Hi everyone, welcome. We're just letting folks log in. We'll get started in a moment.
Thank you Sure. Hey folks, we're
just letting people log in and we'll get started in just a moment Hi, Christine,
I saw a message to keep our photo off and looks were invited to show it or something like that.
Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Kristen. Are there certain settings from the city account?
Anyway? So sure, so
yeah, it might have been just when people are admitted it's automatically
so there you go.
Please feel free to share your phases
nice background Marshall.
Let me use it once.
Think Christine, you are you and I are co hosts. So you have the controls, right? Yes, that
so the main host and it doesn't look like we have chat enabled. Unfortunately. Christian if there's a way to do that on your end.
If I'm at the host right now I'm wondering is that
you would know how to do that. It's not showing
up in the options here. So I feel like it's a setting within the city's account.
So
for folks who had the calendar invite, you might want to navigate to your calendar invite or your email reminder and find the agenda that way because unfortunately, I can't paste it in the chat.
And I'm looking for
a volunteer to take notes today. Shawn, our trusty note taker is not here. He couldn't make it today so. Would anyone like to volunteer to take notes on the agenda?
One of our lovely taskforce members Karen I can
take notes but not in a Google document just because of the state system. So if you I mean, if someone wants to do in the Google Doc, I'm sure they'd be more helpful for you. If not, I can take it in a Word doc and just email it to you.
Just let me know. Okay, thank you Karen. For that, um, we're that's a pretty good offer, but I'm just gonna double check and see can anyone do it in the Google doc just to remove that step of having to merge those two
and that way people can see it while it's happening. Okay, I
guess not a lot of folks unable to do that today. So Karen, I would love that that it would still be greatly appreciated. I thank you.
Thank you again. All right.
Well,
we will. We will work by using the agenda today and I'm less, Kristen sees a way to add the chat feature back. We'll try to share links via the agenda. So I see a couple folks on the agenda now. So if you're not sure where to find it, you can go to the calendar invite and it should be attached there. Or you should have gotten an email reminder and it would be attached in that so hopefully folks can migrate over there and see first up, we're gonna do brief introductions. So if folks would be willing to say your name your organization, if you represent one, and quickly just one thing you're looking forward to over the upcoming holidays, so I can kick us off I'm Christine Solvay. I lead community engagement and communications at Merck, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. And I'm also one of the co chairs for the task force, and I am looking forward to getting my Christmas tree. I love Christmas and I'm very excited. So I will pass it over to Roland.
Thank you, Christine. Yeah, rolling along with American citizens for justice. And I guess what am I looking forward to? I guess, a lead up and zoom. meetings. So it's some turkey. So I'll turn it over to Hi.
Thanks, Roland. I go Chuck. I'm a professor at Wayne State Director of new Michigan media which is the collaboration of minority media in the region. Koecher with Christina and Gabby on over the task force, and I'm with Roland for hoping for fewer emails over Christmas. And I'll pass it over to Gary. I guess Kristen
My name is Kristen. I am here on behalf of Gabby. So I am the council numbers Santiago mayor's Chief of Staff. My pronouns are she they and I'm most looking forward to and counting down the days until Thanksgiving because that also means the beginning of recess for counsel and looking for some much needed rest. I'll pass it on to
Katie. Okay,
Hi, I'm Katie McCaffrey. I work for International Institute of Metropolitan Detroit and I think that I am most looking forward to just being able to be in one place for an entire day and not running my kids around a school and pickups and drop offs, activities for a few days.
And we'll pass it over to us actually. Kevin Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yeah.
Kevin Forbes, African Caribbean Chamber of Commerce. I guess what I'm looking forward to is some r&r It's been pretty busy the last couple of months. And I will pass it over to Karen.
Kevin hi all Karen Philippi director numerical integration for the Office of Global Michigan at the state. I am like Christina Lowe, one of my tree up but I'm looking forward to one time with family into getting my Christmas decorations up.
And I'll pass it to Emma.
Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I am looking forward to potentially adopting a cat over the Christmas break. My partner and I will both have time off so we're thinking well, we'll get a little pal for the cat we already have since she could use some company.
I'll pass it to Ruby.
Great Ruby. Robinson, managing attorney with the Michigan and we're gonna write center and I'm looking forward to starting to put some fires in my fireplace and wearing my snow boots. I love my snow boots are very comfortable and warm. So I will pass it off to Ted.
Oh everyone, Ted Jones, Detroit Public Schools community district. I'm looking forward to two things Thanksgiving. My sister's coming into town from DC so looking forward to that and for Christmas. We're going as a family down to New Orleans for a destination Christmas. So that should be fine. And I will pass it over to Deanna
everyone. My name is Jana and I work at USTR. I am the legal assistant here. And I'm looking forward to just relaxing over the Christmas holiday I'm sorry, I will pass it on to Brenda. Is that how you say Brenda?
I'm not a part of the task force. I'm just
in the car.
Oh, sorry. Wait for that. Can you say who? Who you are or who you're with or are you a resident or just say a little bit about yourself?
Yeah, I'm a resident. I'm taking notes for documentaries today. So yeah.
And maybe tell the group what documentaries are because I don't think everyone's familiar with it.
So documentaries is basically like a local. Make this like localized journalism. So you have people at a community go to local meetings. And stuff and they take notes that the means and then they push it out on the internet for other residents to see is kind of like a more like normal person and normal person way of getting the news and then they also kind of like try to give it to different news outlets so they can push it out as well. So yeah,
thank you. Thanks for that.
Let's see and who hasn't gone yet?
Yeah, let's pass it on to Polly Polly. You're You're mute. You're on mute. There we go.
Thank you. Yes, I'm here as a resident of Detroit. I'm active in our neighborhood block Association. We're really active around food justice and keeping Detroiters in their homes and all these home repair issues. But we also have been receiving refugees and immigrants into the into the neighborhood. And so I wanted to see what the task force is doing around African refugees. I have a long history in immigration issues. I used to be a professor in the UCs and California teaching on immigration. I ran a research center where we focused on immigration in Latin America and also integration into the United States. And so I'm looking forward to getting back into these issues here in Detroit.
How do you say your first name Polly Paula, Paula, okay.
Yeah, boiler crews.
Doesn't Marshall maybe.
Yeah, Marshall, county aid society still working there as a Certifying Acceptance. Agent for items and glad to see Bala on the call. Yeah, basically I'm already doing a lot of r&r Since I'm mostly retired, but I'm enjoying looking forward to normal what I consider more normal holidays back to luncheons and few parties and things like that. I'm going to turn this over to the any if
you can hear us if you want to introduce yourself.
And maybe it looks like she's coming
maybe on deck. I can say Sammy, you can go next after
this a semi Laude, refugee and immigrants navigator for some Michigan words. And I'm glad to see some of the faces for the second time today, which is very nice. And looking forward for a few a nice holiday for a gathering on Thanksgiving Day. Which had been missing for the last two days, two years. I don't know who is still like did not call out yet. Because Christine,
okay, I'm trying to go back to me looks like maybe she's, oh, she can't hear us. Okay, so well. Can't do her Omar. And then, Matt. Hello, everyone.
My name is Omar. I'm the refugee resettlement director at Catholic Charities of Southeast Michigan. And like everyone here I'm excited. For a long awaited rest. Thanks.
My turn now?
Yeah, go ahead.
