18 Impactful Ways to Help Families at the Border!
Immigrant children are dying in federal custody. Children in detention are being denied basic supplies like soap and blankets—and the Trump administration says that’s fine. Trump threatened then delayed mass immigration raids across the country, using the plan as a bargaining chip with Congress, while families are left in an ever-heightened state of uncertainty. While Congress is continually being called to act, you can take other kinds of actions to help immigrants in transition, in detention, and in crisis. Here are 18 ways.
1. March and protest. Japanese internment camp survivors recently protested outside of an army base and former internment camp at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where migrant children will likely soon be housed, setting an example of how people can show up and speak out. The Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps event included more than 800 protests worldwide, bringing thousands to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.
2. Donate to organizations that help immigrants:
3. Helping pay immigrants’ bail is one of the fastest ways to help those who have been separated from their children, advocates say. Community bail funds can reuse the money paid if the person shows up for their court appearance. LALDEF has recently established a ‘Bond & Deportation Fund’ that you can contribute to.
4. Help pay for immigration counsel through LALDEF, IRAP (the International Refugee Assistance Project), The Florence Project (which provides free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody in Arizona), Al Otro Lado (a bi-national, direct legal services organization serving indigent deportees, migrants, and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico), or find organizations in your state by Googling “indigent immigration defense” along with your state’s name.
5. Host an asylum-seeker or refugee in your home, with a group like Room for Refugees and Interfaith RISE, that supports refugee resettlement in Central New Jersey.
6. Immigration is federal law, but all politics are local. Tell your local law enforcement and government officials not to partner with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for raids or any other purpose.
7. Support local and national groups working to help immigrants, like Immigrant Families Together, RAICES, and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Local groups often hold community demonstrations and provide sanctuary, transportation, court accompaniment, and resettlement programs to immigrant populations, and they are in need of volunteers. Contact a local group and ask them what they need most.
8. Enhance your impact by creating a fundraiser. Immigrant Families Together offers a long list of potential fundraiser formats on its site, ranging from movie nights to silent auctions.
9. Volunteer locally to mentor and tutor English-language learners. By teaching English as a second language, you can help people navigate American culture more successfully.
10. Join a pen pal or visitation program for detained immigrants, such as the ones run by First Friends of New Jersey and New York.
11. Immigrant-focused groups are creating resources to help people know their constitutional rights if confronted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Learn these rules and share them widely in your neighborhood and online.
12. Use art, music, social media, conversation, and other expressions and connections to draw attention to these issues.
13. If you work in education, create school curricula to help young people learn about human and, specifically, immigrant rights. Teaching Tolerance offers learning materials that facilitate the exploration of topics like race and immigration in the classroom and “explore the value of a diverse society.”
14. Donate air miles. Lawyer Moms of America is one group that contributes airline miles and funds to people in border shelters. This enables those who have achieved asylum to leave and makes space for new arrivals.
15. Donate household goods. Organizations like the International Rescue Committee and U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants give people the basic supplies they need to establish a new life in the U.S.
16. If you can go to the border, you can join many others taking direct action there, from volunteer doctors and lawyers to those leaving water and supplies in the desert for immigrants.
17. Explore how we got here. To learn more about how the U.S. government can respond to the border crisis and the root causes of migration and displacement in the Northern Triangle (the Central American countries Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala feeding much of the migration), check out this blueprint from Human Rights First and other organizations. A few of the recommendations for the U.S. are “restoring timely and orderly” asylum processing at ports of entry and an increase in permitted refugees, immigration judges, and case management services for immigrants (such as the Family Case Management Program, which was terminated by the Trump administration in 2017).
18. Finally, call your representatives every day, to ask that the border crisis be put at the front of the agenda of Congress, until it is solved. For this, first find your House and Senate representatives (local office phone number as well as D.C. office phone number). Save their numbers to your phone -- this makes daily calling much easier. Then call daily and request that your representatives:
Thank you for all you do. Remember to practice self-care and do what you can, today.
1. March and protest. Japanese internment camp survivors recently protested outside of an army base and former internment camp at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where migrant children will likely soon be housed, setting an example of how people can show up and speak out. The Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps event included more than 800 protests worldwide, bringing thousands to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.
2. Donate to organizations that help immigrants:
- LALDEF - The Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund
- RAICES - The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services
- KIND - Kids in Need of Defense
- Project Reunify of The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, the only non-governmental organization authorized to inspect U.S. detention facilities holding minors and interview the minors held in those facilities.
- Immigrant Families Together
- Texas Civil Rights Project
- Annunciation House which serves the poorest of the poor in the El Paso-Juarez border community. Migrants and refugees are the primary constituency of Annunciation House.
- ASAP - The Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, which assists families crossing the border to seek safety in the United States through online community support, emergency legal aid, and nationwide systemic reform.
3. Helping pay immigrants’ bail is one of the fastest ways to help those who have been separated from their children, advocates say. Community bail funds can reuse the money paid if the person shows up for their court appearance. LALDEF has recently established a ‘Bond & Deportation Fund’ that you can contribute to.
4. Help pay for immigration counsel through LALDEF, IRAP (the International Refugee Assistance Project), The Florence Project (which provides free legal services to men, women, and unaccompanied children in immigration custody in Arizona), Al Otro Lado (a bi-national, direct legal services organization serving indigent deportees, migrants, and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico), or find organizations in your state by Googling “indigent immigration defense” along with your state’s name.
5. Host an asylum-seeker or refugee in your home, with a group like Room for Refugees and Interfaith RISE, that supports refugee resettlement in Central New Jersey.
6. Immigration is federal law, but all politics are local. Tell your local law enforcement and government officials not to partner with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials for raids or any other purpose.
7. Support local and national groups working to help immigrants, like Immigrant Families Together, RAICES, and the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Local groups often hold community demonstrations and provide sanctuary, transportation, court accompaniment, and resettlement programs to immigrant populations, and they are in need of volunteers. Contact a local group and ask them what they need most.
8. Enhance your impact by creating a fundraiser. Immigrant Families Together offers a long list of potential fundraiser formats on its site, ranging from movie nights to silent auctions.
9. Volunteer locally to mentor and tutor English-language learners. By teaching English as a second language, you can help people navigate American culture more successfully.
10. Join a pen pal or visitation program for detained immigrants, such as the ones run by First Friends of New Jersey and New York.
11. Immigrant-focused groups are creating resources to help people know their constitutional rights if confronted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Learn these rules and share them widely in your neighborhood and online.
12. Use art, music, social media, conversation, and other expressions and connections to draw attention to these issues.
13. If you work in education, create school curricula to help young people learn about human and, specifically, immigrant rights. Teaching Tolerance offers learning materials that facilitate the exploration of topics like race and immigration in the classroom and “explore the value of a diverse society.”
14. Donate air miles. Lawyer Moms of America is one group that contributes airline miles and funds to people in border shelters. This enables those who have achieved asylum to leave and makes space for new arrivals.
15. Donate household goods. Organizations like the International Rescue Committee and U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants give people the basic supplies they need to establish a new life in the U.S.
16. If you can go to the border, you can join many others taking direct action there, from volunteer doctors and lawyers to those leaving water and supplies in the desert for immigrants.
17. Explore how we got here. To learn more about how the U.S. government can respond to the border crisis and the root causes of migration and displacement in the Northern Triangle (the Central American countries Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala feeding much of the migration), check out this blueprint from Human Rights First and other organizations. A few of the recommendations for the U.S. are “restoring timely and orderly” asylum processing at ports of entry and an increase in permitted refugees, immigration judges, and case management services for immigrants (such as the Family Case Management Program, which was terminated by the Trump administration in 2017).
18. Finally, call your representatives every day, to ask that the border crisis be put at the front of the agenda of Congress, until it is solved. For this, first find your House and Senate representatives (local office phone number as well as D.C. office phone number). Save their numbers to your phone -- this makes daily calling much easier. Then call daily and request that your representatives:
- Demand the immediate closure of CBP detention camps; the immediate transfer of all children, single adults, and families in CPB detention camps to ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement), HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), or other shelters; the immediate reunification of families upon this transfer.
- Work with educators, child psychologists, lawyers, and other immigration advocates and leaders in our country to write and then pass legislation to uphold national uniform standards of humane care for everyone that comes across our border and is detained and ensure a system of humane care during the refugee and asylum seeking process as soon as those persons cross our border.
- Call an immediate congressional hearing on the human rights abuse and concentration camps at the border to publicly prosecute and fire all CBP and ICE leadership and officials for atrocious and criminal abuse of immigrants. (Before you call, find out which committees your representatives sit on so you can make your ask more specific).
- Stop giving increased funds to the government agencies responsible for the rise in detentions.
- Support legislation such as
- Shut Down Child Prison Camps Act and Families Not Facilities Act (HR1069/S397)
- Humanitarian Standards for Individuals in Customs and Border Protection Custody Act (HR3239, Ruiz, Raul [D-CA-36])
- Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2019 (S662, Sen. Hirono, Mazie K. [D-HI])
- Child Trafficking Victims Protection and Welfare Act of 2019 (S661, Sen. Hirono, Mazie K. [D-HI])
- The Central America Reform and Enforcement Act of 2019 (CARE Act) (S1445, Sen. Schumer, Charles “Chuck,” [D-NY])
- Central American Women and Children Protection Act of 2019 (HR2836, Torres, Norma [CA-D-35])
- Keep Families Together Act (HR541, Rep. Nadler, Jerrold [D-NY-10])
- Northern Triangle and Border Stabilization Act of 2019 (HR3524, Rep. Lofgren, [D-CA])
- Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) – this act has passed, but urge your representative to protect it
- REPEAL: Section 1325. More info here.
Thank you for all you do. Remember to practice self-care and do what you can, today.