know that you are not here illegally, that you are a U.S.
citizen, that you are not removable.
Okay, now we know that that's that's not always going to practically work.
We've seen what happens in Minnesota, right?
But in New Mexico we have a lot more protections here.
We have a lot more,
I think faith in our system, in our in our leaders to know that
letting them know that you're a U.S.
citizen should be sufficient.
Letting them know that you're,
that you don't consent to searches and you don't want to answer
any of their questions,
that those three things should start to neutralize that imbalance of power.
So let's, the fourth rule, go back.
The fourth rule.
Or tactic.
This is a little trick, but officers can only hold you for so long.
They can only detain you temporarily.
It's called reasonable suspicion.
It's called a Terry.
Stop. It's it's called a temporary detention. Right.
So if an officer is looking to determine if somebody's committed the crime,
they don't know if that person committed
a crime or not. Let's just say, for example,
they don't know if you're, undocumented or not.
They may temporarily detain you.
They may hold you there for a second. Right.
Your car may be parked your in your car.
They just say stay here for a second.
That's a temporary detainment. If I'm walking on the street
and they stop me and they say, okay, stay right there.
That's a temporary detainment.
If they had
if they had any evidence they committed a crime in or to be in handcuffs.
So if you're not in handcuffs, that means that
they're just temporarily detaining you, but they can only hold you so long.
They can hold you there all night.
They can't hold you in,
you know, terse conditions where, you know, it's cold outside
and they just need to know if you're a U.S.
citizen or not. Right.
There's a temporary amount of time in which they can hold you there.
At some point, it's going to be on you to figure out, has that time expired?
So what you can do in that situation,
you've already asserted your right to remain silent.
You've you've asserted your right to be free from unreasonable
searches and seizures by saying, I don't consent to searches.
You've already let them know that you're a U.S. citizen.
You can you can ask them, officer, with all due respect,
if I'm not being detained, I would like to leave.
At that point, they have to let you know.
Or if you're being detained or not.
And if you're not being detained, they have to let you go.
And so I've seen this play out on video.
I personally have just witnessed it, downtown in certain scenarios.
But when I'm, when a person is not being held, is not being arrested or detained,
you know, indefinitely, then they can walk away.
But you have to ask that question, officer,
am I being detained or am I afraid to go?
That's number four.
Number five.
And I will get a little bit more into this, a little more depth. But.
My phone
this right here is one of the most powerful devices
that we have against Ice raids and enforcement of Ice policy
is documenting what's happening around us.
Okay. And sharing that information.
So you have a right to record
and you got to be careful.
Of course, if you get pulled over, you know,
you don't want to be reaching in your pockets for your phone.
That could signal a dangerous scenario for an officer who's behind you.
If you're stopped and they tell you to stay right there,
you know, you want to let them know.
Officer, I'm going to reach for my phone.
It's in my pocket or it's in my purse.
I want to record this interaction.
I have a right to record this interaction. Okay.
Make sure you assert that.
Because if I get this.
It's not a good look.
So record the interaction.
Make sure you're safe distance away.
If you're looking at a situation that doesn't involve you.
Again it was going to get into that.
But record with your phone.
And if you don't have a phone or you know you're not, you're out of space.
People will stop. You know, they run out of space on the phone.
You can write things down, take notes, send it to somebody,
make sure that somebody else has it.
Make sure that you have it.
Make sure that it's secure in your phone that it doesn't
get lost somewhere else in the in the ether.
Okay.
Those are the five tips
that I have for dealing with police officers, law enforcement and Ice agents.
I'm going to
defer the rest of my time to my colleague Emma, to talk to you
about how to be a good legal bystander, be a good witness.
How do you do that?
How do you make that work without violating any laws
or getting caught up yourself? Okay.
So and then we'll take a little bit of time to answer questions thereafter.
So thank you for the time.
I'm ready to,
It was a normal afternoon.
Judy and her friend Liz went out for lunch.
The two met in elementary school and have been friends ever since.
Liz is an American citizen, and while Judy was brought to the US by her parents
when she was only four years old, she is undocumented.
Liz noticed
two men that seemed to be following them, but she thought nothing of it.
That's when the man
called out Judy's name as if they were old friends.
When she turned, the men approached fast.
Judy had just been identified by ice.
Ice stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Stories like this happen every day
and are happening now more than ever.
Ice approaches people in the street,
at work, in their car, or even in court.
They often will not be in uniform.
It's scary.
But remember, we have rights.
If you are stopped by authorities and don't know who
they are, ask them to identify themselves.
Then ask, am I free to go?
If they say yes.
Walk away and do not answer any questions.
In Judy's case, the agents told her she was not free to go.
If this happens, do not resist or run away and do not say anything.
Except I want to use my right to remain silent.
I want to speak to a lawyer.
Remember, you can ask to
speak to a lawyer even if you don't have one.
If the agents search your bag
or your purse and say, I do not agree to this, search,
they are looking for documents proving your immigration status.
Witnesses have the right
to film the interaction as long as they do not interrupt the arrest
and they are transparent that they are filming.
Judy was lucky.
Even if you do everything right in a similar scenario,
Ice may still arrest you.
Another video in this series will help
you understand your rights if you are arrested.
After the encounter, Judy and Liz took notes about what happened.
Writing down as many details as they could remember,
be sure that you and your loved ones are prepared for encounters with ice,
and that you have a plan for what to do if one of you is arrested,
including information about who you should call.
If I stops
you in your community, remember you have rights.
Remain silent.
Ask to speak to a lawyer.
Say you do not agree to their search.
If a loved one is arrested,
you should be able to locate them at locator dot ice. Gov.
attention.
And we're 1965 people in the United Nations.
And the findings are there's a vulnerability to the changes
I was talking about.
Well, what you can say, what you can do to change
through the entire 50.
Okay.
So we want to find that balance.
And and that's what I'm going to do now.
But I think that one of them is moving.
And I want to thank you, Steve.
My spiritual ministry in this country is unconstitutional, violence militarized.
I haven't been there. And and
these people who have
well done a lot of things, the Chinese people in the community,
and they want to know, what do you want me to do?
What are some of the strategies?
So this is going to be based on law and best practice language.
That will be enforced can happen.
What are some legal in this world that.
So before I jump into higher prisons, after saying
just because it is wrong to do something is not limited to see meaning,
you have to use income incentives and situational awareness
to figure out what you're comfortable with in terms of a variety.
I don't have to tell you much
because in Asian countries, most agents don't have a law enforcement background.
Very little to me.
They don't have a lot of the change in Johannesburg reach agreement
with the lower companies are actually in prostitution.
So it's you know, you really need to find out exactly
from the Constitution and what are and what are you doing something like
that more.
We have a great example of necessarily the 2018 election results.
And then I came getting back to DC.
And so these people combined is actually the most common word.
Physical activity throughout the year here in public space
where you're offering president comments like a phone number where
they don't know
it's really in your hands, don't even have a request to think that you're
doing something that could create any difference in speech.
You know, and again, I think exercise and arrangement
are not that easy
in 2016.
If I have even to ask people don't,
you can say I'm not entitled to a certain amount of money out to you.
And I think in the long run,
they would take it.
Anyways,
this person started taking, actually, I had to come in and,
screenshot of this right about, there was a neighbor
and he was in the car with his dad, and his dad was being detained
by his own teenager was reported that has had an of to do so.
And I grabbed his phone numbers continue as kids
readers and teenager used by my phone and location.
They used electronic vending machine and absolutely, literally just money.
So just because it was legal doesn't necessarily mean anything.
But when you listen to the stories, I would not consent research findings.
I believe in maintenance.
If you take it to an institution that the photos in that video,
you can just go against the
intelligence that have been happening where it is
continually regarding any concerns, communicating.
Once again,
we've heard, from Asian Americans that are community members, as I'm trying
to trace amounts of money used for providing on November
on their phone without their consent, to open companies from so much practice.
Chinese children participating in my vendor companies, it's no practice
to, to use a numeric assurance that, there's going to be dollars and so
you can't afford to give up the government like there's been so many.
Like I would just say, I want this to be an escalation that
I don't think you should be doing
any reporting is what do you think?
In my mind, you guys need to say we're trying to be helpful to the person I know.
I'm going to try to take an individual person and you also try to
engage people.
Needs to know about an awful institution that is waiting.
So those are going to be tools.
So why did the 2017 want to be coming out for nationwide?
You know, any form of recording you may have heard before,
I don't know, for you, unless you count the federal courthouse.
It's Wednesday is 2:00 in the afternoon.
You know what?
I'm hearing that kind of information into your video.
You want to be specific about where you are,
you want to be.
Just think about the new information.
Waiting to see it is an age is important to children is,
I don't know the law enforcement who were there on the scene.
How can you tell what's going to happen?
I prefer computers, I, I started some sort of enforcement
to him and other, other agencies start showing up on this thing.
That's really helpful information you have to know, like why computer is,
how many, how many hours for doing that kind of thing?
You want to I think the amount
just for the names of matters, I just don't that.
Don't want
to to ask questions unnecessarily with my eyes.
But if you have great regulations in common, understanding and frustrating
that you.
I believe that you can try to get another video use breakdown.
You might also need
to go to the interaction.
And you can also change.
You know what what what are you looking at?
What is happening. So they will be pain.
Do they have a root condition?
Are not stopping on the ground.
You rationally based on your camera.
So trying to make some sense in a warrant this past.
You may have a way to they have an easier number one citation that actually we can
do is going to have difficulty paying by March 21st.
Indicated.
All right okay.
And that's not
One one thing that's really important to note is,
you should always try to focus your video on the officers
and not on the person who's being detained.
That's a really vulnerable moment for that person who's being arrested.
And you don't
you don't necessarily know
what their level of consent is to being filmed,
but you absolutely have the right
to film the officers and to try and catch any unconstitutional things
that they might be doing.
