On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the right.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for this week's edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and we have a lot to talk about this week.

First of all, we're going to talk about a big rule at the border that is going to change things here in San Antonio as well.

Title 42 is ending as of midnight tonight.

That means that they will no longer be rejecting applications for asylum at the border from certain countries, as they did for three years now because of the pandemic.

That's going to bring a lot more people they expect to.

San Antonio.

Joining us to talk about that is Antonio Fernandez with the Catholic Charities here in San Antonio.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

Now, you have and you're working with the you're a partner with the city and the federal government.

In terms of the Migrant Resource Center, you call it the Centro the and San Antonio and San Pedro, Huh?

What is that?

What are the numbers that you're seeing there right now?

They have some documents that they were given at the border, so they're not correct coming through illegally.

What are the numbers we have now?

What do you expect?

So last week we actually said around 4000 people who were coming to San Antonio and we just help them to go back to the final destination.

So goodbye, New York, Miami, whatever it is, the last couple of days, we have maybe 700 people inside and around 200 people outside of the building just to be sure that they are inside and that they are like safe, you know, not being out in the street.

So around 900 people to a thousand people is what we are seeing these days and getting ready for what is going to happen tomorrow.

How is the help what is the help here in San Antonio that these people get?

Because they have been given they want asylum.

They ask for that at the border.

They're given a document of when to appear in court.

They tell them where the destination is.

You help them get to that destination.

So how long are those people here?

What kind of help you give them?

So in the past, we used to have them for two or three days.

Now it's more like four or five because the amount of people that are coming and, you know, they get to the center.

And what we try to do is always try to provide them with respect and dignity.

We have an intake process with a case manager, just double checking everything out.

What's going on with the case where they're going.

We contact the families to see what the sponsors, you know, come, we send it to you.

I mean, just try to get a ticket for them.

And then, you know, the most important thing is we feed them and we tell them, you know, if Snowden then have the same clothes for three or four months, they don't have underwear sometimes.

So for us, it's just dignity of the respect, a human being, having nice clothes, clean clothes, you know, being fed.

So we we are trying our best to provide for those, you know, basic human needs as well as we have a consular.

So we have a therapist who is just helping them with the trauma that they may have gone.

I mean, these people have gone through so much in their lives.

I mean, go through the jungle, going through tents, sleeping on the floor, sleeping, whatever these.

And then sometimes in Mexico, they have to meet then your people.

And this will we have a lawyer, a paralegal who actually helps them with questions.

You know, everybody has questions like what went into with this this document or that document?

What is the judge or can I change this?

So just to ensure that they while they are with at least they are, you know, like a little more I don't want to say carefree, but that they're more relaxed.

They are no longer in the government custody, are no longer afraid that they're going to be deported.

We tell them that you need to go and present yourself to a judge.

And then what happens with the judge?

That's not up to us, you know, But at least we try to provide then when they're in San Antonio with basic, basic human needs.

And up until now, or at least recently, a large amount from Venezuela have been coming up because that's one of the they have not been rejecting because of the pandemic.

And they are have been more likely to get asylum once they get to a judge.

What's that percentage like now where people are coming from?

So, yeah, so we've been doing this for nine years and the countries have changed year after year.

I think the last three or four weeks may have been Venezuela, the first one, and then Colombia.

You will have asked me a month ago what having Haiti.

So it's just a very so much I mean, we have, you know, I think in in February, we have 133 people from China.

So it's you never know what the people are coming from.

But most of the people are coming right now from Venezuela and Colombia.

But because of the change, you can get people from any country now who claim that for various reasons they need asylum.

What do you expect there?

Well, we we have a say in our case, which is expect the unexpected.

We don't know what to expect.

We know it's going to be more people.

But, you know, we don't have the numbers.

We have communication with Border Patrol and ICE and all the other entities from the federal government.

PALLADINO I don't know if anyone knows exactly how many people are coming.

We have people that are going to be 7 to 14000 people crossing the border every day.

It's not true.

I don't know.

I don't know if anyone knows.

But you get more here because they are coming up from the valley as well as across to El Paso or.

Yeah, so we get people from El Paso Del Rio eager pass, Laredo, McAllen.

So lately has been Brownsville has been the area where most people are coming from.