Hi, my name is Matt within the annuity. I'm representing the Islamic Center of Detroit. I'm so anxious to hear an update from you about the task force because we deal a lot with refugees, especially the one who came recently from Afghanistan. Thank you. Great,
thank you. Um, let's see, uh, Maria, Ashley and then um, let me know if you haven't gotten yet so Maria and then
Ashley. Maria, if you can hear us okay,
well, it looks like we've just lost Maria. So Ashley and then amny. If you can, if you're able to. No, Anthony says no. Okay. Hi, everybody.
My name is Ashley Williams. I am also with a documenters. My half of it is covering this meeting, Twitter. So I'll be live tweeting the meeting, as the meeting goes along. And I'm looking forward to giving gifts that is for the
year.
Great. Love it. Okay, um, who hasn't gotten
it? So it's honor.
Did you go is I'm wondering if that's a note taking app for the documentaries folks that yours
is the trek to otter that AI part of the documentary?
I'm aware of.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure who that is or what that is. That's often
a note taking app. So does anyone know who that Detroit otter notetaking belongs to.
So if he had just entered so
Sophia, you're just in time to introduce yourself and we're just saying one thing we're looking forward to over the
holidays. Okay, so I
am Sofia Chu with the Caribbean Community Service Center. And I'm looking forward to getting on a plane next week to go to my beautiful country of Jamaica.
Nice and well. I'll be jealous. That's okay.
I won't post anything.
And I can say Amy is with access since she's unable to unmute herself, so I will share that for her. Okay, I think we have everyone except the fireflies, which I believe is a note taking app from a visa and Detroit otter which is another note taking app that looks like it belongs to someone but we don't know who so I'm not sure who that is. Well, thanks everyone for making time to join us in this meeting before the holiday break. I'm gonna turn it over to Kristen for an update from the council members office.
I don't know if people are aware or have been following on city council meetings as of lately. But as of a couple of months ago, the language access funding that we allocated money towards to get our at least our charter mandated meetings more accessible to people. Oh, sorry. Once again.
The
the formal sessions for city council now have ASL interpreters and Spanish speakers for every single formal session now, still working on Arabic in Bangla and hopefully, we could expand for this next budget cycle to allocate even more money so that it could be just the default for every public meeting. So working on that slowly but surely, but a good step in the right
direction great, was that it?
Yes, I believe so. I know that you have a lot of information to share. So I'm gonna if I have anything else to add. I'll do so at the Yep.
Okay. Wonderful. Okay. Thanks for that. So we just have a quick update on Detroit ad so all of you know you know, we brought this to attention. We started meeting with the with the city's health department last January. Things came to light in May that were quite concerning to us. And we you know, tried to work with the administration to correct things. Unfortunately. Our please pleased we're not heard in due time, and we did have to take some advocacy steps.
Because we have no takers. We've never been here before the document has maybe you might say what the problem was,
oh, they they were here at the last meeting. They were okay. Yeah, so that I know it was recorded at the previous ones but I can stay if you if folks want me to go further into detail. In May, it was brought to light that the city had planned to use a vendor who uses databases that are shared or accessible by ICE, which would put immigrant residents who use a Detroit ID at greater risk for immigration enforcement. So obviously that was a huge concern for our communities. We discussed this as a task force and asked the administration to discontinue use to not put anyone else to pause the program basically, so that no one else would be put in harm's way while the issue was researched and rectified. It took unfortunately a month to get that action. Actually two months by the time it was paused in July, and so it was eventually paused at the end of July. After we had put together a sign on letter and held a public press conference. The administration agreed to pause the program discontinue the contract with that vendor that was concerning and sort of regroup. We wanted to meet with the administration immediately to continue where we had left off previously when we had all worked together to plan the first launch of the Detroit ad so working as a task force with constituents not just even from the immigration Taskforce, but from other communities we had collaborated quite closely to plan the initial launch of the Detroit ad and wanted to replicate that process for the relaunch. Unfortunately, we did not get a positive response in asking for that meeting, or asking for additional updates on follow up. We have shared detailed information about how the city can purchase equipment to print the IDs in house including vendors and costs and showing that it's actually much more economical and would cost less than the vendor they had a contract with. The city said that they wanted to do some additional research and participate in some training training offered on personal identity information. We have not received an update on whether that training has taken place. But we did finally receive word that we would be able to meet with staff from the law department in the health department to talk about next steps for the Detroit ID in the first week of December. So we don't have more details at this time for the group. But we hope to update everyone after that meeting. So we are still asking for the city to do the printing in house and as a as an offering to the community members who may be concerned about immigration enforcement after what happened. We had offered to provide trainings from the Michigan trainers from the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center to talk about how to prepare your family for potential immigration enforcement just as we would in you know we do that year round for communities for lots of cases but wanted to kind of do a refresh for the community after what had happened. And so there's two Know Your Rights presentations coming up one with access ICD some QA that will be happening at ICD and we will be getting those fliers out very shortly. They're almost finalized if not quite finalized, so they're very close to being able to be shared. And the other one will be with a visa and both of these are happening in December. So we will be sharing those by email.
Let me just Just a quick note here that this this has been between Christine myself, Gabby and Kristen, the council members office and it's not been an easy conversation with the city. It's been every step of the way has been difficult. Every step of the way. We've met with blokes are ignoring us and essentially not replying not not talking, not responding to our requests. It has not been you know, we've had to fight for everything on this thing. And it's moved forward slowly because the city has moved very slowly, both in in doing things along fixing the problem as well as getting in touch with us to sort of collaborate or talk through it and as we have offered multiple times. It's not been one of the high points of in my interview of the city's general immigration policy and position. But you know, with a strong group, it represents a lot of people we have not backed down we have pushed hard and these meetings that Christine mentioned that are coming up have been I can say despite, you know, the city's reluctance generally to meet and discuss this issue.
So we're we're hoping it will still be fruitful and we hope to update you all soon. So stay tuned for further updates on Detroit ID. Another topic of concern has been the possibility that there may be additional asylum seekers coming to the city. So we know that there's folks seeking asylum present in the city all the time and there's always more coming but what we're talking about is what might be in more significant numbers and specifically, folks who might be sent from either governor's at the southern borders or from nonprofits at the borders or even in some conversations that were swirling around. Some of the transports might even be facilitated by ice. All of this is completely hypothetical and there's no confirmed information about anyone coming in the near future, but we just wanted to let folks know that the city has been working on contingency plan and when Roberto joins us. He's going to be a little bit late. He can update us on details. If folks have questions and if anyone gets any inquiries or comes across any more credible information, just ask that please share it with us and we can all work together to meet the need if if and when it comes. So that's all the information we have on that so nothing is imminent, but just wanted to put the word out to folks. Just so we can stay in communication on that.
Christina was able to unmute rates. I was having problems with this phone. I don't have my laptop with me. So hi, everybody. I'm Emmy talent from access, and I'm sorry about that. And I was a few minutes late. So now I can hear you and I can speak Go ahead.
Wonderful. Thank you. Okay, I'm moving to our next topic then. So if folks are following along on the agenda, you can see the logo samples that are in question here, the Detroit immigration task force had, has not had an actual logo and we had put together something that might be temporary, but at least it is something that we can use on letterhead and things like that. And actually, let me see if I can share the screen at least to show you so we had shown a couple samples last out Nope, can't do
it. Maybe I can share it. Maybe Hold on. Yeah, I can share it. I'm gonna share it.
Okay, great. Which one is it? So there's two Yeah, hold on. Let me
and so in our last discussion, we had shared a couple of mock ups and then we kind of went back and these are two additional ones. Are our co chairs discussed and we strongly think we should include the words city council, Detroit City Council or city of Detroit. And you can see on the agenda the sample from the Detroit City Council green task force, so it says it's mostly writing
Yeah, can you see now?
Yes, great.
So yeah, okay, so which so there's two I mean, I'll show I can you tell me when when you want me to click on them crystal.
Okay. So first folks can see the green taskforce example above the words green it says Detroit City Council. So that's another city council Task Force for comparison to see. And then Hi, if you want to click the first one and open it up. Folks can see that it says Detroit City Council immigration task force. So Detroit City Council small above immigration Task Force, just very similar to the green Task Force option. And then the other one as high navigates to it would say city of Detroit and just as point of reference, if folks are curious, you know, which one, you know were these, which is better or which one we might want to use or when or why. Just for reference, our resolution authorizing the tax the immigration Task Force it's titled City of Detroit's immigration taskforce and then throughout it reference it says it as the immigration Task Force. And I think we could go either way. So it's kind of up to the group. If you think it's a stronger affiliation to have it, say Detroit City Council's since it's emanating from that body, so it's not confused with an administrative and administration task force from the administration side. Or if you prefer city of Detroit because it's, you know, serving the whole city more broadly. So those are the options on the table and we'd love to hear feedback.
Steam, do you anticipate that the mayor's office would have a administration side task force would there be an anticipated competition for the name?
They may not use the exact name immigration Task Force, but they have they do have other administration task forces that may or may not come up in future years even sooner? So for example, like, like a refugee resettlement task force could be an option that they might do. So I don't think they would choose the exact same words immigration Task Force, but it's possible.
I think to be safe, then it'd be better to just say city council so that you don't have to do a naming maneuver, just in case the mayor's office decides to do something like that.
We were leaning in that direction. as well. I mean, our own conversations that Detroit it's officially it is the Detroit City Council's Task Force as well. I mean, that it's the truth about it. I mean, so
yeah, but then you'd never have to make an adjustment if there happens to be
Yeah. I like City Council. That's how we started a number of years ago and there's still supporting us, like Council.
And just to be clear, that is still where like, the authority for our entity comes from. It's from the city
council. Yep, Paulo.
I'm just wondering if a city of Detroit that option might seem more inclusive to folks who don't necessarily deal with city, the city ministration or city council. Understanding of course, one could historically say in any history about it, you know, that it emanated from city council, but I wondered if it might feel more inclusive to residents of of Detroit. You know, if it says city of Detroit, as opposed to council, just a thought.
Yeah, I mean, this is kind of what Roland was bringing up to there is a city of Detroit, you know, Office of Immigrant Affairs, for example, and that's how that's how they frame it city of Detroit. Office of Immigrant Affairs. And so this is not technically wouldn't be city of Detroit. idea of this. So you know, as the only you know, the the it wouldn't be technically true there is the city of Detroit but it is technically true that it's the city council's so we could play with it. I mean, we could do it that way. But there's there's that that's the only thing.
We did both markups just based on some feedback last time, but I think the co chairs to be honest, I think we were leaning towards city council.
So I guess unless there's strong response
in favor of not doing it that way. That was kind of the direction we were leaning.
But are you entertaining? I mean, are you entertaining a motion and then we can move on to the rest of business?
Yeah, yes. We make a motion that we adopt the name that has Detroit City Council, immigration Task Force.
Thanks rollin Yes, we haven't been a Robert's Rules. entity. You folks remember the days when Raquel was here? That we never we never fully instituted that. So. Thank you for the motion rolling just if anyone would like to second it or if anyone would like to oppose it. I think I am seeing a thumbs up from Sophia.
From Katie,
is that a question? Are you in favor? She's a thumbs up. Okay, great. Okay, so I'm getting the impression that folks are generally in favor. I'm seeing a thumbs up from Ruby. Thumbs up from Marshall. Okay, and from Roland again. Okay,
so oh
what about the swirling colors? Everyone's kind of okay with that we set a you know, we put something there just to have something there. You know, that anyone or maybe we should, I don't know, we could leave that off and have heaven officials or designer come up with something or if it's acceptable to everyone.
The swirls.
Now, yeah, that was a temporary design we came up with that would be vibrant, inclusive, sort of like people coming together but it was not something new and fancy from a graphic designer.
Why don't we put together like a final set, Christina send it to everyone and they can read they can email us back with any suggestions on
what was wrong. What's wrong with the city of Detroit Spirit of Detroit logo that would sort of be consistent with the city's branding.
The only anything wrong with it?
Well, I do recall under Raquel tenure that there was it wasn't clear as the taskforce if we could always use the spirit logo. So Kristin, I don't know if you're if your office has received any other guidance on that, but because it's also like this, the whole city's logo that they use on everything, so I don't know if that needs authorization.
Right. I think that there is as far as branding, what the city of Detroit administration can brand their stuff as a man, city council. Wish there was a universal logo for it'll add permission, but I don't know about that. I could check. But I think probably on the safer side and maybe not use it. And that goes also with using city of Detroit versus Detroit City Council. There is a distinction between the checks and balances as far as that goes to. So yes, that's the only two sets that I can add to that, but I could definitely look into the Spirit of Detroit, if you'd like.
I think you went mute Christine. Let me realize
you're not muted, but you will not hear.
Can you hear me? Can folks hear me? Okay,
we can hear you.
Um, okay, so I do recall there were some instances in the past where there was some hesitancy or some limitations around that. So I think that's why we didn't do it previously when we made IETF materials. Okay, I think there was general support for going with city council. For now we can use the dots and unless we get a volunteer graphic designer who can update that but for now, at least that gives us a placeholder.
Look into the spirit idea. You know, I think it does, if we can use it, we should have, we should be able to think about it, consider.
So. All right,
then. Hi, I'll turn it over to you for talking about 2023 priorities. Yeah.
Oh, thanks, Christy. So, you know, this, you know, what should we have as our subcommittees are the things that we focus on as a group in 2023, the committees that we have essentially are a way of focusing our work and currently we have communications and events which is not working out external relations, which which is working Detroit, our city, which is working and ice and CPB meetings which are also functioning but so in thinking through but how we wanted to approach what we do in 2023, we thought we should maybe take a step back on this and instead of trying to come up with committees, that sort of either historically the kinds of things that we do or maybe sort of in sort of theoretically are things that we should be working on. We thought maybe we should ask everyone here. What are your organization's priorities for next year, and then see what commonalities there are among your priorities, and then maybe put together committees that address the kinds of things that everyone's working on. That way we would have committees that people would join, because that's what they're also addressing at work. So the committee's would be functioning and efficient. But also the committees will be we'd be actually helping the work of the various groups here, across 2023. It's a way of really taking advantage of all of us here, and and leveraging our abilities to help the things that all of us are working on in one way or the other. So what we thought we'd do in this session is go around and ask, you know, what are your priorities, your priorities, your organization's priorities for next year? What are the things that you care about most or you see coming up most as as urgent as and as a as an as an issue to deal with? In 2023? We'll make a list of these and then see if we can put together committees that reflect the sort of the general concerns across across the group. So you know, it could be one, it could be two, I don't know, it could be three, what do you see as the primary issues that your organization is going to be facing next year? So let's say this can some whoever wants to just start and volunteer the kinds of things that they're dealing with and then we'll just go down as people have things to add to this list.
So this is Karen, I'm happy to start. And I'm going to take notes, but what I'm gonna say after I say it because I can't type of talk. So I a lot of you may have heard, but our office received funding for fiscal year 23 To focus on statewide language access planning. So that is going to be a big focus of our work this year. We're actually and we'll send this out to the IETF we're actually going to be hiring both a statewide language access coordinator as well as a support position for the language access coordinator. So the hopefully, we're hoping to have those positions ready to be posted either by the end of this year or very beginning of 2023. This is not an area that our office does any work out of specifically, but I can tell you one of our concerns is around the need for legal services for all the variety of folks that have been coming into our state whether that be the Afghan arrivals, the Ukraine arrivals, potential Venezuelans, Cubans. We've had a record number of Cubans coming to Michigan for fiscal year 22. It was approximately 800 Which is actually a lot for Michigan, we for fiscal year so you know, thinking about the capacity of legal services is definitely something that's been on our mind. And the other thing I will just say, and we don't have obviously any information because this just happened, but I think everyone saw that for the first time since I don't know I think the 1980s Michigan now has a Democratic House and Senate which is extremely exciting, and I know we're starting to think about what legislative priorities we might have for for the coming you know, for the for 2023 when the new legislature is is in Michigan. So that information is forthcoming in terms of what we were hoping to look at, but I would definitely tell people to think about that piece for sure. Because obviously that's going to be a nice, a nice change for us, I think after the last few decades of not having it all be democratic control.
Great. Thank you guys. So statewide Language Access Legal Services for new immigrants and then thinking about the legislative possibilities for the new with the new legislature. Right. Thank you. So we'd like to go next. What's your organization's priorities one to the next
year? This was Marshall.
We serve immigrants, as well as the general population and our priority is to serve more taxpayers this year. Make sure we're meeting the needs of the community. So I think the task force they're just going to help getting the word out that tax free tax assistance is available. And we're back to normal operation this year with in person services. And quickly to follow up on what Karen said, a personal goal of mine is to finally get the cohabitation statute from an hour. And Stephanie changes offices assured me they're going to work on that early in the year so that happens.
Thank you, Marcia.
I can say something about the Islamic Center of Detroit. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. The priority for the center at this point for 23 is to open up the Fair Lending Club, which we acquired in Dearborn. It's good primary to the youth for the whole community. The second thing is the Mental Health Project, which we are working on. We're acquiring one in Detroit. And also we're working on a big community center which includes a health center for Detroit. So there's the three top projects at this point we're working on.
So you're looking to buy a community center or
we're negotiating one with the city of Detroit school. We already acquired the felling club and also we are trying to buy negotiate to buy another building for mental health. That's in Detroit.
can go next. This is amny. Our strategic plan goes from like it's a three year or a three three to four year strategic plan and mainly we want to implement equitable solutions to meet community needs. So like having multi generational family services, innovative leadership, and access impact. And then the second one is to elevate the Arab American voice the Arab American voice through young leaders through research and data through engagement and action, and community, you know, influence and visibility. And the third thing is to build excess capacity, excess capacity, through the excess people through marketing through diversity, equity and inclusion, and sustainability. And of course, our top priority is going to be we are going to be starting a sad Center, which is substance abuse center that's going to be in Dearborn on the border of Detroit. And, you know, we're just now starting to work on that but it hasn't, you know, it hasn't, but we do have the building and we're going to start working on that song as our priorities.
Think many
other organizations thinking go for global Detroit and we're continuing focusing around supporting immigrants, small business owners, immigrant inclusion and community development processes. We received funding to facilitate some statewide talent retention programs. And continuing with the global entrepreneur and residents work with Michigan universities as well. So that's mostly around economic development and talent. And then we're facilitating the Southeast Michigan refugee collaborative. So
to noon to move that look forward. Thank you.
I can go for International Institute. Um, we're continuing at least in the legal department, our focus on citizenship and naturalization and then looking to expand our capacity into other areas. We have recognized the need with Venezuelans arriving, alpha Ukrainians and Afghan arrivals and we also get an unprecedented number of calls from Cubans and we're looking at how we can work with those populations in the year and years to come
around citizenship and legal services,
legal services, and then of course, we're continuing our Center for Working Families, which is basically about building financial stability for all Detroiters, but we do serve immigrants as well in that program. Thank you good.
Roland, Ruby. Kevin.
American citizens for justice is working with other organizations that are under a kreski Foundation grant to work on race dialogue and our sessions coming up. I think in March we're also working with the free Film Festival to have a subcategory of the film festival for API documentary films. So that's part of our work in terms of getting the work of Asian American filmmakers you know, as part of that testable so
I mean, I will actually I work closely with Steve on on the Steve
because he's right.
Okay, thank you, Ruby. So,
so from Merck's perspective, most of this stuff is probably on a statewide basis. So driver's licenses for all is at the top of the list. Expanding legal services and in multiple ways is certainly up there. Yes, it could also be a local initiative. There's some minor criminal justice fixes we want to make to Michigan's legislature or state statutes so that you know what a misdemeanor means and whether it makes someone deportable. Or not. Christina, I feel like there's a few other things that we're focused on that I can't call right now. But those are kind of our wishlist for 2023 and beyond.
Yeah, I think there's a couple other policy priorities that we'll be rolling out soon. But otherwise, we're, you know, continuing community engagement around driver's licenses and generally legal services. So
yeah, and doing what we can to also, you know, expand health opportunity, more health care options for for those who are uninsured or underinsured.
You tell everyone what the driver's license issue is. Chris, yeah, so
in a nutshell, since 2008, there this under Michigan law, Michiganders who are not lawfully present, in terms of what that means for under immigration law, are not eligible for a state ID or a driver's license. Previously they were and so being able to make a statutory fix to that would then allow for essentially two tier driver's licenses and two tier Michigan ideas in similar ways to what we're seeing in I think it's 14 other jurisdictions around the country so that there's the REAL ID compliant driver's licenses and IDs. And then there's other ones which you may see people have right now, this is not valid for federal purposes. But like it's still a valid driver's license. There's still a valid ID you just can't use it. To enter a federal building. You need some other documents for that reason. So the goal is to be a statutory fix so that there's essentially a two tiered scheme so that all persons not just non citizens or people who are undocumented, but people who, you know, might be experiencing homelessness or returning citizens would be able to access state identification without the burden of having to get a birth certificate first. Yeah. on mute.
wishes that they could have. Alright, Sophia, or Kevin, or both.
I'll go first. And I'm hoping Kevin will be a part of this particular initiative. One of the things that we found out as we were working on the new voters initiatives with m&a is that unfortunately, a lot of our red Caribbean folks that are here and African folks that are here are still not citizens, although they have been here for a long time. So they're not engaging like they should. So we have to come up with a creative way to let them know that it's the time is now for them to become citizens. So they have their voice heard. We've been working on it for years and I MD has had some sessions with us. And we still haven't figured out how to crack that nut yet. So I'm hoping that that's something very high on our list for the next couple of years because we want to make sure we have more voters engaged for the 2024 election. So we have to figure out and maybe you guys can guide us in the right direction to how we how do we target folks because a lot of them are the elders, right, the folks that's been here from the 70s and the 80s. And they have not become citizens. So they have not transferred that part of the knowledge to their children and their grandchildren. So we have some groups of folks that can't even sign petitions, because they're not registered voters. So that's a big part of our challenge for the next two years. And the other part is building educational programs for young people. To let them know about the very rich African and Caribbean communities that are here in Michigan. It was the two big initiatives that we have going on for at least the next two years.
