How to help the kids.

As more resources are discovered, we’ll update this page.

Protest

We had over a hundred people turn out in Ventura for our Families Belong Together Rally. Thanks to all who attended for taking an important step in the fight to help immigrants and their kids…visibly standing up and reminding our community that wrong is being done in our name.

Here’s more we can do to continue the momentum built by yesterday’s action rallies to stop the separation of children and families at the border.  Volunteer support is not allowed in detention centers and shelters for the unaccompanied children, but there are ways you can help the children and/or immigrant families.

Keep calling your elected representatives.

Keep up the pressure on their office staff, who will remind their bosses to get this done.
Latest calls and tiniest scripts (30 seconds or less) here.

Donate money

We can donate to eight organizations fighting this issue in one step here. This link also has information about each of these agencies if we want to contribute individually.  Congressman Joe Kennedy III‘s campaign is matching the first $25,000 donated.

• We Belong Together – women for common sense immigration policies
• United We Dream – the largest immigrant youth-led network in the country
• Womens Refugee Commission – advocating for the rights and protection of women, children, and youth fleeing violence and persecution
• ACLU – fighting attacks through the legal system
• Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) – protecting unaccompanied children who enter the US immigration system alone to ensure that no child appears in court without an attorney.
• Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project – providing asylum seekers with legal aid and community support across the country
• Human Rights First – helping refugees obtain asylum in the U.S.
• La Union del Pueblo Entero – founded by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, a community union that works in the Rio Grande Valley from the grassroots up

Other organizations that provide lawyers or services to immigrant kids and their parents:

• Center for Children’s Advocacy is the largest child legal rights group on the east coast. Donate and volunteer here.
• The Florence Project: This Arizona-based organization offers free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody. Donate here.
• RAICES: This Texas-based organization offers free and low-cost legal services to immigrant children and families.While legislation to help separated families crawls through Congress, here is a direct action:
  Help pay the bonds to get parents released here. Donate here and sign up as a volunteer here.
• Pueblo Sin Fronteras: This organization provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S. Donate here.
• Together Rising: This Virginia-based organization is helping provide legal assistance for 60 migrant children who were separated from their parents and are currently detained in Arizona. Donate here.
• Texas Civil Rights Project: This organization has been using legal advocacy and litigation to help families separated at the border. Donate here
• Border Angels: This California-based organization supports San Diego County’s immigrant population and focuses on issues related to the U.S.-Mexico border. Donate here.  Become a volunteer or intern here.
• Neta: This Texas-based grassroots organization helps asylum seekers on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Donate here.
• South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR): This project of the American Bar Association is currently supporting over 1,000 unaccom­panied children in detention centers across South Texas. Donate here.

Donate skill

Lawyers: The children running for their lives will not have legal support for any potential asylum, or other, hearing they will face. However, attorneys who can provide pro bono legal services for these children can find out how to to help these children here. Lawyers, find out which organizations provide services near you and apply to be added to their list of free legal service providers. Thanks!

Lawyers, Paralegals, Law Students!: A representative of the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project tweeted yesterday afternoon:  Attys, Paralegals, Law Students! If you speak Spanish & can aid detained parents & children in Texas (6-day stint), contact CARA Family Detention Project! The need is urgent! If you don’t speak Spanish but can find an interpreter-partner that wd help too.  If we call into any of those categories, we can learn more here.

Nurturing and Caring Foster Care Parents: When refugee and immigrant children arrive in the United States without a parent or loved one to provide the shelter, security and sustenance they deserve, Catholic Charities is one of the agencies that provides specialized foster care services. This foster care program for children leaving federal detention facilities is extremely important for children who are:

• Unable to name any family members or appropriate sponsors
• Facing prolonged immigration cases that make their future uncertain
• Hindered from returning to their home country in a timely manner
• Engaged in in-depth interviews or a gradual transition to family reunification
• At risk for and possible victims of trafficking, trauma or torture

To learn more about becoming a foster parent through Catholic Charities, visit our website here. All foster parents must meet eligibility requirements and pass a background check.

Donate money and/or goods.

The Florence Project, in Arizona, has put together a list of items we can send to comfort immigrant and refugee children in this Google Doc.

Find your local refugee resettlement agencies and donate goods here.

Write the appointed officials listed below.

(Print out copies of this letter.)

Our nation has a moral responsibility to protect children and treat them with basic decency, regardless of immigration status. The inhumane practice of separating children from parents as an immigration deterrent must stop. As a taxpayer funding this egregious neglect of duty, I urge you to take full and immediate responsibility for ensuring children’s well-being and safety. Keep families together. Stop locking them up. Sincerely, [name, state] (h/t)

• DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen
  Secretary of Homeland Security, Washington, D.C. 20528
•  Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan
   Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 500 12th St. SW, Washington, D.C. 20536
•  HHS Secretary Alex Azar
  Office of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20201
• Acting Assistant ACF Secretary Steven Wagner
  Administration for Children and Families, 200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20201
• ORR Director Scott Lloyd
  Office of Refugee Resettlement, Mary E. Switzer Building, 330 C ST SW, Washington DC 20201

Connect to information.

Join this Facebook group: Comfort For Kids In ICE Detention

A good source of information for immigrants is collated here.