How do they get here?

They pay private transportation or they're not for traffic.

So they're they're they're actually helping them to get to San Antonio or they're able to pay for a taxi or or a bus or something to get here.

Why don't you tell people who may have a missed conception about where the people are coming from, their legal status?

What are some of the misconceptions that you hear from people that you would like to, you know, straighten out?

So the biggest one, I think, is people called in undocumented people.

These people are documented.

All of them have documents given by the federal government, by the government of the United States.

So that's number one.

And the number two is like these people are dangerous.

But the reality is that we have so many families with babies, with senior citizens who just they just want a better life.

They want to work.

Everybody wants to work.

That's like just like, well, what's this?

And your senora, please do not work.

You need to go to the lawyers.

You need to fix your papers before you work.

But that's what they want.

They're just coming here to work.

They just come here for a better life.

The American dream.

What about diseases and things like that?

I've poor people.

Wonder.

Are they coming through the jungle?

They're coming from different countries.

They may carry something dangerous.

Well, no.

Since September 19th, we keep track of the people that we have at the for driving.

Benita, we are 119,000 people.

Of those, not 119,000 people.

So we have people with headaches with to case pregnant woman.

But diseases like this, I don't think we have anyone we have one person with chickenpox, one person with tuberculosis, maybe two people with COVID.

So things are going to happen.

21.

So when I have 110,000 plus, if four people have these diseases, you know what I think is actually so bad, I would think.

What about money?

Where does the money come from this now your Catholic Charities, but you're partnering with the federal government and how much does it cost to run the I guess you wouldn't call it shelter but center And how much more will you need with this influx?

So it cost millions of dollars per month and we don't have enough money from the government.

So the people of San Antonio have been very generous to Catholic Charities because then we are able to get extra money, donations to pay for other things, such toys, things that, you know, the government is paying for basic things which make sense.

But we you know, we want to give the extra treatment to people.

So we have nuns coming from the United States to provide services.

So we pay for the flights, we pay for the rooms.

And so on.

So is is a lot of entities.

So it's mostly the government.

But then we also have people, very generous people in San Antonio.

How about the concerns and I know there are concerns that have been publicized off and on from neighbors in that area on San Pedro.

So I know that has been in the news of our negative reports.

I directly have not spoken to anyone like that.

How about more space?

Is that being looked at right now?

And where would that be?

Yes, we we're trying to look at more space right now.

We are assessing needs for tents.

We're going to have some tents in the parking lot just to ensure that when people are in that they are not in the you know, like out there, if it rains, we actually have a contract with a hotel.

So we will be using hotels for families, large families with babies, pregnant woman.

So special cases just they don't have to be there.

What is the population in terms of families versus single men versus kids?

Yep, mostly families and then single men.

So it's hard to say a single woman coming through, but you see them as well.

And it wouldn't be individual children.

Those would be at the border still.

Or what happens with those highly publicized cases at the border?

Yeah.

So we actually have some PSC, the home that we so reunify children.

So we have these unaccompanied minors that we call them, then we actually have a special place for them.

We try to ensure that that person, that child goes to the right person, that, you know, there's no human trafficking them and they.

Do have sponsors.

And that's the term that you use for people somewhere else.

Are there parts of the country right now that they are going to more than others?

Yeah.

So around 66% of the people come in.

They have sponsors right now.

And the cities that people are going to most New York, Chicago, Miami and Orlando.

And the busses that we've seen the governor send to people, those are from the border to simply those aren't people from that have come this far to San Antonio.

To the best of my knowledge, no busses have left from San Antonio, but I don't.

Because the flights were, you know, the highly publicized flights that was from here.

But and that was from the center recruited from that area.

I haven't seen anything more of that.

No.

I mean, that was a person from the outside who was telling the individual that they want to go someplace else.

Nothing to do with us.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Antonio Fernandez, Catholic Charities.

Good luck with the expected influx and let us know how it's going down the road.

Thank you, sir.

Thanks.

San Antonio City Council last week passed a resolution about the rights of tenants in San Antonio, and there are about 625,000 people who rent in the city.

So this is a very important issue.