Kevin, do you want to Is there anything you want to add?
Yeah. Okay, let's move Ted.
I really don't have anything to report. You know, we're pretty status quo. We're just offering education and ports. We're going to be looking at some choice hard choices when it comes to transitioning from COVID dollars back to general fund dollars, especially with a diminishment in enrollment. So really, our main focus is just going to be increasing academic achievement, as well as
some
economic choices. Going forward.
Okay, thank you 10.
For anyone who hasn't gone I just want to add one more thought something that we'd been talking about was, so many of our taskforce members are service providers. And so in the past, we had a committee where folks work together on service provision or coordination. So for anyone who hasn't gone yet, or for anyone who has another question to think about for priorities for 2023 is what kind of work do you see, you know, for task force members working together, whether it's on a priority that you're going to mention, or whether you see a way for social service agencies to collaborate or coordinate or do you feel like you're already doing that in other spaces? So just want to throw that question out there while you're thinking about your priorities.
Yeah, and we may need to come back to it because almost everyone's gone. already. So Roberto, do you want to talk about your priorities for the office? I mean, maybe Roberto, you might introduce yourself to because we have some guests today.
Roberto is gonna present next though, so I don't know if we want to Oh, okay.
Are there priorities to mention what's up? But anything you want to say Roberto?
Oh, yeah. So I was wondering who you were addressing with that question. So. So for four priorities for for the coming year. Obviously. The first one is, is the comprehensive plan is actually guiding the Comprehensive Plan, which part of that is is also to bring on a new staff as project manager for that. That's actually the we're doing the onboarding process. Now. Chef one homage some of you may know chef one, Chef one is going to be the project manager is going to be helping out with with this, this comp plan. He comes with a lot of experience with global Detroit and working with a number of of businesses in the Bangla town area. He's currently in the private sector, working with small businesses. In the any immigrant community. And so it's going to be I think it's just going to be excellent for for the work that we've got ahead of us. So the comp plan is one the second one is to the city has really taken a a really deep dive into homeownership and housing equity. And that also translates into our immigrant and refugee community. So there's, what we're looking to do there is to to make sure that there's more opportunities, that engagement that happens between our immigrant refugee community and the programs that we have coming through housing revitalization. HRD so that's, that's a second initiative. A third one is going to be to continue the growth of the Detroit refugee network, which is a funding arm of the resettlement agencies of the local resettlement agencies for resettlement in the city of Detroit. It's housed within Samara toss, and so, will be assisting with with the growth of that initiative and the license to continue our support for the resettlement of Afghan refugees. So we we are in the now what is a third recertification, which is the rental assistance for our refugees, so the majority of them are getting 12 months of rental assistance from the time that they got settled out into a Detroit address. Many of them were at the hotel for a number of months before they were placed out into the community. And so we're going to continue that support going into the first quarter of 2023. And we know that that doesn't mean that the need for support well, will stop. There'll be other support services that's needed. So we're going to continue that effort.
Thank you. The next one up after this session is over so you can expand on these or give a report on what's been going on in the past as well. Thank you, Martha. Who hasn't got who hasn't gone yet. In this session, would like to share their organization's priorities or next year.
Or thoughts on how members could collaborate together and I will say this won't be the last opportunity we will still send around the survey like we do each year before we kind of launch into committees in January. So be on the lookout for the survey, you'll have another opportunity to put your feedback there. But while we're here together, it's just great to take advantage of the ability to have a discussion. So if anyone has thoughts or ideas for how members could work together and any of the number of priorities you've heard thus far, or especially as social service agencies where you might be tasked with delivering a certain kind of service. How how folks could work together what you'd like to see from the task force in that regard.
Well, if there are so as I close this session, feel free to jump in and add. But I mean, I think we think it's worthwhile to hear everyone even if we don't end up figuring out a way to coordinate some of the work you are planning on doing with with the others that are here. It's still worth hearing everyone's efforts for next year as we close out this year. And all the variety of work that everyone's engaged in to assist and support our immigrant communities. So thank you everyone, for for for this discussion. What we will do is we will send out a survey to ask you formally about about what kinds of committees you think we should have. We will look at this list that we've put together and see how we can find connections between the things that priorities that that you will have, and then maybe come up with a new proposed set of subcommittees that we can discuss at our first meeting next year that will guide the work of the IETF for 2023. So with that, I'll pass it back to Christine which actually Roberto, Roberto, to give us an update from the Office of Immigrant Affairs Okay, well,
first of all, let me apologize because I didn't I didn't have anything prepared. I didn't know that I was on the agenda to give an update. Is that something is that something that we're doing every month? Christina?
Yes, you're a regular feature. I send you a reminder, but you might not have seen it in the midst of the other emails that were going around. So okay.
What's been going on for the last couple of months? Three months?
Yeah. So, so I mentioned I mentioned the, the comprehensive plan. So what we've what we did is in August, and September is I had worked with welcome in America to actually arrange for meetings with communities that have done comprehensive plans throughout the throughout the US and met with their met with our team to see what it is that they were getting ideas for their scope of services, and getting ideas of who would be potential vendors that would be interested in this type of this type. of work. And so that led to being able to, to, to have a draft plan that's gone to our procurement office for some language. It's also gone to some of the directors within my department to look at some of the standard language that we have. And this morning I had the opportunity to both Christine and Christine. go over some of the some of the recommendations and some amendments that document the plan is to have have a a hard document that could be sent out. That would be available by the 16th I believe, December that we could have for for review by all we're getting together. I believe it's the weekend, the week of the fourth in December. We're going to have another follow up review of that of that document. And so the goal is to in the first of the year to be able to have that out so that that way, we can start getting some responses back in the first quarter of 2023. So that's where we're at with the the comp plan. We've also have we've we've completed the ESL instruction for our immigrant refugees. So earlier in the year the last time we got together, I mentioned we had resettled 351 In the city of Detroit. We've We've held very steady with that we've had some that have left for other states, but at the same time we've had others come in. And so one of the we've remained pretty steady with that was that number we provided upwards of now it's going to be about 1.5 million in rental assistance for for our Afghan refugees, which will take us into February, March. of next year. We have extended recently had conversations with the rocket Rocket Mortgage to have our team from rocket actually be extended. There was a contract they had with summer toss for December of this year to help support and they've been great they've been supporting us with the rental assistance program with kinda like managing that with the with the clients and as part of the team with Samaritans. They've also assisted with with housing resettlement, and if families were looking to move elsewhere to help them with those with those moves, and then also with employment services. So we've we've got about pretty close to 100% of those refugees that were looking for work had been placed. There are some that just are not able to work. And so, so those obviously we didn't place we have 31 It's going to be 36 employed in the city of Detroit. So we have folks that are within our Skills for Life program. They're in our beautification program there. We have, we have him over at the the bus service stations. We have him at Davidson and over at Huber. We've been providing ESL classes for those individuals so that they could have opportunities for promotion. We actually have two of them. They got promoted into forming positions. So it's a great it's a great story what's happening with our city of Detroit employees who have been placed there. The we continue to support their their needs beyond just beyond just that legal services is another area so we're coordinating with severe toss and Ussuri and Catholic Charities to make sure that all of these individuals are have been assigned legal consultation for them to apply for asylum. And so we opened up an office just two weeks ago, opened up a legal office at the at the International Institute there on Kirby Avenue. And it's a legal team that was brought in for us CRI so so the the US committee for refugees and immigrants now has a presence there. So they've been providing legal services now to our refugees there. So that's been going that's been very active. kept us active in the in the office. And we've also been supporting as I believe, maybe Emma mentioned, our global EIR we're we're one of the sponsors of the Global Entrepreneurship and residence program and we are in the process of now identifying a second business to come in to the e ir class. Our first one from passive vote came in in in the spring and currently we've been having conversations with Rene Pons from PP pm I'd have to our mahyco that's looking to be a another candidate for our global EIR there at the at Wayne State University. The other the other conversation that we're having is we've been conversing with our emergency management team and the administration regarding the potential for a transportation of migrants into into our community. And so we have a contingency plan that that involves the vase Freedom House, one one Michigan the Catholic Charities arm and then also the HDC as the first contact people, when the the individuals come in our our emergency management team will provide the transportation, we will have a community center within the city that would be able to house them on entry. And, and then and then the agencies that I mentioned, including myself would be the first contact for these individuals, individuals that are Spanish speaking. So we wouldn't be able to be there to assist them at the at the point of contact. They were then the following day be processed and we're looking to have them temporarily at hotels. And so those are all part of the plan. Burke has Ruby has contacted us and so the plan is to have Merck be a part of that intake process when that all happens. Should it happen? And so this is something that that we've laid out and fortunately, we have not had to employ that. But we there is, there is some reason to to pause on that because I had a I had a conversation with Valentina and Ruby you know Valentina from ice. BP. Valentina is the
for folks who don't know Valentina Seeley is the Community Liaison for ice.
Yep. So she has she she she she contacted me and asked me if Detroit had a plan for for migrant arrivals if they if they came into our community. And I mentioned to her that we have a contingency plan. She then went on to tell me that she has been directed to lead the Southwest migrant I want to get this right southwest migrant it's it's a coordination center. So she is managing the population in the southwest and that one of the considerations that they'd like to do is to identify communities that are taking these migrants and then they ice would pay for the buses would pay for the transportation to have these individuals come into communities. So they're actually going there. So actually, they're looking at this, what was considered a political maneuver, you know, by the Governor Abbott and, you know, Governor DeSantis, taking this and actually employing it as a strategy. And so I said, I said to them, that that's not that's not what we're that's not what we're doing. And that that would actually that would actually be a call above, you know, above my paygrade I certainly can make the call. And, and so that's where that remain. Just last week, I got a call from strangers no longer Bill O'Brien, who called me and said that he was being called by Valentina to see if they would be willing to take him. So so there's calls that are going into this that are coming into the community to say, Are there nonprofits that can that can take these individuals and I was on a call just this this morning with colleagues of mine over in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and they said they've received the same type of they're getting the same type of of a context from colleagues within the within immigration enforcement as to their capacity.
Roberto, I'm gonna pause there. We did touch on this briefly earlier before you joined but I saw it looked like Ruby and Karen had hands
raised.
Mike Mike Coleman join us maybe he can introduce himself
Yes, my name is Mike Coleman. I'm with do it. I'm we've been informed that some meeting was being zoom bombed, and they were having some issues. I wasn't sure if it was this meeting. This is the meeting with the most attendees. So we're just out here for technical support if anybody needs it. Were there any zoom bombing issues with this meeting earlier? No, no. Great. And then I'm going to just drop off and move on to a different meeting. Thank you, everybody.
When zoom bombing,
that's when there's an unexpected guest and there's usually some interruption and it's not very great. So Ruby, it looked like you had started talking
I was gonna let Karen go first. Okay.
Thanks for me. Um, so, Roberto, thanks. It's interesting to hear that strangers no longer zones, also gotten the call. I think that Valentina so first of all, she's not leading the southwest border Coordination Center. She's on detailed to it. The leader is a gentleman named commander a chi Sydney a chi and here's how you pronounce his last name. But it sounds to me like ice has been fishing because they call it a lot of people ask him that question. So, um, you know, I'll follow up on that we actually our office in about 16 other states. That was in federal government partners a couple weeks ago and kind of called DHS out on that and just said, Look, if you guys need information, ask for it. Don't do these fishing expeditions. So I think we're going to reach back out to confirm that these are still happening and they need to figure out what they're doing. Because we keep hearing that there's no official plans in place by DHS, that there were no official plans for ice to move anyone. So it's just interesting that these calls keep coming up though they're happening. Around the country. So not just here. Colorado has been getting them California has been getting them. Yeah, other states have been getting them as well, and other NGOs within states. as
well. Ruby Ruby and or Kristen. Christian even though
all right, um, well, I I don't know if people I've introduced my background from prior to coming on to counsel but the last 10 over 10 years, I was working in emergency management and disaster response and just want to share that, you know, everything starts and ends at the local level. And so the jurisdiction if if we had a really robust preparedness plan for the city of Detroit, the state of Michigan, the county, Wayne County or federal government is not to Trump that and they are only here to support whatever plans we have at the local level. So hopefully that empowers people to continue to, to be prepared and be self sufficient, not having I know that we rely a lot on on partnering with each other, especially with the local organizations and it seems that that is the way to go, especially Detroit being such a unique area versus the rest of the state. I think that we'll definitely have to have take lead on that. So and I am I didn't know Valentina. She she's married to a former boss of mine and hoping that that they stay in their lane and and making sure that that anything that happens does get coordinated with or were missing and fail Homeland Security but at the same time understanding that they are very close partners as far as the city of Detroit emergency management, working very closely with ice and CBP, and so I'm not sure if it's worth while also for the community to go ahead and have our contingency plan on our own. Just because you don't know what type of information sharing and what plans other people might have for us. So firstly, just scare anybody.
Yeah, no, Kristen, just to follow up on that. So our office with our the Michigan State Police state emergency operations center, I don't even know now six weeks or more ago, we had we brought together the emergency managers from all around the state and talked about that contingency planning and said basically, the same thing you just did. Which is this is going to be a local response and that they should be doing contingency planning, and just what you said that states would support. I know that the Michigan State Police state emergency operations center the emergency the regional emergency management folks have or are supposed to be in contact with any locality that is doing some of that contingency planning just to make sure that the state police are aware of it. But to your point, it definitely is a local
response.
I do want to get to Ruby, but I just wanted to ask since Roberto talked about the city doing contingency planning Kristen, are you part of the planning process? And maybe that would be helpful then to connect. I don't know if there's another liaison from the council members office, but that might be good. Ruby says Get me okay, maybe he's alright.
Yeah, I'd be happy to I've met with them more closely than any other person and city council and I think that that there there needs to be a bridge there and who better than the office that is connected to the immigration Taskforce. So I'll work on that.
Yeah. So what I'll do is I could I could send a quick note over to Donald Donald is is our administration lead on that? So so I'm handling does the support services and debit with the with the agencies and download is is working with our emergency management on the logistics from that end. So I'll make sure to to let them know the plug here because one of the things we asked is who should be on this team, like from the city side, right. So and it's a very it's a very bird's eye like contingency. So it doesn't it we haven't like, for example, with the support services, we haven't yet gotten the Go ahead. They say okay, get that team together, have that conversation. We had an initial would you be interested in being a part of this? What role could you play? We've had that but we haven't had the we haven't convened that conversation with the entire group to say, Okay, here's what's going to happen from you know, first second to, to the 10th date of this process. Thank you.
And we were in Roberto's update, but I think we're winding down. Roberto. I just had one question from the last time you presented you had spoken about the Detroit immigrant fund. Could you say more about where that's at.
So, so that's that's going to that's going to be you know, when we when we first when we first looked at having the fun, there are certain things that weren't happening, like there weren't other competing, like initiatives. So we, so I've got to look at at making sure that we're supporting the initiatives around us and not at their expense to to create a fund that would then would that would then compete. So the goal is to in this comprehensive plan is to also have a avenue by which we address resources from the city to support the needs of our immigrant and refugee community. So initially, it was like, like what we did with the with the undock your fund, it's like how do you attract philanthropic dollars to to this space of immigrant and refugee services. But since we've done that we've had that the trade refugee network, which is something that we're going to continue to support. And now we're working on a regional level with, with the collaborative to, to make presentations to the philanthropic community to roundtable of funders, and so we want to make sure so want to make sure that all of that is taken into consideration when looking at how do you how do you get resources and funds to help support you know, the goal of refugees and immigrants, agencies and organizations
Okay, great. Anyone else have any other questions for Roberto?
Before we move to her updates? Okay,
thanks for hanging in there. We're closing in at 530 Here. Thanks, Roberto. And everyone knows where to find Roberto in many of our other meetings that we cross paths with each other on if you have follow up questions. We'll shift now then in the sake of time, to the working group updates. So committee chairs if you could, please share any updates on your recent activities and you know, we're approaching the end of the year here final stretch. So share your plans for this last quarter. And then your last meeting date of the year. Hike. I don't know if you have anything from the comps and events group so I mean,
we tried. I mean, many of us think it's a good idea to do this thing and we have to rethink how to put it into motion you know, in a different form. Maybe But yeah, no, no news.
Okay, then External Relations. I can say you know, I just want to thank all of the task force members who some of you are here and some aren't here but a lot of folks have have joined our efforts to meet with stakeholders. So at the start of the year, we set out a list of folks we wanted to meet with including city council members and city departments, and we have done a lot of those there. I think we surpassed our initial goal because then we kept adding meetings so we still have a few more meetings that we want to accomplish. So recently, we're also still doing some follow up from the earlier meeting. So we're still following up with DWSD department of neighborhoods Creo and BC and on the note of BC, I did want to share they had specifically asked for IETF members to invite them to speak at your community meetings and so that they can talk more explicitly about code enforcement and some of the problems they see so that folks can avoid running into issues and fines there. I'm pasting something on the agenda. So you can have it for reference because I can't put it in a chat because we don't have a chat. But you can share job openings from their department. All the departments always shared their job openings. So please, you know, share those with your networks, but also consider inviting them to your community meetings to talk about code enforcement issues, because what happens is, residents get dinged on a lot of things that could be communicated, but there needs to kind of be more proactive outreach to immigrant community organizations to get the word out and to kind of have the open questions. So they have interpreters and folks on staff who speak other languages, and so they said they're happy to attend community group meeting. So the next time if you're having a town hall or a meeting and you would like to invite folks from BC we're happy to help make those connections. They would love to speak to your group and help get the word out to residents about issues related to code enforcement. So our final goals for the year. We have a few council members to meet with some of those might go into January now because we're looking at recess and a couple of city departments. Homeland Security is coming up in early just after Thanksgiving. And then disability affairs is in the works. And we meet monthly on the fourth Wednesday but because of the holiday we'll be meeting November 30. So that's it. From External Relations. I'll turn it over to Emma for Detroit, our city.
Yes, so we actually have an event coming up and I'm going to make a call here. Well, it invitation first of all, and then a call for maybe some assistance. So for Detroit our city we have our next event on December 8 In the evening, this is going to be a virtual events and the focus is T and the various T cultures and traditions present here in Detroit. It will follow the kind of usual format that that previous Detroit our city conversations have followed, and that we'll have a longtime resident and a newcomer guest speaker who will demonstrates kind of a conversation around what it means to belong in Detroit and what it means to be a Detroit er and then we'll break into breakout sessions to have smaller discussions with attendees. And this is all through the lens of you know T its role in our various cultures and lives and what it means to us. And if you're not a tea drinker, that's fine. You're still welcome to join and talk about coffee or whatever your drink of choice is and, and how that's relevant to your community building your traditions and what have you. So we are looking for some extra facilitators for the event. We've got five folks confirmed and in the past what we've done is had two facilitators in each breakout room. So we're looking for a few more folks if you've previously facilitated in Detroit, our city and that are we've never done it before. Either way, you're You're welcome. We're going to have a facilitators training on November 30. So we would love to have you join and whether or not you can facilitate we'd love to have you participate in the events. And we'll be sure to send out the flyer and all of that and if you could send that out to your networks as well. That would be fantastic. So that's kind of where we're at. We'll have probably one more meeting after the event to debrief how it went. And then we'll reconvene in the new year.
Thanks so much. I think Sofia rolled off but she did facilitate before so I don't know if you've talked to her but she could. She'd be a good person to reach out to and for anyone else. There will be a facilitator training, it's light, but there will be a prep session. So if you're nervous about what does that mean to be a facilitator, you'll have support so
And lastly, I wanted to mention one other thing. We will be looking for new co chairs. Shawn has been an incredible co chair but his time will be wrapping up in the spring. So if you're interested in in CO chairing the group that would be great. On a personal note, I've actually moved out of the city to the I know. But I moved in with my partner and we're in faculty housing at Cranbrook. So it is free housing I couldn't turn it down. But it also doesn't feel why the same that I'm no longer Detroit resident and maybe leading this so we'd we'd love if possible for Detroit resident to really lead the task force or that sorry about the task force the workgroup. So if there's any volunteers, I'm I'm happy to show you the ropes and to continue participating. These are events that I've really enjoyed and I think we're getting really creative with how, how we're organizing them and we're hoping to do more in person stuff next year. Great,
thanks, Emma. And if anyone hasn't been to a Detroit or city event, I highly recommend it. You will laugh you will cry and you will be happy. So there's not a lot of feel good opportunity sometimes in our work. So highly recommend it. And last but not least Karen and Ruby ice and CBP. I'm gonna
take a look Ruby jump in if he wants to. I'm just thinking he might still be having child with him, which I think a lot of us understand. So we had to cancel our quarter three icbp Meeting due to a DHS all division meeting that ended up being scheduled for the same day. Like we literally found out I don't know, it was like the Monday of the week of the like the Monday of the week that we have meetings on Thursdays. I think we found out Monday of that same week that they had to cancel so it was quite a short notice. But we do have our last quarterly meeting on December 15. It's a Thursday at 10am at the CBP facility on East Jefferson. The meeting time block is 10 to 1130. But it's been pretty rare that we've gone an hour and a half lately. So if folks think they're going to come late, you might want to check in to see if the meeting is still happening or not. If you have our information you can text me or probably text Ruby, my informations on the emails that everybody gets. But feel free to check in with us if you're going to be running late. And want to see if the meeting still happening. So that'll be our last meeting of q4. Ruby. Do
you have anything you want to add?
No that just you know there continued to be a number of folks being moved up to the Detroit immigration court from the southern border who are in the fast deportation proceedings and we have our helpdesk program. Once Jackie Shea ever helped us program at the immigration courts. We're there every day in our master calendar. I hear you can talk you can talk with our master calendar hearings at the court so they can come and talk to our staff not to provide advice or not to provide direct representation but all of my information. You got your knife, right let's make some dinner in a few minutes. And what else we do see actually some people being moved from the southern border up to detention sites in Michigan where there's open beds as well. So that's a trend we haven't seen in a few years, but it's starting again. So just FYI for those who do.
Thanks, Toby.
Um, maybe next time we could talk about any changes with PD, maybe after this next meeting. Great. Thanks, Christine.
Just a question to Ruby. Hey, Ruby. How are folks arriving here? Like what's what's what's the means that they that they arrived here?
They They arrived by all types of means. Sometimes they take the bus sometimes they're, you know, in another state where they, you know, take a plane to or they take a bus to or they get a ride, and then maybe they move to Michigan. So like, as a general matter, I think it's just important to remember that like, anybody can move anywhere in the United States and so when you have governors or other people talking about bussing recent arrivals to one location, like no one forces them to stay there any more than like anybody's forcing us to be where we are. Right. So I think it's just important to keep that in mind that there's a fundamental right to travel within the United States. Now that becomes more complicated if someone's in removal proceedings and you have to move your immigration case or find an attorney or do some gymnastics, regarding that case itself, but like where someone is living is totally within their control. So
just to add to that our friends in both New York and Illinois in New York have seen over 20,000 migrants from the southern border and Illinois, I think seen over three or 4000. But both of our colleagues in those states have indicated that a lot of those migrants like those states are not their final destination. So to Ruiz point, they are, you know, can and are able to as soon as they're admitted into the US they can move freely and those that are being bussed to some of these locations are actually not staying there. So
we would expect in the winter to like most folks probably aren't going to like they may not have a coat if they arriving in New York or Chicago or Michigan, if that's the case. So they would certainly need to get one if they're coming from the southern border. And like we just see the numbers of people in actual removal proceedings and the Detroit immigration court and as well as nationally, you know, just be skyrocketing. So great.
Any other final questions, comments?
All right, we're closing in
on the end here. Hi. Do you want to do the
it's just a quick wrap up at this point. You know, we all the meetings are pretty much done. There are four meetings for the IETF. One is the co chairs meeting and Gabby myself, Kristen and Christine, we meet regularly, you know to go over things. There's the working group, chairs, meetings, those are done for the there's the working groups, meetings. That's done pretty much for the year unless you have work that you're doing together. That's up to the working group to determine and then there are the this meeting this quarterly meeting where all of us come together. We schedule these so that two of them have been during the day and two have been in the evening like this one or in the afternoon. Just just taking into account people's schedules. So this is a long way of saying we're looking to put together the schedule for next year. We used to all come together you know and have something to eat as well. Especially for the later in the day types of meetings, often over at Montana's International House. So I think maybe Christine we should just when we send the survey out, maybe we can also ask people what their maybe their preferences might be instead of opening up a discussion now but you know when so on what time of day and so on in person or not in person?
Yeah, we'll include it in the survey, but I just wanted to ask in case there was strong preferences. We had been doing two mornings and two late afternoons. So if anyone has strong feelings on that and would like to share voice that now and more context, separate from the survey, we've got like a minute we do
it in person, it would obviously not be in its own that is in the morning too, but but for food, it would have to be populated.
Anyone want to share anything about your preferences for when we hold our taskforce meeting. So
I would love them to be before 5pm And then just because we live just down because of that.
Okay. Thanks, Katie. Duly noted and I know it's hard for folks with kids. We had included some of these early evening times because some folks weren't their employment was not how they participate. And so they had to do it outside of their employment. That included folks like Chef one, so that might change for him. But for other folks, so we'll we'll include that question in the survey. But yeah, I hear you, Katie. It's hard for
folks with kids.
Okay, if there's no other comments on that, you can put your notes on that when the survey comes as well. We'll take just a few minutes for any taskforce member announcements.
I'll go this is me. We are having our 50th anniversary banquet dinner tomorrow at the Renaissance Center at the Marriott actually. And we're really busy with that. So it's supposed to be like almost 2000 people there. So hopefully some of you got tickets ago. It's been all over.
Yes, I think you'll see some folks from this group there.
I can just update that the Afro Caribbean community had their forget Columbus Day dinner recently. It was a nice event. We're about you know, 35 to 50 people with good food and lots of people we recognize and Christina and I and the IDF was recognized for the work that we do in the community. So it was
very nice. Yes, that was
very nice. Any other taskforce member announcements?
Yeah, for the first time in two years, the county aid is actively recruiting volunteers this year. If anybody knows anyone who has an insatiable desire to be a volunteer tax preparer, please go to accounting aid society.org. We're also going to be opening up all of our tech sites again this year. Next season by appointment. Taxpayers will be able to schedule in early January, set up their appointment there's no reason people making less than 60,000 When our scope which is almost any any return at that income level, no reason they should have to pay we will be able to do it for free.
That's it. Thank you.
One tiny announcement maybe I have Yeah, that's not my center of Detroit as the sort of distributing Turkey and food baskets the Saturday the 19th two o'clock to 5/31 come first serve two to 530 for the whole community, anyone is welcome to to pick up his shirt. Thank you. Great, thank you. Did you say that on Saturday the
19th
Yeah, Saturday the 19th Thank you at 14350 Carmen in Detroit. 14350 diamond in Detroit.
Anyone
anyone else have an update to share?
Announcements? All right,
if not, lastly, we leave time for any guests who wanted to make public
comments. Okay, hearing none.
All right. Well, then we'll move to close it out. This is heikes favorite part of our ONE WORD checkout. So just share one word how you're feeling in this moment, so I can't I can't hide it. I'm hungry, but I'm also happy so
I was gonna say hungry to Christine.
I want everyone join in this fun activity.
Juggling overwhelm, overwhelmed. overwhelmed
and juggling. Yes,
this is while I'm talking to you guys.
Since this was done, I mentioned that feeling very thankful.
Thank you, Roberto for grounding us.
Very thankful differently.
Especially those days. Yeah. Great. enthused Thursday. Love it. thankful. Thankful.
I would say appreciative and listening to you all and all the work that's being done, needs to be done, you know, appreciative. Thanks. Appreciate that.
I'll add another synonym and say grateful
for you all. Thanks, Kristen.
Anyone else want to share
one word checkout? Well, on
that note, then it's great to see everyone have a happy holiday season. And hopefully, the new year will begin well and even better. So looking forward to seeing everyone in 2023. Again, thank you
and don't forget to fill out your survey when you see it in your email. Thank you so much appreciated. All right. Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Karen, for taking notes. I appreciate that. Really. Just email them to you. Okay, sorry. They
couldn't be in the Google Doc.
That's okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. Have a good evening, everyone.
