WEBVTT

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>> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

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My name is Kevin W. Oakes.

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I am the Chief of the Rio Grande Valley Sector

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and I'm here today to proudly introduce

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the Commissioner of the United States Customs and Border Protection, Gil Kerlikowske.

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Commissioner.

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>> Good. Thank you, Kevin.

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>> Thank you, sir.

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>> Thanks very much.

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Well, I've got to do my best not to let all my notes blow off and into the river.

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But one, thank you very much for being here, particularly the fact that we need your help.

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We need the help of the media on this campaign.

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You know, today we chose this location

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because we want to highlight the dangers of trying to get across,

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not only this river,

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but as you can see from some of our other posters, getting across the desert.

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The number of lives that have been lost has been significant.

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From October through June of this year, in fact this river has claimed 34 lives.

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And those deaths are in addition to the lives that have been lost in the desert,

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in vehicle crashes and in ways that we couldn't actually determine.

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And so far this fiscal year we've had 226 deaths.

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Well, I'm here today because we want to stop those deaths.

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We want to warn people of the dangers and frankly, we can't do this without your help.

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And we want to tell them that if you cross the border illegally,

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no matter what your age is, you're not going to get legal papers.

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There is no "permiso". There is no permission to stay.

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The dramatic rise that we have seen in the number of unaccompanied immigrant children

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is something that you all very familiar with already.

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And they are arriving at our Southwest borders in unprecedented numbers

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and it truly is a humanitarian crisis.

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And three quarters of these children are from Central America

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and they arrive hungry and they're thirsty and they're exhausted and they're scared.

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The Department of Homeland Security has mobilized unprecedented resources

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to address this situation that's consistent with our laws

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and it's consistent with our values as Americans.

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CBP has worked closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

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We have several FEMA representatives here,

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but we also have representatives of FEMA Corps,

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young people, either in college or recently having graduated from college

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that are all down here from all parts of the country to be a help to us.

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So FEMA's coordinating the efforts of the overall emergency response.

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Others include the White House, the Department of Homeland Security

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and Secretary Johnson has made a number of trips to this area.

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The Department of Defense, the Department of Justice,

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the Department of State and the Department of Health and Human Services.

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And together we're processing the unaccompanied children

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and the families through this system as quickly as we can.

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We've located additional facilities to house and process the children,

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places like Lackland Air Force Base and Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

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This has placed a lot of stress on the employees of CBP.

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Secretary Johnson this week announced the immediate deployment

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of 150 additional border patrol agents to the Rio Grande Valley

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and the added personnel are going to be used

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to not only disrupting transnational criminal organizations,

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but also to help in the processing and the detention efforts.

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This is how, by the way,

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on top of the 115 additional border patrol agents that had been deployed earlier.

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Well, I've seen these employees and this is my third trip down here, just to McAllen.

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But I visited a number of other stations along the RGV.

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I've seen them respond to these difficulties with professionalism, but also with compassion.

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And they've made heroic efforts to help these kids.

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They've rescued kids, they care for them

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and they are committed to taking care of them

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in a way that's most humane and a way that's most compassionate.

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Frankly, it's a way that comes from their heart.

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I couldn't be more proud of the work of the men and women of Customs and Border Protection.

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And right now the Border Patrol, as to how they have risen to the challenge.

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Our Air and Marine Unit, which is represented here, has done an outstanding job also.

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So really, this is a whole of DHS approach, as we'd say inside the Beltway.

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And it's really a whole of government approach.

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But we have to stem the flow.

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We have to stem the flow.

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In addition to dealing with the immediate situation of our border,

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we have to stop the illegal migration that is causing so many difficulties,

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placing so many people in dangerous positions.

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The State Department and the White House are working with senior government officials

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in the countries in which most of these young people are coming from.

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And you know them well: Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

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And they hope to address the conditions in Central America,

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which are spurring the action of many of these young people to flee:

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poverty, education and safety and security.

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And in addition, the Department of Justice has truly stepped up to the plate on this.

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They've committed to having more immigration judges

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help in expediting the immigration hearings.

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Well, the message is very clear from the Administration

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and the message could not have been made more clear by the President the other day.

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If you cross illegally into the United States,

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you're not eligible to earn a path to citizenship.

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You will not be eligible under the Comprehensive Immigration Legislation

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that is currently before the Congress.

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You're not eligible for a deferred action for childhood arrivals

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or as we know it, as it's called "DACA".

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You will not get papers to allow you stay

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and you are putting yourself and your children in grave danger.

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What are those dangers?

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Well, let me tell you a little bit about those.

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And that's the reason that we've asked you to help with this campaign.

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And we're introducing further steps, now today, in communicating to the children

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but also to their families who are considering making this very dangerous journey.

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And the message is clear.

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First of all, these children are our future.

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Children are the future of these countries

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that we've been talking about and they have to be protected.

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That's something that is absolutely universal.