Tell us all about it is Veronica Garcia, who is director of neighborhood and housing services for San Antonio.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Now, this was passing a resolution, but it wasn't necessarily changing ordinances, things like that.

Explain to us what this vote meant.

Sure.

This was a historic vote for our city.

Tenants have many different rights already under federal, state and local laws.

And this resolution really affirms the rights that they have.

And more importantly, it also really consolidates all of the different protections that tenants have their rights and their responsibilities into one document and outlines and explains what those rights are.

So this is more or as much to make it clear for those renters as it was to codify things that had maybe been done in different, different places.

Yes, exactly.

There's federal fair housing laws, there's Texas Property Code, there's local laws.

And so now that's all consolidated in one place.

It is very important for our city because we have about 95,000 households who are our cost burden.

And are at risk of housing instability.

And more than half of those households are renters.

So we really think it's important to make sure that renters understand all of the different rights and responsibilities they have existing.

And as part of this effort that the city is making to to make these rights more clear, this is part of a ten year effort, I guess, that you're working on you're you're doing some training sessions as well.

Explain that.

Right.

We have a ten year strategic housing implementation plan.

How we ensure that we have enough affordable housing for our community and part of that plan is to make sure that we are helping families that are facing eviction and that we are really getting information about fair housing laws out into the public.

So as part of that effort, we held five workshops, renters rights workshops, and we gave information to renters on what all the different rights and protections they have and then allow time for them to visit with the attorneys and ask questions.

What are the biggest questions about that you get from renters?

About if I notify them, will I be evicted?

Is that the kind of question that.

Yeah, absolutely.

They have a lot of questions on how do they report unsafe living conditions or recurring property maintenance issues.

What happens when they report that?

Will their rent go up?

Will they immediately be asked to leave the apartment?

Sometimes they wonder what happens when you get a notice to vacate.

Sometimes they think they have to, means they have to leave immediately.

So lots of questions about what next steps are and what protections that they have.

Who do they go to if there are violations, if they do notify the office, Hey, I've got something, I've got a leak, this or that.

Either nobody is responding or they're told they have to leave.

What should they do?

Yeah, they have a they have a couple of avenues.

If it's a property maintenance, first we tell them check their lease release will tell you exactly who to report the issue to initially.

Usually it has to be in writing once you've done that, if you're still not getting a response, we ask that they call the city.

They can call three, one one, and our code compliance will go to an inspection.

If it's a more of a tenant landlord mediation issue may be something that you feel you've asked for and accessibility accommodation and you feel you're not being heard.

They can call our office.

We have fair housing counselors, certified fair housing counselors on our team.

We're available at 2102075309 and a fair housing counselor can help explain what their rights are.

If there is a violation, how to report it, and really give them that one on one assistance so they don't have to know all the laws.

We can help them.

Through the pandemic affect this kind of thing.

I know there were a lot of people who are concerned, a lot of the owners who were concerned that they were going to have to keep people for months and months and months longer because they weren't being able to pay whatever.

We caught up with that and ah, I don't know what the housing stock is compared to what the need is right now in San Antonio at affordable housing levels.

Obviously there's we always need more, always.

But what's the pressure doing to that kind of interaction between owners and tenants?

Yes.

So short when a tenant isn't able to pay rent, that does heighten the tension.

And again, we're here to help.

We do have our rental assistance program that has been operating for the past three years to help tenants who fell behind on rent because of the pandemic.

We have been very success in continuing to get federal funds as soon as we run out of money.

Luckily, we asked the federal government for more.

We get that money reallocated from other cities.

We just got another tranche last last month, so now we will be reopening the rental assistance portal on May 15.

So anyone who has been affected by COVID either directly or indirectly and has fallen behind on rent, we can help with up to three months of rental assistance.

There's been some publicity in terms of real estate news about how more and more companies from out of state are buying, say, houses as well as apartment complexes and then flipping them into into rental properties.

Is it tougher for tenants sometimes to deal with a owner from out of state?

Yes.

How do you help with that?

I mean, how are you able to get through those layers?

Yes, we do hear tenants, you know, different property maintenance companies have different rules, different fees to apply.

And we have certified housing counselors that can really help individuals understand if they're being overcharged for something or what is a reasonable request when you're trying to lease an apartment, how to make sure you're really reading through that lease.