So definitely try to, as best you can, protect that person's privacy
and also make sure that you're you're keeping your focus on
and the law enforcement officers,
and definitely try not to, record
any sensitive information that may, harm that person's, legal case.
So if if you hear information
about their immigration status, about their criminal history,
about where they live, that kind of stuff that could be used against them,
try to try not to record that. You can stop recording.
You can try and back up so you don't hear it.
Whatever you can do to try and protect that person's privacy in that moment
is is also really helpful.
In terms of like what?
Okay, so you've got this video,
you saw this horrible thing happen
and you've got this video about like, what do you do with that next?
This is a some tips just about like responsibly
sharing the information that you've, you've gathered.
So number one, first and foremost, don't share videos or photos of people.
Especially online, especially on social media, without their consent.
You never know how that information is going to percolate through the community.
What kind of negative repercussions that could have.
And so like definitely try to make sure that if you, you know, you need
when you see these videos happening of violent ice interactions online, often
that's part of the legal strategy that like a lawyer has vetted
that they've decided it's good to raise public awareness, but that
those are decisions that need to be made with, like that person, their family,
their loved ones who might be impacted and and with their legal counsel.
So so don't don't think, do not absolutely do not live stream.
That's like that's probably the worst thing
that happened to that person in their life, right.
Like you don't want to be like live streaming that
and you don't know what's going to happen during that encounter.
You don't know what kind of things could be going wrong.
You know, and for that reason, it's better
just to record it, save the information and try and connect with people
afterwards to figure out what that best use of that that video is.
In that spirit, it's really important to back up your data as soon as you can.
So as soon as you get home, make sure that you've
you've made a copy of that file, that you've got
it backed up onto your computer or to wherever you
wherever you securely store your digital media.
But don't edit the file though, so if you want that, for example,
if you if you document a constitutional violation
and their attorney wants to be able to use that in court,
don't be changing the file name.
Don't be editing that document.
Don't be, blurring out photos, names or whatever, that kind of stuff.
If you want to do that sort of thing, make a copy first and then edit the copy.
So that's a best practice.
Absolutely.
And something that's super important is verify before you share.
How many of us here have seen a Facebook post that says,
I was at the Oscars,
and it's a picture of a Forest Service
truck and three guys in matching uniform like polo uniforms.
And it's like super clear that that's that's not what that is.
But somebody got really panicky
because there's so much anxiety in the community right now.
And I really want to validate that, that that anxiety is 1,000% valid.
It's not a place that we should be operating
from when it comes to our social media behavior.
So like if you have that feeling of anxiety like,
oh my God, I need to tell people that I saw this thing and it stresses me out.
Like, let's just take a deep breath,
let's figure out what is it that we're looking at before we start posting.
We've seen a couple of, of examples of this just recently.
There is, this flier that was going around that was a it was at banks.
It was a grocery stores.
It said immigration is going to be located at Lowe's and Home Depot
and Mesquite, the market.
And from February 19th to 23rd, it was super specific.
Nobody in the community was able to verify it.
Our colleagues at the Mexican consulate
couldn't verify where this report came from.
It was a blatant rumor.
Just just a rumor that just stoked a lot of fear in the community.
That's not helpful.
It's it disempowers people and it creates fear and it creates panic
when those kinds of rumors are elevated.
And we saw it being posted online, we also saw a flier, like hard
copies of it showing up in the community, and it had no basis in reality.
It was just some rumors somebody heard and they just ran with it.
So, so taking a second to verify what it is that you've recorded,
what you saw before you start posting it everywhere is something that really helps.
That helps us,
make sure that the real information is rising to the top right.
We're not drowning it out with rumors, and it helps people not get so panicky
all the time, feeling like everybody's always under assault when it's really
just like some sort of other government official who's just doing their job.
Let's see.
Okay, so so transitioning back to to legal legal
rights here, you have a right to talk to people.
You have the First Amendment right
to talk to people who are at the scene of whatever it is that you're observing.
So you like that can mean reminding people of their rights in the moment.
It can also mean talking to the person who's being detained
and trying to figure out
what's the best way that you can help that person in that moment.
And so if if you are seeing somebody being arrested,
you might add something that's helpful for you to do is help
that person connect to their loved ones, because it's very important
to act as quickly as possible when somebody is arrested by Ice
to try and protect their legal rights and also try and protect
their, their physical health.
So like if they have medications, for example,
making sure that that makes it with them to detention
because there's, there's like a period of time
where that person is just going to be hard to reach
because they're getting processed in.
And that's that's the time when you really want to catch them.
So if you have a moment where you can discreetly,
privately talk with a person who's being arrested,
ask them to have a loved one you'd like me to contact.
You know, if they're alone, for example, if they're if they don't,
there's nobody there who knows them at the scene, obviously.
Be very careful doing this.
But first of all, physical safety, right?
Like, you don't want to be interfering with what law enforcement is doing.
Second of all, the information they give you might be exposing others, to risk.
Right.
If they give you the name of an undocumented loved one,
I could be hearing that. Right?
And I could hear that information and run with it.
So just be very careful to try and make sure that
if you do approach the person who's being arrested,
that you're being discreet, that you're not asking for anything extra,
that you're asking them how you can help them in that moment.
And that you're not like creating a situation that way, increase their legal
risk.
There's, so definitely don't ask questions about their immigration status.
Don't ask about their criminal history.
None of that stuff is your business anyway, right?
Like you're just trying to help them connect the information that you have,
which is crucial to their loved ones who need to know.
Right.
You also have a right to,
to remind them of their rights, as a bystander.
So for my First Amendment right protects my right to remind somebody, hey,
you don't have to answer their questions.
You don't have to consent to that search.
You can remain silent.
You can call a lawyer.
Don't sign anything without a lawyer. You can help somebody.
Because in that moment. Right.
Like Kristen's talking about when your blood pressure
goes through the roof and your heart's in your stomach and you're, like,
discombobulated, and you're confronted with one, two, three, 4 or 5, right?
Sometimes there's like a ton of officers there for no reason,
and they've all got weapons.
And it's a really tense moment, like here, you know, the part of your brain
that remembers your constitutional rights may have left the building.
So if you're a bystander, you can help somebody tap into that knowledge
and remind them, hey, do you have the right to remain silent?
Hey, you have the right not to consent to searches.
And that can be a really powerful thing. A bystander can do.
So in in the slides, I have this slide that has key information
that people should know about Ice detention,
and I'm just gonna run through it real quickly.
But I hope I hope that you guys are able
to find this information, online so you can keep it handy.
Usually what happens when somebody is arrested
by Ice is they get taken to the field office here in New Mexico.
The only ice field office we have is in Albuquerque.
Sometimes they get taken to the Border Patrol facilities.
Sometimes they get taken to a castle.
Sometimes local cops will, like, let them use their space for whatever reason.
So that's that's kind of the a key window to try and catch people to appeal to.
I used to say, hey, I am, for example, I'm a breastfeeding mother.
I need to get home to my baby, or I have diabetes
and I need my insulin injections or whatever.
It is like figuring that out before you're in a prison facility.
Is is usually like the best opportunity to do that.
So acting fast is really important,
and knowing the address for the ice field office is really important,
because that's where your loved one is likely going to go.
Within a couple days.
The online Ice look detainee locator will have information
so you can look up that look.
So if you if somebody doesn't make it home, heaven forbid
if somebody doesn't make it home and you need to figure out where they are.
Ice has a website where you can look them up,
but that information is probably not going to be accurate for a couple days.
So you have to wait for that.
People who are arrested by Ice have a right to legal counsel,
but Ice detention isn't the same as criminal custody.
You're not being accused of a crime, so the government will not provide an
attorney to you.
So you're going to have to find your own attorney and pay for your on your own.
We have lots of free resources in New Mexico that can support folks here.
We have these fires from the New Mexico American Law Center.
They're a great resource for folks who are in this position.
You also have a right to consular visits.
So if you're a citizen of another country who has a consulate here,
in the United States,
you can get somebody from your country's government to support you.
And I know the Mexican consulate in Albuquerque does visits.
They go visit people in detention centers.
They can help pay for lawyers, for people who are detained, for Mexican citizens
who are detained, they can help connect with family members.
They can help get your paperwork in order.
If you have loved ones who want to meet you in home country, that kind of thing.
So that's a really powerful resource that everybody has a right to
when they're in Ice detention.
And then the
one, the one thing that the bystanders are not allowed to do
legally is, interfere with law enforcement operations.
So if you try to interrupt what they're doing,
if you block their car, if you, you know, position yourself in their way,
if you touch them, if you verbally harass them, that kind of
you could end up catching charges yourself for those kinds of things.
That's illegal behavior.
And the Constitution is not going to protect you
even even if you're trying to interrupt something that's unconstitutional.
You don't have the right to interfere with law enforcement.
So that's that's the only thing that you really can't do.
And so, like, you might think about things like,
you know, you do have a legal right to record,
but do you have a right to record and position yourself between ice
and the person they're trying to arrest, like they go out at a certain point?
You know, you got to consider whether or not
they've got a case that you're interfering with law enforcement.
So just be mindful of that.
And that's that's all I have to say about that.
We did have two questions in the chat.
I can't remember one.
So okay, we we we are going to go to the questions.
One of them was can we live stream ourselves
if we are being pulled over by ice in case for a alone,
can you live stream yourself?
Yeah, I would, I mean, I wouldn't do it, but you you have a
right to do that
if it's your self, if you're not worried about giving consent to another person,
you know, like, I wouldn't live stream somebody else
because I don't know what their preferences are on that. Right.
But if you if you decide for yourself that
that's how you want to handle that, you do.
You can't do that anyway. Okay.
The next question was how can we citizens discern
who is a federal officer and who is a member of the cartel?
We'll cover their faces.
That's a great question.
I think you can.
You have the right to ask an agent, a law enforcement agency.
What?
What agency they're with, what their name is, what their badge number is.
I agree that it's a problem that Ice agents are covering their faces
and they're running around, looking like they're doing things
that should be hidden.
I think this is this is a reason why legislation against wearing
masks has been is been introduced
and has been contemplated in a lot of communities.
But I would say the the one right that you do have
is to ask, you know, what agency are they with?
What's your badge number, what's your name?
If you if you are sincerely worried that the person
that you're interacting with is not enforcement and they they are
they're trying to hurt your extort you from anyone,
I would say it's another thing that you can do.
We will take, the questions that you all have.
Anybody anybody else want to ask a question from but regarding
the director that any you have any points that we got in this point that increase
that one was.
So, no, I just go through them again.
So you have a law.
So people, motivated, using respectable terms.
Remain silent, avoid any basic questions.
Number two, refuse consent to searches.
Number three,
terminate the encounter as soon as possible by asking
for my being detained on my free go.
Is number four or command number.
Violence moving forward in the interaction following posting.
Is there anywhere where we can get access to that information?
Yeah, we have tons of information, relevant to the ACLU website.
And also the discovery
by the Moss Center has great information on those interactions.
And when to do.
We got some, there's quite a bit of, pamphlets and handouts.
The front up there, including these very easy to read,
easy to discern information, information
about how and what your rights are, how to assert them, all of those things.
There's also these little small,
things that you can carry with you
when you travel, this one specific to immigration.
But there's others that are just specific to
getting pulled over or getting stopped on the road.
There's also an A card here in the near beside, the Navajo language,
which has both English and Navajo and ones both in English and Spanish.
So, there's a wealth of information out there.
Come to us if you you want to know where to go for specific information,
go to the front if you want.
Just general information that we brought with us,
we're happy to share with you the power point that didn't show up.
So you can see it, that also has some of the tips and rules that we talked about.
So anything that you need, we're here for you.
Yeah.
One more question in the chat.
Is whistleblowing to make noise useful?
Book contents.
So, so so you do have,
like, a First Amendment right to notify people who are around that Ice is there.
So you've seen that tactic used in other and other communities of whistleblowing.
And there's certain patterns that you you say
like, okay, three is ice is here.
You know, that that sort of thing.
I think if you're coordinating with folks and they know what that means,
I think that can definitely be helpful.
I also have like just as a woman, right?
Like I have carried a whistle
in my purse for a long time, which I call my rape whistle into.
If I hear a whistle blowing, I might run toward it instead of away from me.
I think it's it's, it's helpful as in terms of like a community tactic.
Great to and have a common shared understanding of like
what does what does blowing the whistle mean?
Does it mean come help me or doesn't mean get out of here.
You know, I think it's it's just important to,
to contextualize what you're doing, basically.
And I think, I think connecting with community members,
talking with your neighbors, talking with other parents at your kid's school,
getting involved with organizers and, and have kind of
a shared toolkit and like, shared tactics, I think is really powerful.
And I think whistleblowing can definitely be a powerful tactic
when it's used in community with a shared understanding of what it means.
Right.
And questions that.
You talked about agreements that
I or CBP has with local police in Cardinals,
and we all, you know, go into Rio Rancho
de Bernalillo, we go to Santa Fe.
You go to class.
Who says we just go all over?
So you know what,
local police departments are working with us.
So, so any tribal, the police departments here
in, Mexico are working with Ice.
So in New Mexico today, there's only one active
27 year agreement, and it's with Curry County.
That's the only active mine. It's.
That agreement will be illegal on May 20th when each line comes into effect,
which is awesome.
In in other I don't I don't get off the top of my head. No.
If you're like, you know, in in Arizona, for example, I don't know what
what other entities over there.
I do know that they are more common in states that have Republican leadership.
There are some states that require 20, 70 agreements, like Texas and Florida
and Tennessee, I think will require law enforcement
agencies to enter those agreements so that that's important information to know.
In terms of tribal entities.
There aren't any in New Mexico that have entered into those agreements.
That we know of and we know we've talked
I think we're in conversation with tribal leadership, making sure
that we understand if there's any sort of a presence of ice in those communities.
And so far as we just stated, we have not, we have not had sort
of any substantial information that that's actually happened.
Oh, you won't be able to follow that. Yes.
I think with this, and apprehension in,
Albuquerque being a rancher right on the border near the wall
and, we, we we've had since we take that, we reported it.
And then when we came back to look at the scene, they saw,
the ice vehicles parked to the side.
They had already apprehended the individual.
And we also saw, Rio Rancho police there.
So that's why I was asking that question.
So is there an informal agreement or what type of agreement, if any,
if possible, other locals, police departments? Yep.
Yeah, that's a great point.
You don't necessarily have to have a treaty
having a contract to have officers who are willing to just call the Ice office up.
When I did, I did want to add on
before I to answer this question about your previous question, there's,
on the ice website.
There's actually a list of all.
It's not usually like super up to date, but there's a list of all cooperating
to the active 2070 agreement.
So if you're going somewhere and you want to see
like oh, does this does this place
have that kind of agreement, you can look online.
But in terms of yeah.
So that's that's another thing that we're, we're working on, like at a policy
level is creating policies around what, what can law enforcement share with Ice?
How can they collaborate with Ice, like in in Bernalillo County and in Albuquerque?
We have really strong local policies saying that they're prohibited from
that kind of thing, that that's usually, sort of up to the municipality.
So, so we can say at the state level, like you can't enter into those agreements,
but in terms of of dictating the policies of a police department,
you kind of have to go to that entity to figure that out.
So in so if that was APD hubs, for example, that would be violation
of the Albuquerque's Albuquerque is like city policy
around cooperation with Ice.
If it was Bernalillo County, then I think they have a similar policy,
where Rancho doesn't have like any kind of like sanctuary policies.
They don't have any kind of immigrant friendly policies that I'm aware of.
So if it was Rio Rancho Police Department or if it was Sandoval
County, parts are they they wouldn't have been prohibited
from doing that kind of thing, unfortunately.
That's why it's it's really, crucial for local communities
to be involved in helping shape these kinds of,
police department policies to make sure that there's not, like, informal backdoors
that are available to, to law enforcement.
Well, you go back to this slide that had the address or the location
for Albuquerque. Yeah.
And then the last question that I see in the chat is, let's say a citizen
did everything right and was respectful, but they're being taken.
What does that individual say or do to get
the attention or documentation that needed to
please me?
We're talking about a citizen. Yes.
If it's like a I'm assuming they're saying if it's a Native American individual,
they've done everything that they can and they're still being detained.
Is there anything that they can do to help
get that engagement from Ice to recognize if they said they're a citizen?
They said they're tribal, but they're still being taken.
What else is there potentially to do? Yeah.
So there there have been at least 170 Ice arrests of U.S.
citizens in the last year, that we know.
Right. So across the nation and across the nation.
So and in terms of like the hundreds of thousands of ice
that have happened to try suppression, right?
It's not a huge number of arrests, but it does happen.
It does happen that sometimes you can scream until you're blue in the face.
I'm a U.S. citizen. I'm a U.S. citizen.
And I might just not care.
Like like they're
they're an agency
that has acquired track record of of complying with the law, frankly.
So so what do what do you do that. Right.
What do you do then?
Before you so so people who are apprehended in the interior
and as we say, people who are arrested out in the community,
after they're able to get hearings and fines, immigration judges
at a certain point in time, Ice is going to have to legally convince
an immigration judge that you can be removed from the country.
They're not going to be able to do that
without some sort of proof that you're a citizen of some other place, right?
So I think at some point
it's just going to come out
that ice can't figure out what country you're supposed to get deported to
because you're not supposed to get deported.
You're a citizen, right? So,
if you want to, provide documentation in the moment
to help that fast track that along, that's like what?
You know, like what president's talking about.
This this kind of tension between you have a right to remain silent.
Sometimes it's not helpful to remain silent.
Sometimes it's helpful
to actually provide the information that Ice needs to let you go.
So if you have like you're your passport card, if you have your tribal I.D.,
if you have your birth certificate, that kind of thing.
I don't travel on the bridge certificate.
I mean, like, I think that's probably a bad practice for most folks.
I feel like it's not, necessarily safe, but, you know, that's that's
the kind of thing that trying to get your loved ones
to meet you at the theater desk before you get transferred.
That's the kind of thing that can be really helpful to, to get figured out.
So if you if if you're getting arrested, if you can get your loved ones
to bring your birth certificate to the field office or bring your passport
to the field office or whatever proof if you have your tribal I.D.,
that proves that you're a U.S.
citizen, I think, those are the kinds of things
that trying to get that information that documentation
into ISIS hands as quickly as possible can be really helpful.
Added later on, and asked if the person is alone
and they're not able to make like a phone call, is there anything they can do
internally with once they're detained with Ice?
I mean, I think you you are entitled to a phone call.
It can sometimes be days before you get that phone call.
So I think, if you've if you've chosen
to waive your right to remain silent and even form dice that you are a U.S.
citizen and they took you anyway,
at a certain point in time, you're going to get that chance
to make that phone call,
calling the person who knows where your birth certificate
is is probably the person that you want to call in that moment.
I think that I don't think there's anything that you can do besides that.
Besides just try and try and
make your case to isolate you should you shouldn't be detained.
And just and just hold tight to the knowledge that, like,
you can't be removed from the country until ice has proven to an immigration
judge that you should be removed to a specific other country, right?
Like they can't just show up and be like, well,
we think this person is undocumented.
Like they have to they have to actually prove like, no,
they're a citizen of Guatemala.
They're a citizen of Mexico.
And and prove that to get that person removed to that specific place.
So like that point in time, their case is going to fall apart
and you're going to like get let go.
It's just it's just unfortunately sometimes
it takes time to work through that process.
I would say trying to use your phone call to get your loved one to bring you
to your proof of citizenship to the field office
is probably the fastest way to to get out of that situation.
Yeah.
I'll just reiterate what I said earlier.
So everything I'm sharing with you
is how to assert your rights.
And it's to my in my experience, my
my advice is always asserting rights.
Like always give them.
But there's consequences for doing so.
Right.
And then there's consequences for waiving you rights.
What we're actually saying right now is there's a middle ground
where you give a little bit of weight just to get through the interaction,
if that's what you want to do, if you want to just get through that scenario,
that means showing a little bit of information.
That means letting them know you're a U.S.
citizen, but you can still let them know.
I don't want to answer questions, and I don't.
And I don't want to present the searches.
And in a little while, we're going to hear from, Ronald
about tribal identification and CIB, how to go about that process,
if that's something that makes you feel more secure,
confident in that interaction,
I would definitely advise that you go get your tribal ID,
make sure you have a U.S., you get your driver's license or whatever
other idea that might help you.
So improving in that moment that you are, you is.
And that's the one quandary that is fine that the officers are trying
to understand.
Are you here legally or are you removable or you you U.S.
so giving a little to get out of that situation.
It's not something I advise always, but in this scenario,
because we want people to get home safely, we want people to travel to
and from their destination without issue.
Then there's no middle ground.
You just provide just enough information for them to know that you're.
The last question
is, what if you have a U.S birth certificate in New Mexico?
Real ID, but an expired passport
shouldn't matter? I don't think so.
You know, I don't think that should matter.
I think that's to me that sounds like three good forms of ID.
One thing to know about the real ID is that it's not actually proof
of citizenship.
You can be a non-citizen and still get a real ID, so, it's,
you know, there's requirements for what kind of visa,
what kind of immigration status.
You have to have to get a real I.D., but it's by yourself.
It's not a proof that you're a U.S. citizen.
But it should certainly be helpful to us to figure out that you are here lawfully.
And. Yeah, your birth certificate.
That's that's.
I still have my original one, which I think that that doesn't expire.
That's a document that's evergreen.
And your passport too, if you've ever had a U.S passport,
that's that's you're trying to get to it in legal
and legal jargon,
they call the preponderance of the evidence,
which means that it's more likely than not that you're a U.S.
citizen.
So if you have those three things together, I would say we're we're
we're way past a preponderance.
We're in like, this is a U.S.
citizen, this personal territory right there.
But yeah.
So any any kind of evidence that you have that makes it more likely than not
that you're a U.S. citizen.
And if you if you're in that situation, right, where you've been detained,
you're in the field office, you're trying to like,
you know, try not to end up in a prison facility.
And those are the kinds of thing I would say.
Any of those things are helpful and useful to bring.
Thank you.
Thank you all for the time. Oh, one more question.
I'm sorry.
Let's just go to next question.
So let's go to you in there.
Tell them your addresses earlier.
But there being the, ice's under employment security, right.
That's federal agency.
So are you sure they have jurisdiction on our reservation?
And being that it's federal,
I guess that's one thing I want to get an understanding.
So I think we haven't actually gotten to the point
where we're sort of understanding exactly what that is.
Because for the most part, at least in New Mexico,
the tribes have been a bit resistant to allow that sort of presence to occur.
We have heard through rumblings and rumors that there's
maybe some other tribes, you know, in different states
where they may have been in agreement, but it was rescinded.
So right now it's sort of in this land of rumor.
We don't really we can't really confirm what's happening in terms of ISIS
trying to, you know, in terms of them trying to get onto tribal lands.
And right now it just hasn't been confirmed.
So that's that's where we're at with that.
I think if there was something
to give us more information about, oh, it is occurring.
Let's figure that out. Now.
We that's that will be the next presentation.
But hopefully don't.
I hope that answers your question.
I know it's a little loose but it's it's it's the status as of today.
And then we'll go to the back open.
Okay.
What's important to we have to be in the city
and ice trays to detain our tournaments.
Anybody from the city want to speak
at this time, what we know is that
because we have an ordinance in place for,
the way that it's stated is we don't collect demographic
information for our immigration and refugee population.
So what we state is that if APD is asked
for that information, they don't have anything to turn over.
So that is partially how they protect those individuals
is we don't collect any of that.
There was a really great presentation by the Native American
Rights Fund just to go into a little bit more of the prior question,
that is available online and they do go over it.
The right, that DHS has, as well as some different categories of authority
between, Ice and the different, categories of law enforcement.
So that's a really good presentation to refer to.
All of those resources are being linked to our city website as well.
So if you have additional questions,
you can go back to our city website to refer to those resources.
But essentially what the notion is, is that the tribal nations
have the most, rights because of their sovereignty.
So what Marty's stating is that the tribes should be reaching out to DHS
to establish any kind of connection, to help support
those conversations if they're having challenges.
So really, if you are a tribal member and you're detained, your contact isn't
the Mexican consulate. It's your tribal nation.
So it'd be Navajo Nation, it'd be your pueblo, it'd be wherever
you're from, because your tribe is the one that needs to advocate on behalf of you.
So those are some of the resources that we're also trying to put together.
Try to contact list
so that if people do need those resources, they are able to reach out to them.
So in this instance, the tribal sovereignty
is the strongest piece that we need to lead into.
And encourage our own governors to access that.
They can make a, tribal consultation request with DHS
in order to help mitigate some of these concerns that they have.
So if you have any way to contact your tribal nation,
we can provide that information as well for DHS.
But like I said,
Naz did a really great presentation a few weeks ago,
and they covered a lot of this information.
So there is a video online that you can also refer to
that has most of this detailed.
So we'll share that as well.
But just to kind of come back together with those questions
and I know we've started late, so I want to, have space
for the rest of our presenters as we continue to move forward.
If there's any additional questions for the ACLU, you're more than welcome
to put them in the chat, and we can follow up, and make sure that we,
our next presenter is
Alisha, and she's from the nation Pueblo district.
She is, going to give
a presentation on their grace that they've established over the past.
What the native culture is, is the area
where the put a cultural center in is that that is trust land.
And so it's separate from, the cities.
So she's going to go over that
as we transition towards justice.
Sure.
Thank you.
All right.
Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yeah. It's okay. Great.
My name is Alisha montoya.
And, just a little bit about me.
I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the end of 12th Street
and my family, my dad's family was from model, New
Mexico, and my mother's family is from three.
Just minutes ago,
I graduated from an old high school, and then I graduated from the University
of New Mexico with a master's in public administration.
And I am the district manager and tax administrator for the 19 pueblos district.
My presentation was amendment rights.
And but I'm going to approach this topic from a very unique perspective.
I'm going to approach it
from the 19 pueblos district and our district policies.
And you might find that interesting as reflected in your own pueblo and nations.
And we're going to talk about that later.
But, of course, I still want to share the incredible story
and sovereignty of the 19 pueblos district.
And this story begins over a century ago,
and it's an incredible story
that is about the future of indigenous sovereignty and community resilience.
And it's a story about land,
the story about governance.
And it's a story about nation, Pueblo standing together and the recognition
of the land and the culture and their sovereign authority.
And I'm very grateful to be standing here today to share this story.
And I'm very grateful for the city of Albuquerque,
to bring this information out to everyone.
And the presenters today. Great.
Did great detail on all of your rights and everything.
I just wanted to do a bigger overview of what that means
and show
native Peoples District is an example that I'm going to present today.
What can be done to protect your constitutional rights?
You may or may not be familiar with the native public district.
After my presentation, I think you will be,
It's an incredibly impactful land,
not only for native covers themselves, but also for the city of Albuquerque.
In 1882, Mr.
Clark deeded this land to Albuquerque to engage government
for the purpose of establishing an industrial school for public integrity.
Because children
and then the president had to take as an author,
he issued an executive order, and that created the formal boundary,
of the native, the Albuquerque Indian School at the peak.
This campus, as you probably know, this had over 40 buildings and museum
kitchen, arts and crafts and a silversmiths trough.
They played football.
It was it was quite incredible.
And but it was a reflection and a set of commitment.
But not the federal commitment towards indigenous sovereignty.
The school at the beginning was known as a four point education plan.
Okay.
It removed native children from their lands.
It was moved and banned for cultural practices.
It wanted to merge them into American, English and Anglo culture
and it forced the military. So education.
So it wasn't designed to educate native children as native children at the time.
And even in this house, resilience, you know, remains.
And it kept going.
And because over time, these native students became native educators.
And as seen today at some of the Indian schools,
you know, there's institutions that keep this in mind.
The turning back to the Albuquerque Indian School,
the time and back to the 1940s district.
And it wasn't until the 1960s that Pueblo leadership
began pushing back.
And this again in 1968.
We talked about civil rights, which a lot of needed civil rights
that were running on the 20 that I was in school.
But it was happening.
You know what's happening, you know, what's happening is
things have changed because of them, because of that leadership.
And the pueblos recognized, from the Indian school land
as an opportunity, as an economic potential and a cultural revival.
So 11 acres were satisfied
and became the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.
And that's a great place.
I'm sure many of you visited.
Please come back for pieces.
And for the first time, and then in the 1980s, the pueblo
from the public, from the petition to transfer went.
And it came to hear that the bigger the school closed in the 1980s it closed.
And over ten years nothing happened and the trees withered in the grass behind us.
When.
And so there was a delay in
restoring indigenous control over indigenous land.
Let me tell you something.
Pueblo leadership never gives up.
We know this and work for them.
And if you study the culture, you understand how the leadership
never gives up.
So in 1993, the longest running the place
into federal trust and trust status matters.
We've already talked a little bit of discipline about,
you know, what does that mean?
The constitutional rights and the reason to trust that size matters
when you get that protection from taxation, alienation and of course,
exploitation,
and it affirms the government to government relations.
We talked about reaching out to DHS.
It is important your public ever means reach out.
There's a right to have that pueblo a government to government consultation.
So now going back to the magic of this district,
we have this status, of trust.
And so then the public leadership put up the Indian
Pueblo federal Development Corporation, IP, FTC,
and this is going to develop a magic plan for economic benefits.
So they had a very strong vision.
But this structure needed strengthening.
And so then in 2011, something amazing happened.
It's a little change
brought together by Pueblo leadership and a couple of governors.
And they corrected the mistakes of IUPAC and they established six mountains.
They separated commercial activities from government authority
and hence the magazine published it to this point.
Yeah. So we're
this is a 70 acre plus land that sits in the middle of Albuquerque,
which is the hub of New Mexico City on it, and it's on ancestral public lands to
it's not city land,
it's not state land, it's tribal trust and governed by that same process.
So it's I think it's like a 21st public.
And sometimes they call that it.
It has laws and they put into place and policies
and personalized policy is one of our policies.
You plan these policies better than is regulation,
business registration, liquor control business.
Gross receipts tax.
Hotel tax, gasoline tax.
And it of course, we we work with the city through intergovernmental relations
for help with the fire and police and things like that as well.
So we often meet with EPA via because this lands in the middle of Albuquerque.
So it's very different from other Republican communities
because our population is mainly non tribal, but it is tribal land.
And the governors exercise sovereign authority.
Their ordinances, we establish policy, they form in a government agreement
and they oversee the economic development.
Okay. So that's that's the story.
Let's turn now to the essential point why we're all gathered here today.
Okay.
So people mistakenly believe
that these Americans are not your citizens.
That is incorrect.
They're citizens of their sovereign tribal nations.
They're citizens of the United States,
and they're citizens and the states in which they reside.
Okay.
And I say this because this is reported to the public,
many like you have in the back, but a lot of people don't.
And that's why I say, and you also continue to say
that and repeat that and educate people on that.
But, you know, it wasn't until 1924 when Congress, U.S.
Congress passed the Indian Citizens Citizenship Act, and that was the act
that branches and legislatures and chips all Native Americans.
It wasn't until 1924.
And here's the
and then it wasn't until that,
you know, even though we had citizenship, a lot of states didn't allow fully.
And you Mexican was one of them.
It made a lot of barriers in place and the Americans could not vote.
And it wasn't until 1948, New Mexico's Supreme Court decided Inter Hill,
which is early, that Native Americans decide where they live.
We have our reservations. They can still vote.
And I think that decision was pushed forward because 1914
and during World War two, many Native American men
and children of young boys
fought gallantly and died in the World War Two on behalf of the United States.
So finally, that was the story.
But again, it wasn't until 62
that you really got a lot of those rights
formalized for Native Americans.
And so you are a U.S.
citizen and you have rights under the U.S.
Constitution.
And as you know, there are 27 amendments to the U.S.
Constitution, and the first ten amendments are known as the Bill of rights.
And they were ratified way back in 1791.
And I'm going to just focus on the first five amendments.
Okay. I'm talking about this.
And, Mr.
Santos and there's a Bill Sullivan.
They did a wonderful job going into the depths in the fourth
and fifth, but I'm going to kind of go high up and over in the first five
and the first one, and then you can check those to kind of,
so let me remember if with is the First Amendment
and it guarantees five fundamental freedoms.
And I think sometimes we take those five fundamental ingredients for granted.
Forget about that.
We have the first issue of religion,
freedom of speech, which I'm doing right here today.
Freedom of the press, freedom of assembly.
All of us gathered here today and the freedom to petition.
And that's just a First Amendment press.
We always talk about Second Amendment right to bear arms,
the Third Amendment.
And we think about this, but it says that you protect
citizens from soldiers coming into your home and taking it over.
And that came out of the Civil War, actually.
And then the Fourth Amendment, this Mr.
Sanchez talks about a lot is, against reasonable seated searches and seizures.
So this whole this other Fourth Amendment, no matter,
you know, you can't it's my Fourth Amendment, right.
I have to say whether we can find or not.
And they get great detail about what that means, literally, just because
it's a property car and what that means, and that your right
and they have to have a warrant, a judicial warrant.
There's been a lot of talk and confusion about,
but a judicial warrant is much needed
because it shows process which shows it's been gone to the courts.
And that's part of your rights.
It has to be very specific to describe the place to be searched and the items.
So that's a very important right that we have.
And they describe that very wonderfully.
In a prior presentation.
And of course, your Fifth Amendment
right to remain silent.
But there's also other parts of the Fifth Amendment that are important,
the right to due process of law, which has been overlooked this lately,
the protection against self-incrimination, which means silent protection
against double jeopardy, can't be tried twice became crime, right?
And the protection of injury for serious federal crimes
and a protection against the government taking your property and that property.
It's interesting that so many things they thought of
and all these different rights, and we all have those rights.
I remember when these were ratified in 79, when Native Americans
were not considered U.S. citizens, they were not considered U.S.
citizens in 1924. But you are U.S. citizens.
And the federal state variation
in voting and civic participation was largely dismantled the 1960s.
But it's very important
to have these meetings for me to get up here
and say things that you think like, oh yeah, we know that.
But to continue to propagate that, perpetuate that information
in that communication so that we do not go backwards again,
so again,
and that citizens need images of citizens of different nations,
United States, they reside.
So as far as the district, of course,
we put in place a policy because we're a very interesting piece of land.
Okay.
Just that we're going to trust land in the middle of Albuquerque.
People don't realize when they're walking through their little classroom.
We have the security department there.
We work with the CIA.
That's our first, jurisdiction there.
But we also have an agreement with the who.
They come, they work with us, and they certainly have, we have officers
now who have been appointed to be federal jurisdiction.
And so they bring what we have about
so jurisdiction matters.
Now, our district Ice policy rests on two foundations.
And I talked about that already.
Your tribal sovereign authority and your constitutional amendment rights.
Our policy instructs that only designated
entity representatives may speak with Ice or any other entities beneficial.
So we've asked all our businesses and we're reaching out to pueblos
to tell them to designate a particular person
who is an Ice agent, comes on and is asking a lot of questions
that that person is called so that you have someone
there who's an expert in understanding what's happening.
We also have them designate private and public areas very clearly to be marked.
And access is this is this is restricted.
And there's also restrictions, you know, on different things like,
you know, photography or other things like that.
Because it's interesting.
At the 19th district, we have a lot of open places where business
we have galleries, we have restaurants, we have bars and, you know, just fine.
And we have Native American employees there quite a bit
and people who come and visit.
So there are a lot of public areas, but
I assume anyone else can come to.
But then we have restricted areas as well, and we really emphasize
putting up the signage and understanding what those restricted areas are.
And usually they're employee offices, kitchen storage areas.
It's whole range recordkeeping offices can't just go into here.
It's our departments. We're looking for your files so that
and so we put these into place.
We're not obstructing justice by doing this.
We are removing lawful governance based on who we are.
And they, as well.
And this is just like any business, any business, any university
that you have, any hospital in preparation also has these rights, of course.
And of course, at your federal government offices.
And we are reaching out, and I really want to thank the city for,
compiling all this information on the website, getting this information out.
They talked about that.
And that's really great.
With so many resources out there, I'm giving a very big overview,
and I highly encourage you to go out and talk to experts in this field
and talk to agencies, and they will direct you.
And again, to tell you, I can make inter public areas, lobbies, restaurants.
We had a hotel manager's name, but we don't want to cause problem.
We have the AC to comes in to rent a hotel room or have coffee.
And of course let's do.
But they can't go in
restricted areas without official warrants.
And, it's good to understand you know what that means.
And what does look like.
But we also talked about what happens in our policy if an interaction occurs.
And there's been a lot of talk about that,
which has been very helpful and very valuable.
And so that this is being recorded so that you can go back to that.
And again, I'm kind of just repeating a very high level. Mr.
Francis went to the details of what to do, and Mr.
Sullivan, that very good document interaction.
They said that become a very powerful, powerful tool.
You have to identify officers, what
you need to go back right.
Notify the leadership.
Leadership.
Designate a representative district in the Valley.
You know, notify that you're not going to continue
to have those areas of communication open
and then continue to share that, you know, if it's in our policy
to these instances, continue to get more than one, things are escalating.
Then, of course, we're going to notify our congressional delegation.
We're going to notify tribal leadership.
We're going to notify state and city officials,
and we're going to maintain records for accountability.
It's very important to do that.
And that's all through those records, because if it goes to the court of law
and judges can look at it to you, alternates, now you need to keep
consistent and ultra coverage to reflect what happens.
It's very important.
So is that protecting yourself?
Our goal, of course, is to
eliminate is not to eliminate federal authorities.
It is to work together.
And we
want to have those interactions occur lawfully
and respectfully, very much about privacy and all these instances.
And through proper channels, it protects employees at the Texas gas tax.
But due process, it protects your due process
and it protects your constitutional rights.
And so that's what the policy we have,
I think, to work to do that, to answer these questions
that were brought up the concerns, you want to put that framework in place.
But we don't refer to to where our rights are as U.S.
citizens, as tribal members that are sitting here performing today.
And it's very important to have your state idea, like you're saying,
it's great that, the problems and our nation aren't
creating access so that you can get your tribal identifications as well.
You have to
you have to be careful, though, because a lot of times agents,
what do they know about tribal makeup?
How much?
It's kind of surprising how much people don't.
They'll actually just play.
And so you want to have that state identification as well,
and you want to protect yourself and have that in place.
So making sure that that an access that,
your governments are looking forward to getting that out for you.
It's just it's just really important to, to understand that.
And of course, in your own communities, it's
gonna be very different than what happens in the district.
I don't speak for anyone else except my policy on the district
that's been vetted through our legal counsel and approved
by my the team of governors who are my, my bosses, basically.
And so what happens in your own tribal government?
You need to go and talk to your governors, your leadership, your agencies,
and get that information needed so you know what to do.
And you have that contact,
and we'll continue reaching out to the public,
because that's part of what we do as as public servants, as we maintain
close with our key message at the district,
which I think I've heard you heard from here, is do not escalate the situation.
You not
do when you
observe and escalated, you can don't interfere as you observe
what's happening, keep you safe, keep yourself safe.
Keep everything to me if you can.
And then I was asking is very important.
Am I being detained?
Did you write to ask why am I being detained?
No. Then you.
You have that right.
Never forget you have those rights.
And I thought it was great that they brought up.
You know, we gave you.
There's consequences either way.
How you decide to do that.
But you do have your rights.
And so our goal is to prevent panic and avoid
making situations worse.
So just to summarize,
you know, I really have a selfish thing.
I came up here, I'm like, oh, you stuck with the district as well and important.
And it's a great example of what's happening, unfortunately.
But in the fortunate instances, sometimes great things occur,
great changes are made as we've seen happen, and history said
in the 80s and 1880s, the district plan was used to enforce assimilation.
In the 60s, the public took over the education and changed it for the better.
The schools closed, but then in the 90s,
we saw economic development happen, and that goes back to the 19.
So now it's a cultural center.
It's tells it's economic development.
And it wasn't friendly for me.
It's a functioning interprovincial government
that does government government relations,
that spreads information and assists as public service.
So the transformation really has been profound.
19 public district is an example of that.
And so this is just kind of a jumping off points to talk about what's happening now
with this Ice activity throughout the country, which is very unfortunate.
So thank you.
Published district demonstrates that tribes can govern and partially
can build thriving economy.
They can protect your civil rights.
They can act in thoughtful policy policy.
They can partner with cities and states and retain sovereignty.
And it shows that history does not have to be hardship.
It can evolve into strengths.
And so it's your constitutional citizenship that we're talking about here.
You're talking majority.
I'm very grateful to be able to stand here and talk about that today.
Thank you so much for your time.
Okay.
well.
It is a pleasure to see you today at this event, which I know.
I want to thank the Navajo Nation
and Civil Rights Commission,
as well as a very long and really painfully obvious member link.
And we just want,
I want as the ultimate immigrant community affairs.
I just believe we are here for about five years.
And how important this video time.
I have been constantly working.
We know your rights since day one because why don't the communities who,
who experience many of these situations
is not only 3 million people into, but many in underserved
communities?
Okay, so why are we here, if any?
Well, we have to make a quick single
use just in the video of dying
Many centuries ago and I am glad Miss Alyssa
mentioned some part of the history, because it that may make us reflect on
what happened in the past and the present,
and how we can avoid certain things in the future.
Since immemorial times,
the people from, where I'm from,
I'm from South America went back and forth
from the Incas to the Hopis going back for we trade.
We were brothers and sisters, and we still are.
That migration was constant,
and it happened for centuries and it still happened today.
Just as the regulations have changed.
Thank you so much.
So as a result of that migration,
many federal policies have changed.
Many of the individuals who came to this country came for situations
similar to what many our community members have experienced here locally,
for example, the displacement,
they had been displaced, they had been for political reasons,
for whether they have also been displaced for many other circumstances
that were not positive to their communities.
So, when we go back to what
this office does, the Liberian refugees,
we also have some resolutions
that it says that go directly to help the immigrant community.
But at the end of the day, it helps everyone.
What, for example, what Brandi was mentioning about,
the city of Albuquerque asking for demographic data.
There is a reason for that.
It give you the privacy and that animosity
for you to be able to access services at any period of time.
Many of these policies have been crucial
and very important for our communities in general.
And as a result of that,
the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs has been also instrument
that not only in helping immigrants to be able to be successful,
but to be able to oversee the parent language access, for example,
our department, the Office of Equity and Inclusion, and specifically also
my office in collaboration with our Native American Affairs,
Black Community Engagement, Asian Pacific Islander, and the Civil Rights Office.
We want to be sure that language is not a barrier for community members.
I know that, in some cases,
that becomes, a situation
of being able to understand or identify what language the people speak.
So we have developed partnerships and technical assistance
with multiple city departments for that to happen, for example.
And I know, most community members,
will probably have that ready, but we have
some, red cards in
English and Spanish in our here present in our table in the Office of Equity
and sorry, in the table in the Office of Equity and Inclusion.
But do you want from other, languages, we can be able to produce those.
We also have been resource for community engagement.
Because we work in partnership, we know the importance of being able to
identify the only ones, our communities and being able to address them
every time that is possible.
And if we go back to what I was mentioning
or what we have in common, the chair experiences and struggles
immigrant and Native Americans have in common,
we have a something called Americanization.
Many times when immigrants come here to the US has similar situations,
what will happen to the Native American community where the language was?
It is a being,
been,
restricted at the same time,
things that are connected with, assimilation of the culture
that is mostly Anglo.
So our communities that immigrant refugees also experience that.
And continuously being experiencing that,
we have institutional barriers.
And these institutional barriers in both communities often face systemic
discrimination and hurdles in accessing education, healthcare and employment.
This is a reality that continues to happen.
The cross a cross-border identities for many indigenous peoples
from Latin American migration is the to
the US is the latest chapter we have.
Like I mentioned at the beginning,
I even I myself, I have indigenous roots because
because we have it in all Latin America and here in North America, as well.
So we have more in common than we can think of.
Recently
there was an executive order that passed Eddie.
It was for, strengthening the immigrant friendly city resolution.
Why this is matter is no one apply only to immigrants?
This applies to anyone in the community, including native Americans, in the sense
that you have an encounter with at you have the right to due process.
That's something that was mentioned by ACLU lawyers before,
the city of Albuquerque is committed
in being able to, to ask
the federal agencies for information.
So the due process has happened.
There is also an implementation and oversight for this executive order
to happen.
And the Office of Equity and Inclusion is responsible for the implementation
of this executive order, which also asks for transparency
of the city services.
For this purpose and empowering and helping families.
So if they have certain needs, those needs will be addressed.
They are
protections to children and families who are, for example, who
who are mixed status in many occasions or families.
You can have one member that is American citizen,
another one who is resident and another one who isn't documented.
This happened very often in New Mexico.
This being say that about 110,000 people are mixed status
families in this state of New Mexico.
So this executive order is going to be crucial
for helping our families.
And I also want the value to the following.
Last year, we have 12 webinars
with amazing information that you can take in your own time.
I invite you to check those webinars
who are recording in English and Spanish on our website.
Who's is flying over here?
It has a QR code.
You can access all those webinars who have been recorded
for healthcare providers, for white leaders.
For, businesses, because what a miss Alyssa, for example,
was mentioning about businesses.
We all can have businesses and we want to know what is private,
what is public.
This is the moment to get more of what is
has been
already, taken into consideration by multiple partners and lawyers
who gave us that information in those webinars.
So in the near future, you have some time, please check those.
But also I want to invite you to the Know Your Rights series.
These are three more webinars,
and these ones are a little bit different than last year because this year
a lot of people are asking where we can get legal observer training.
So last on the 1803 variety, we have one webinar where we provided
that information, multi training for the information, where you can get it.
We also have the police department.
The same is the eight tips for safe protesting.
Sometimes our community members want to protest in a way that if we say,
just in case they have nice income,
we also have a
something about an emergency preparedness and many more.
So please check it out when the recordings are online and next Wednesday.
Guess what?
Recently they are?
Statewide impact how new 2026 legislation affect our community communities.
Three big deals that are going to protect our communities just by one.
That is called a SB9 clause that it was mentioned before
by that it will take and strip away the possibility for law enforcement
to take the possibility to be,
to take IES responsibilities or duties.
And then there is another one for the opening of the Office of New Americans.
And the last one is, to don't read the plate readers, which is going to be
very crucial for people to order and state to New Mexico.
So an emerging theme, and that is going to be probably also
very interesting for the people who ask about public versus private spaces.
Bernalillo County is developing.
And actually they already, approve an ordinance and a resolution
is connected with this, with this purpose.
And they would have been able to give some type of,
review or information that
day or how that implementation is going to take place.
Plus, we're going to be doing some updates to the executive order
that I just mentioned before. So just be prepared.
And overall, just know that together
we can really make things even better.
Like it was mentioned in every moment of the difficulty.
We have our moment of innovation and we can make things much better.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Beatrice.
She's a great asset to us here at the city
and has been such a huge,
support when it comes to putting on these know your rights.
So I just think her so much
for all of her guidance that she's offered us, throughout this time,
that we're trying to establish all of this information for the city.
So the next presentation with us is with the, tribal identification
and CIP, Ronald Duncan from the Navajo Office of Vital Records.
Did you want to share from your.
Okay, let me just give you permission.
Okay?
Of course.
If your screens up, I'll just add you as a presenter.
And you can do that from your screen.
Can you? Just a second.
Yeah.
You can share your screen now.
And I'm going to move the mike over to you to notice
and stop on this.
In the video too.
Right. Yeah.
If you'd like to show your face okay.
Oh okay.
Next I want to see my face.
So let's see. You.
Okay. Can you hear?
I can, you know.
Okay. Great.
Because I'm going to go back to the zoo.
Okay.
And then once you're in zoom, go down here to share,
and then select your presentation.
Okay. And so this one.
No, no I hear that one. Okay.
All right.
And then hit share. All right. Go ahead and.
Record. It's okay okay.
Wait. It wasn't looking okay.
This is my way.
Okay.
With the schools, how it is now? It's, looking right now.
Yeah.
Hey, everyone. My name is Ryan Duncan.
Thority anymore for community.
I'm, And I'm,
About us.
Just a whole traditional in.
And, I've been the program manager for the office
about the records and identifications for about seven years now.
And in that time, we've been providing, certificate,
been employed and what we call the sibs marriage licenses and things like that.
And my presentation is more focused on what we do as a program.
Okay.
But I know that we've been pretty busy
in terms of what's been happening with Ice and things like that.
Okay.
And,
but I with these opportunities, we wanted to make sure
that people understand what our program does.
Okay.
And, and then we'll go into the context of what's happening
with Ice enforcement and things like that.
And, some back history when we've done presentations
like this before, and particularly with the human Rights Commission
and, in here in Albuquerque and also back, back at home.
But, in any case, it's always good to,
to present our information about what we do.
And I know, understand that you won't.
But people, the audience here won't be able to see the slides, but,
the information or the provisions that we follow,
guidelines that we,
it's that's that we that we do follow or under the navigation
code, titles nine and, titles one and title nine, title
one basically is about how do you set up the, set up the tribal government.
Title nine to title nine
is mainly geared toward marriage and things of that of that.
Of that nature.
We're a
public laws 93 638 program,
meaning that this used to be a Bureau of Indian Affairs
function and Navajo Nation back in 1982 said that we can do that functions.
We can enumerate and find out who our tribal members are.
We do the enrollment.
We'll take the federal moneys that used to do that.
They used to do the enrollment, and then the nation will do that.
So we've been doing that for more than 40 years now.
As a 638 contract.
Okay. And,
as is the case
for contracts, there is a scope of work, meaning that, okay, now a nation,
you can do these things, but here, here's how,
you're going to do how are you going to do it?
Some of the things that are important when you do the enrollment process.
Okay.
Going back to the code that can be found with title
one, section 701 talked about membership.
The first you can actually find this online as well.
But anyone,
all persons of Navajo blood who's appears on the rolls of the Navajo
Nation, maintained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, are eligible for enrollment
and any person who is at least one for the reading that will flood,
who has been previous enrolled, has been enrolled
as a member of Navajo Nation, is eligible for membership.
And that's where we get the blood quantum.
That's where we get blood quantum, as a measure of,
enrollment eligibility number three, talks about children
born to any enrolled member are or automatically members of have a nation.
That's more of a historical thing.
When the transition happened between, back in 1953
of the official rolls from them into Navajo Nation,
they didn't want to, redo the base roll back then.
So anybody who was born two enrolled members were
on the road at that time.
The, code for blue speaks about dual membership.
That's not allowed.
You have to be one either with one tribe, the Navajo Nation.
And that's it.
Okay.
And,
751 just speaks about the enrollment process.
Application still has to be notarized.
Should your membership be denied, your membership application be denied?
You do have an administrative process as an appellant.
To appeal your decision
to the enrollment screening Committee.
Now, I spoke about the scope of work.
And again,
since we are a 638 contract,
we compile the tribal membership enrollment information.
We're supposed to automated processes, provide over the counter
services, provide tribal identification cards, and merge licenses,
record changes to family status.
That's when you get married, divorce, and when someone passes.
We are maintaining the beehive census rolls from 1940.
Okay.
We add delete people, and provide enrollment information as needed.
Now, as far as the enrollment process, people
provide us an application, we review and we ask for documentation.
Okay.
We do ask for original documentation, including birth certificates and,
any other information that, that's pertinent for the enrollment.
And we have to maintain or we have to, ensure that
people are eligible, but quantum and,
make sure did not enroll someone else.
And,
and that's the, basically the gist of that section.
Now, in terms of the tribal part
or I, I'm sorry, the tribal identification cards.
Okay.
Now the nation just recently adopted a new, Roman
database called Travel Platforms.
And the idea with that
is that we're trying to be more efficient in how we do the enrollment process.
Normally when you come to our office, we get the paper application.
Okay.
And it's been like that forever.
Okay.
And we've had another database meantime.
But the thing is, is that
it's kind of limited in what it can do, and it's, you know,
actually to take full advantage of that program,
you really have to know a little bit about the coding, stuff like that,
in order to really come out with a robust report that would travel platforms,
it's, it's,
it's it's something that has a lot of potential.
Okay.
And again, we're trying to figure out
who's never home and who should be in on the roles.
And so in that sense, we're trying to modernize how we take in information
and retrieve information.
And so and this is something that we just started back in
August of last year, we went live with that.
And that has happened very well actually.
You know, other travel programs, particularly finance and personnel
that will be have their version of what they're doing with these software.
They're still trying to go live, but we've been doing this.
And so I guess it has happened very well.
Now, in terms of the,
Travel ID itself, we do have current
policies, procedures that if you do have a travel identification card,
you know that it only lasts for years and that decision was made some time ago.
Ideally everyone should have a travel identification card.
We we've had they were first introduced 12 years ago.
And the thing is, is that, it hasn't really happened
in cumulatively we've only done, maybe 8000.
Okay.
And there's 425,000 tribal members now.
Okay.
And looking at our stats, through travel classrooms,
we're averaging 150 travel identification cards a month.
Okay.
And we're also doing 1500.
The green cab, CRV is a month, so.
And, you know, 100, 150 or
150 travel IDs per month, is that kind of cut in?
So we have to be a bit more,
we have to take advantage of technology in order to roll this out.
We do want to like I said,
I want to stress that we do want to have people with their tribal IDs.
In our instance,
we, my staff, they're giving out pieces of paper every day.
Like I said, 1500 a month,
I could redirect them
and I give you a travel ID
and make it last ten, 12 years.
We don't need to see you for ten, 12 years unless you have a life changing.
Then married the borrower's something of that nature.
That recording of the, of your children, things like that.
You let us know so I can redirect their time instead of having them.
Okay?
Without three pieces of paper, we can do family updates.
And we do have a backlog,
a significant backlog of family updates that need to be done.
Sometimes people call and say, you know, I gave you my divorce paper about a year
or so, a year or so ago, but you still have my married name on my sib.
Well, we just haven't gone through it.
And because we are so busy doing the counter stuff,
here's your CRB that we just don't have time to do that.
So, and in that sense,
with this new travel platforms, with the software,
we want to take advantage of how people self-serve.
Okay.
And what I mean by that is that, we have customers
other than travel members of, like, the scholarship office and,
what happens is that, they
are also asking us for our,
to document who's a travel member or not
if they're eligible for a, a scholarship.
Okay.
We want to allow access to them.
If you want to know who's a tribal member here, look it up yourself.
Okay? And that really is my staff.
We're producing a green card for the folks who are requesting for a scholarship.
Same thing with, other travel programs, social services, things like that.
Just to make it easier, okay, for people to do that.
So that's the, intent of what we want to do.
But, in regard to Ice activities and things
like that, you know, I know there's been the question of
how do we verify travel membership when people are being detained?
You know, honestly, I think that discussion needs to happen
because, I, you know, I think one of the questions that someone
had asked, which travel office do we refer people to?
And I don't know if we have a definitive answer on that,
if it's going to be the Human Rights Commission, is that can be Operation
Rainbow Bridge.
It could be our records, President's office, office, I don't know.
And so we need to actually have that clarified.
And but in terms of our office, you know, we are
we do have that information of who who are tribal members or not.
Now, our challenge in talking about things that we need to do in
the future is that we need to build upon our enrollment database.
Okay?
A lot of our information on paper, okay.
And we need to get that information
into our enrollment database to make it more robust,
more functional, more efficient, so we can have information out quicker.
Okay.
The big challenge is the big challenge
with, 435,000 tribal members.
Okay.
And, but for the most part, you know, we have most people
in, but we still need to provide the finer details
when people have past people, when people get married, when kids report
things like that.
And we need to have that, into our database.
Okay.
Now this I know this question has come up.
About tribal identification cards.
When you apply for a tribal identification card, we tell you,
once you get one, you, you can no longer receive a green sib.
And that's the reason.
The reason why we're doing that is because if you take a look at our sib
right now, that's you can easily forge them and create counterfeits.
And that's where this whole effort to first began
with, and with tribal IDs, border patrol in the Tucson section,
let us know that there are people crossing with forged IDs.
Okay. And that's not that is an issue.
So having a tribal ID with your photo, with your pertinent information
that stops, right, at least makes a big dent of that.
So that's why we're trying to transition into the, the tribal notification cards.
With the new software.
Again, we just want to make sure that, we move forward.
And, you know, we're testing kiosks within our agency offices.
There's a long line of people that,
are there and asking requested for services.
We can have people self-serve and enter their information
so our staff doesn't have to do that.
So that's a little game that we're,
Yeah.
Try to, have people do in order to serve more people
with a little bit of funding that we do have,
eventually this will be the basis
for something, this is long term.
Having something done online that's that would be a true
my biggest goal is having our services online,
because it does tell me when people have to come in,
come in from Salt Lake City
to get, about a record services.
We have that potential, but we have to build our capacity
and the foundation with the appropriate, database to do that.
The other thing, it's something small.
One of them.
But anyway, relocated Department of health.
We do have a lot of information.
It'd be nice to have someone look at that information.
Information, connect the dots and things like that.
To some extent, people ask us to do that.
Which are best,
but we really should give it to someone with the health department,
because that's where the epidemiology office is located.
And that that's really, what I have right now.
And,
And I know for the sake of time, I just want to give you
just a basic information or basic
foundation of what our office is about, because I kind of division
there's a lot of, questions about, our offices. So.
And I'll go ahead and stand
for any questions.
Women back.
Who were talking to them?
I mean, there's, we're designated Native American.
Like, there one that I, I suppose we never had one.
I mean, it's Phoenix Unified where I need to have Asian.
I need versus the city that,
And I understand that the entities
and or government and yet,
we have to choose one or the other, but whatever
the globe, the employee and who's, you know,
I need to show a slide.
And so then all of that
data that that you need to be,
addressed as well.
All right.
As far as, in preference. Okay.
Actually, there's like a different form for it's called a B, a form 4432.
And and we also complete that on behalf of clients.
Okay.
So we've had instances where people have asked for, and a preference
and they submitted their kids either the green paper or even the travel ID,
but I
just via the storm system having the BIA form
provided to them, and we fill that out for them on their behalf.
So in that sense, you know,
there's another mechanism.
Okay.
And, but we still provide either possible or the tribal identification
cards for other purposes, but for photo planet preference,
they do the 44, 32.
Yeah.
Yes. It's, similar question, but I want us to know,
if we do get the
tribal identification card, does any paper
how many years, do we have to, like, expires?
And then is it an automatic review?
All or the definition is,
you know, our current situation
is that the tribal identification cards, they only last four years.
And again, that was.
Yeah, four years.
Okay.
And, originally, my understanding is that when they were first proposed,
it's just a little something for a long duration, but for whatever reason,
like I've cut down before now,
again, going back to the struggle for the new software.
First things first.
Get that in place and, kind of build on,
because I do want to have it last a lot longer.
Okay.
Because it's, again, it's an opportunity for us
to focus, refocus back to what we should be doing.
Okay.
And, and again, my opinion
myself, we're just doing busy work, giving up pieces of paper.
It's like, here, just take this.
We'll see you ten, 12 years, and we'll take your divorce
papers, your marriage license, the record of your child's birth.
Let's update your family records.
Because once,
and I'll tell you
this, I mean, we we're taking appointments for travel identification cards.
Okay.
And, the thing is, the
the people who tend to,
people, the the people who are making the most requests
for child identification cards live off reservation.
Unfortunately, because of discounts or whatever, you know,
those records haven't been updated.
Okay.
People who live in, I mean, because of relocation and that type of situation,
like people who live in Chicago, they don't provide or let our office know
that someone had passed or someone they had a child, things like that.
So if they wanted the trouble identification card, we asked that
what life changing events that, that have you had that we should know of?
So we update your records.
One part of our scope of work is that we maintain accurate records,
and that includes the family situation, the spelling of names, things like that.
And that's why we insist on doing that.
Partly because it is, part of our scope of work,
but also because we're all we're laying down the, the foundation of,
the work for people
who are going to be working in our office 20 years.
And now I say that because we go back and see the work that was done
20 years ago from that staff back then.
There's a lot of mistakes.
And so we're trying to capture this information when these days,
and I'm just conjecturing here that would need to be linear instead of doing.
But quantum.
That's going to take a lot of research.
And that's why
we ask all this information, because we're laying down that foundation,
because the people who are going to be working about our records,
20 years from now and should again, you go lineal,
they'll have the best information, because we're kind of hampered by,
some poor work done in the past, okay, that we inherited.
And then we have to fix and sometimes these situations
are such where we can't ask anyone anymore because people are gone.
So and so sure.
Are there any other questions?
Here in the room or online?
Looks like we do have one.
What do we have to do?
As other tribal enrollment departments from other Pueblo received copies
of Navajo Nation membership for blood quantum purposes.
I'm sorry. Can you repeat?
What do we have to do
as other tribal enrollment departments from the pueblos receive copies
of Navajo Nation memberships for blood quantum purposes.
So sounds like they're getting sent to the wrong office.
Maybe, it might be, it sounds like it's a case where the,
sometimes when someone's applying another tribe,
receive them applications for the membership into their tribe.
Sometimes they need to verify whether they are already to tasks
because they may have dual membership, restrictions as well,
or some type of verification within their health system
that they are a member, for either health care or scholarship.
But normally, if there is a no in another tribal,
enrollment office asking for information about
asking us to verify tribal membership with the Navajo Nation.
That's actually part of our scope of work.
That's.
And should a pueblo ask for that information, they,
faxes,
email us a letter, and we comply with that.
Okay.
So then from here, I guess the the best thing
if anybody's encountering this and they're receiving documents for Navajo
tribal members, they should reach out to, Navajo
Vital Records and and let them know that they're receiving these documents.
Or what would you suggest? Pamphlet?
Well, you know, if if they're if the concern is that,
they don't want to help us respond back to the problem, that's,
you know, that's one thing, but it's a legitimate reason
by the pueblo because of, you know, because they are providing health services
and, you know, we'll comply with them.
Let's see, we had one question in kind of an earlier,
but I think it was when Neil, ACLU was still here.
I'll read it out loud, but I think what I'll also say is to reference in,
but the question was, can you talk about the similarities
and differences between how police, tribal police, operate and how it operates?
I'm thinking specifically about what I heard that I saw
that are more likely to come from out of our communities, out of New Mexico,
and so they do not know or have a relationship with the locals
or the understanding of native communities.
And for that, maybe said Mark has their presentation where the outlines,
specifically all of the different law enforcement's said their jurisdiction.
So they go into that in more detail.
And I would refer to them because they have the best resources on that.
So I did put that in the chat, up above some of the comments
before we took a break.
So that video is available on YouTube and it's accessible at any time.
I believe it's around the 30 minute to 45 minute mark.
They start to cover that.
But that would be my best reference for that because,
they do talk about the
relationship that they have with DHS as well as,
what that looks like for, for tribal communities.
Anything to add that,
I was going to provide some closing remarks after you're done.
Okay. No, no, I just,
I said to police
how they interact differently.
But like I said, I refer to them
in our presentation because they cover that more in depth.
Yeah.
As far as I know, the the tribes are working
to develop protocols now.
I know, and they're probably looking towards APD
and how APD is not,
they're assisting, but they're not,
you know, when they do come in contact, they're not recording
tribal information, tribal information or individual information
so that we, you know, we want to have that information.
Should I ask for that? Okay.
You well, thank you, everyone, for being patient
with us online and for staying present for those that are here also in person.
I appreciate your attendance in this day.
It's been quite long.
They know a four hour or 3 or 4 hour session can be hard to sit through, but.
I'd say I'm not really done.
All right. I do want to make a distinction now.
Okay.
Because,
I'm talking about tribal identification cards as we are doing it right now.
One thing I haven't talked about,
though, is the enhanced trouble identification card.
Okay?
And the difference is that, you know, the tribal identification cards,
there are essentially passport cards at all.
And that's actually within our scope or two terms that if you have it
in the hands of tribal identification card, you can use it
for passage into Canada at an, Mexico,
we can use it as like a true passport to Europe and other places like that.
But, that's one thing we don't have yet.
Okay.
We are in discussion of how that would work.
And we had actually talking to,
a tribe that does that already on behalf of other tribes.
But, first things first, we do need to,
get together, make sure the information
that we collect within our enrollment database is accurate, okay?
Because that's going to be the basis of how we can do some Indian,
enhanced tribal identification card.
Okay.
If anything, you know, everyone, please update the records.
Okay. We do need assistance.
And what we do, we,
we just got our funding today.
I just looking at emails today, and we finally got our funding today for FY 2026.
And we are we are February 25th.
We've been waiting for this and people have been asking us to do more
presentations out there, but, you know, and, we're kind of strapped for funding.
We got $1 million today, which is great.
We do need it because we need to start planning for this this year.
But we also got $1 million back in 2003.
And so,
you know, it's not adjusted for inflation, but we're trying to do more with us.
And of course, that's how it is with a lot of tribal programs
to help the country.
But we're a very good example that people are asking us to do
things here in Albuquerque.
But it's like we just got our we finally got in our
tribal budget today, you know, and we're supposed to cover
not only not only Navajo Nation, but also request for off reservation.
You know, if anything, you know, we do need that,
resource to funding higher stuff.
I contacted Cherokee a few weeks ago.
Their memberships about 460,000, and they've got almost 50 staff.
I've got
we've got 485,000 tribal members, and I've only got 23 staff
and, you know, and we're trying our best with what we have.
So give her that.
Thank you. Good.
Now there we go.
Okay. Perfect.
And I don't want to.
Everyone is shifted to anything. But yes. Go ahead.
You guys. I'm.
I wanted to tell you to give the closing remarks.
Don't forget to turn the mic on.
Thank you. Randy.
Wonderful job today.
Shout out to we have our,
Office of Equity inclusion, deputy director.
Night, doctor.
Hannah Cooper's in the audience today.
Also,
dignitaries or tribal leaders to send us so you can do round of applause
later
on. Words.
Vice president out of. We.
Thank you for being excellent.
I think
by now you should know the underlying theme
here today is human rights.
And that's something we all have.
It's something that we sort of support and fight for in our lives.
Especially today.
We're seeing allowing our country.
And so it is more important now than ever that
we really stand up for our human rights and for that, I also like to read
from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
article three.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article five no one shall be subject subject to torture
or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
I article six.
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Article nine
no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrests,
arrests, detention or exile.
In article one, all human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights.
There are endowed with reason
and conscience should be, to act towards one another.
And in the spirit of brotherhood.
And finally, from the UN declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, article one.
Indigenous peoples have the rights to full enjoyment as a collective
or as individuals of all human
rights and fundamental freedoms, as recognized in the charter
of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
an international right, international human rights law.
So I think,
again, you know, let's work together.
You know, we we saw here today, a gathering
and and combining of thoughts and ideas and groups.
We've had wonderful presentations today of information.
I recommend you, when we have everything ready on our website,
go check out our city's Office of Native American Affairs
website on our daily rights page, we'll have a lunch information
posted on the that our recording also will also be recording of this event.
So I share that share with everybody.
I think it's information everybody should hear.
I think together as a collective,
it's unfortunate we have to be in this position, but,
you know, we can stand together and support each other,
supports a brother or sister or, you know, your neighbors
and everybody together we can help support and we won't run into issues.
Who will run into trouble and stand strong is who
we are as native, indigenous peoples also, and native and and Americans
in this country too, and and human beings in this world.
We need to stand strong and so that's why I want to close with
like to thank the Nomination Rights Commission for being here.
Also in our presentation present to presenters from ACLU.
Thank you.