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They've developed, CBP has developed a multimedia public awareness campaign

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regarding the dangers of the journey to the United States.

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And the fact that no legal papers or path to citizenship

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awaits anyone who has crossed illegally.

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The dangers of course are real, too, because of the desolate areas.

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As we've seen unprecedented numbers of Border Patrol agents,

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technology and assistance along our entire Southwest border,

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we've also seen that people attempt to enter the country

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through more desolate and frankly, more dangerous areas.

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But they're also subject to the transnational organized criminals: smugglers.

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Oftentimes the smugglers are juveniles,

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are young people themselves because they feel they won't be prosecuted as aggressively.

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In fact, right now nothing could father from the truth.

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As you know from Secretary Johnson and the President,

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in announcing additional resources to interact and to interdict with these smuggling organizations.

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But the people that are most impacted by these smuggling groups

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of course are the migrants themselves.

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They often held for what they thought would have been

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the amount of money that they were paying to come across into the country, and then they're held.

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They're held illegally, they're held essentially as kidnap victims for more money,

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either from themselves or from their family members.

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Now let me tell you a startling statistic also.

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More female migrants are being raped during this journey to the United States border.

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So far in this fiscal year, 2014, 46 girls and women

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who have arrived in this sector reported being raped while traveling to the border.

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That is a greater number than all of last year.

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And that's just in the Southwest section of the border.

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Now, I happen to know from having been a police chief and a police officer for 40 years,

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that sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes.

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So you can only imagine if we've had 46

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people report these awful crimes to our Border Patrol agents,

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how many more crimes were not reported.

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But I also have to tell you that I couldn't again be more proud of the Border Patrol

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and the fact that in many ways they've gained trust from these communities

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and these people that they serve.

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Otherwise I'm not so sure that 46 women and girls

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would have been eager or would have been going forward to in fact

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report these crimes of such a nature to the Border Patrol.

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But they look to these Border Patrol agents for help.

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When they want to avoid checkpoints,

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young people oftentimes get on what we all is "the Beast", "la Bestia".

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The train.

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And we know from the statistics the number of young people that have been hurt or injured

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or in fact even killed from taking that dangerous route forward.

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When these children arrive they're not only malnourished as I said,

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they're also oftentimes have a disease,

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have something that needs to be treated by a physician.

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The Centers for Disease Control, the public health service

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that is represented and the Coast Guard Corpsmen

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that are all here are tremendously helpful in helping us to deal with this disease issue.

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Well, this campaign message is important.

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It is truly multimedia.

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And it's really three parts: the journey's dangerous.

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Children will not get legal papers if they make it.

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And these children need to be protected because they are our future.

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The campaign has print materials.

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It includes billboards, posters, signage.

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There we paid advertising in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico.

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And all materials are going to be shared with stakeholder partners for distribution.

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The print ad campaigns begin on July 7th.

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233 billboards, bus signage, bus shelters,

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road overhead signage in Central America and additional print signage in Mexico.

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Well, we know from these messages things like,

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I thought it would be easy for my son to get his papers in the United States.

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But it isn't true.

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It's a very clear, simple and direct message.

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And the work that was done to put these messages together took some time.

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We needed the cooperation of those other countries.

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We needed the cooperation and help from the State Department.

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We needed to make sure that these messages are appropriate,

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that they're effective and that they've been tested.

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And we have Hyme Ruiz, who is over here.

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We should invite you up here.

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Hyme Ruiz works for CBP.

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He is well-known for working with communities,

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the Hispanic community to really get this message across.

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He'll be available, of course, for interviews and for further discussion.

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He was absolutely instrumental in helping put together this entire program

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and now the important part of this is,

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that after he finishes interviewing and talking with you,

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we put him on a plane all over the country to go talk to Spanish media outlets.

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But where are they?

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Well, New York and Connecticut and others.

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Because we want this same message about the dangers of the journey

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to also resonate with people living here in this country,

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who often communicate with relatives in those,

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predominantly in those three Central American countries.

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You know, each piece was professionally developed.

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It's unique and special to the three countries that I mentioned.

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And at the same time that we're reaching out to other stakeholders,

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we want to encourage as many people to spread the message as possible.

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I don't think there's been any greater partner in some of these issues

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than the Spanish language media.

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They feel compelled and they feel a responsibility to make sure that

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the people that view and listen to their messages

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also will hear the messages about danger and hear the message that,

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and the fact that there is no legal pathway to citizenship.

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And we'll be asking them after September,

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which is when this paid media program runs through,

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we'll be asking them to continue on.

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But we want to see this work and we want to see it in force.

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But frankly, we can't do it without your help and your cooperation.

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These are hard-hitting messages.

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They're clear and we have, as I said, the domestic outreach within the United States

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where Hyme will lead this effort but also travel internationally to help us.

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Well, I think I've said enough about this program and I'm also happy to take a few questions.

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Thank you all very much for being here.