We have more information, documents that kind of has frequently asked questions from tenants, and we're getting that information out in the community.

And then another big effort that we have is we have a partnership with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, where they provide free legal services for anyone who has an issue.

And so we constantly refer individuals that really may have more of a legal question to TRL so they can have that one on one.

It's going to talk with a Texas Tribune reporter here in a minute about what's going on in Austin, about the legislature.

But they are know there are a couple of things, at least, that you are looking at with the city about what may or may not happen with bills up there.

What what is a concern to you right now?

Sure.

There's there's always different changing laws.

We our main issues are to make sure that our local efforts to regulate what we can at our local level, that that continues to be protected.

So there are some laws at the state level that are trying to add additional regulations, barriers.

And so we're always wanting to make sure that we have our local ability to do our own regulations, whether that be for producing new affordable housing or monitoring the existing affordable and market rate housing, the.

Financing as well of new housing that you're concerned there may be some strings, more strings attached.

Sure.

There's the public facilities Corporation, which is a very important tool that we have to produce more affordable housing in our city.

And there are lots of efforts at the state level to add additional restrictions on how we utilize that tool.

So we want to make sure we have those control at the local level.

All right.

Well, thank you very much, Veronica Garcia, director of Neighborhood and Housing Services.

And for more information, you just go to San Antonio.

Dot gov.

San Antonio, aka Slash and HST.

Thanks.

Thank you.

On Reporters Roundtable this week, we are talking the Texas legislature.

What they are getting done or not done where they are in the session that is now three weeks or so from the end.

Joining us to explain all of that and more is Patrick Svitek who is the primary political reporter of the Texas Tribune.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

Just this week, we have a couple of big deadlines.

One earlier in the week.

And that, I guess, for getting bills out of House committees or onto our House calendar.

And that effectively killed off raising the age to buy guns.

Tell us about that first.

Yeah, this was a proposal that Democrats were championing, but also some of the families impacted by the Uvalde High School shooting were very fiercely championing.

And there was actually a surprise development with this proposal on Monday when this House committee, at the last one of the last possible moments, voted out the proposal.

And you had two Republicans, Sam Harless and Justin Holland, join the Democrats to vote out that proposal.

But, you know, unfortunately for those advocates that, you know, the momentum there was short lived because it then fell victim to the deadline to make it on the House floor for a full vote of the House.

But that committee approval of that proposal, I think, took a lot of people by surprise and honestly.

And so they were like celebrating.

Yes, it's passed out of the committee, but they knew even at the time that it wasn't going to pass and the governor wouldn't have signed it.

Well, from the beginning, this proposal has faced very long odds.

The governor has called it unconstitutional.

The speaker has said he's okay with having a debate on it potentially, but he's noted that he just doesn't see the support in the full House, which is Republican majority for this kind of proposal.

Yeah, I should note that that committee approval did come a few days after the latest mass shooting, the latest mass shootings in Texas, including that one at the mall in Allen.

And so some folks thought maybe it was, you know, the decision to suddenly vote that out was connected to that.

But like you said, it's not now it's not going to make it to the full house.

And people might wonder, okay, that's one piece of gun legislation that isn't getting out of the House or isn't getting out of the legislature.

What else is still in there?

Or is there anything really of substance in terms of gun legislation at all?

Yeah, One of the proposals that we've seen being championed by the lieutenant governor is creating a ten year mandatory minimum sentence for anybody who uses a gun in the process of certain crimes.

And so basically trying to crack down on criminals who use guns.

You know, you know, of course, now to gun control activists, you know, I haven't heard a lot of, you know, outright opposition to that.

But they obviously want solutions that are more focused on the guns themselves.

You know, something like this, raise the bill that we just discussed.

And we have so many different bills that, you know, thousands of them that every session die.

But still out there right now, the one thing they have to do is the budget.

Where are we on the budget?

What's it going to look like?

Yeah, the budget has not reached the governor's desk yet.

And the budget could be one of the things that the Senate holds hostage in order to try to force a special session.

We've heard the presiding officer of the Senate, Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor, you know, talk pretty openly about how if some of his priorities don't get done, he will take steps to try to force a special session.

And one of those things he can do is not pass the budget and hold it in his chamber.

You know, it should be noted that the governor, Greg Abbott, is the only one who can actually call a special session and set the agenda for that special session.

But the individual chambers could take steps like, you know, sitting on the budget to ensure that a special session could be necessary.

And things like the transgender.

Different bills about that.

Where are we in that respect?

You know, probably one of the most contentious proposals related to that is a Senate bill to ban gender affirming care for transgender minors.

And this bill was supposed to be passed out of the House and on on track to the governor's desk several days ago.

But Democrats have successfully challenged it on procedural grounds twice now, which, you know, doesn't, you know, permanently kill the proposal.

But it snarls up the process.

It creates days, days, long delays, because then the bill has to be sent back to committee to be corrected and then sent back through the process to get back to the floor.

And so Democrats, you know, we'll see what happens when the bill comes back up on the House floor later this week.

But so far, Democrats have been very successful in derailing that bill on procedural grounds.

And those procedural things can also affect whether they mean to or not, all kinds of other bills, whether they be brought up and things like that.

Are we looking at I you this off camera, you know, off and on a couple of times over the last so many years, we've had the runaway caucus, the Democrats literally leaving the state.

Is there anything like that out there on the horizon?

I just want to throw that out there and see if you say no, I don't think so right now.

Well, when the Democrats did that in 2021 over, you know, new voting restrictions, I don't think a lot of people saw it coming.

And so I think it's it would be unwise of me to rule out the potential for something like that.

No, there do you know.

But there are a lot of proposals on the table right now that Democrats, most Democrats are fiercely opposed to, including this ban on gender affirming care for transgender kids.

And so, you know, there are a number of issues on the table where you could see if it becomes crunch time and if them walking out or them, you know, breaking quorum in some other way could be effective, that it could be something contemplated going into this legislative session.

I should note the new chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Trey Martinez Fischer, did not rule out using that as a tactic, if necessary.

And so I think, you know, folks could rightfully be on edge, whether it's Republicans or fellow Democrats.

That's something that could happen.

How about illegal voting?

Now there's another bill or bills still being considered about what the repercussions are or will be in that case.

This is one where there is not a lot of daylight between the two chambers and it's very likely to make it to the governor's desk and get the governor's signature.

This is a proposal to restore a higher penalty for illegal voting.

That was lowered in legislation that Republicans passed in 2021.

After the fact.

They portrayed it as a mistake in oversight.

There's been differing accounts of how purposeful, you know, how truthful they are and in providing that excuse.

But bottom line is, going into this session, most Republicans got on the same page, said that, you know, it agreed that we made a mistake in lowering that penalty in 2021 in this session will prioritize, you know, increasing that penalty back to where it was.

There was a lot of talk about school security and property tax relief at the beginning of the session.

Where are we on those?

School security is likely to make it to the governor's desk at this point.

You don't see a lot of you know, a large disagreement on that between the chambers.

You know, that proposal is going to include more money for mental health resources.

It is going to, at least as of this hour, I know things are shifting very quickly, but I would assume it would still have a provision that increases the armed presence in schools, whether that's in the form of a security guard or some other kind of armed personnel.

So school safety, as they're calling it, at least that's probably going to become law in some way.

I don't see a lot of, you know, snags there.

And then remind me the other one.

You mean property taxes?

Property taxes.

That is one of the big outstanding issues right now.

And there's big daylight between the two chambers on that.

You have the Senate pushing a plan that would increase the homestead exemption further.

And then you have the House pushing a plan that would focus on appraisal caps.

So capping the growth, you know, further reining in the growth of appraised values of homes and other forms of property.

And both sides are really dug in on that debate right now.

This is interesting.

Again, as we see off and on the Senate versus the House as it was maybe eight, ten years ago, I don't know whether it's more moderate versus more conservative, I guess you can say.

Fun to watch as a reporter.

Interesting to watch.

Fun and.

Interesting.

All right.

Yeah, very well said.

A diplomat.

Thank you very much, Patrick Svitek, primary political reporter.

You can read his stuff in the Texas Tribune.

Thanks.

Thank you.

And thank you for watching this edition of On the Record.

You can always watch any on the record show as well as download the podcast at KLRN.org.

And we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho