How to help the kids and the caravan – updated.

Updated 11/29/18

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~Robert Kennedy, June 6, 1966, Cape Town S. Africa (Thanks, Michelle at Small Deeds Done)

Links for caravan compiled by members of the of Action Together Network. Updates can be sent to: actiontogethertwincities@gmail.com

Use Social Media to help travelers in the caravan.

• PHONE CALLS: You can make phonecalls to your legislators and sign petitions to protest against illegal and unjust efforts to bar arrivals from seeking asylum in the States through misuse of the military, an ever-narrowing definition of what constitutes a legitimate asylum claim, and the proposal to spend billions on a borderwall
• SOCIAL MEDIA: You can use #socialnetworking to support and share their story, to counteract the racist and scaremongering narratives being spread by the right.
  • You can use #socialnetworking to point out the injustice and hypocrisy of denying migrants who are not in the asylum-seeking category the opportunity of seeking better economic opportunities in the States when US military #history has actively contributed to their state of disadvantage.
  • The US has actively contributed to (and continues to contribute to) #climatechange which is making traditional agricultural livelihoods untenable.
  • Many of the critics of immigration will be descended from ancestors who came here as immigrants, many of whom were seeking a better life rather than escaping persecution.

• You can follow posts by the two groups accompanying them, Pueblo Sin Frontreras & Al Otro Lado and/or share any of Emily Ross’s posts on Immigrant & Refugee Rights Network to your own groups and public pages. Stories and photos are most effective in bypassing debate and reaching people’s humanitarian impulses.

You can donate or volunteer to help the caravan.

• Donate to these groups traveling with the caravan here. 
  • Pueblo Sin Fronteras: This organization provides humanitarian aid and shelter to migrants on their way to the U.S. Donate here.
  • Al Otro Lado: They are a bi-national, direct legal services organization serving indigent deportees, migrants, and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico. The bulk of their services are immigration-related.  Donate here.
• Volunteer:  You can #volunteer to travel to the border with one of several solidarity/sanctuary caravans to stand with the travelers and act as witnesses to their treatment. Some of the groups also have remote-support needs.
  • La Huelga – this one is focused on volunteers at the border. 
  •  SanctuaryCaravan.org,– this one also offers volunteer opportunities for local organizing or fundraising, housing migrant families, or housing volunteers by the border. They need lawyers, photographers/writers/videographers, artists, graphic designers, tech support people.
  • Border Support – wide range of needs, with on-site and remote support opportunities.
  • Al Otro Lado: They need immigration attorneys, paralegals, doctors, nurses, EMTs, social workers, mental health professionals, art therapists, and nice people who want to help out! No special skills are required to volunteer – just let us know a little more about you in the application. As volunteer needs arise, we will email them out to the list. Volunteer opportunities are available in Tijuana, Los Angeles, and remotely. Sign up here.
• Donate to the workers taking food and supplies out onto the Brownsville Matamoros International Bridge. 
  • Compassionate Relief for Asylum Seekers
  • Kitchen for asylum seekers.

Help new immigrants granted entrance to the US.

Since October 26, Immigration Authorities have been vetting families seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border and releasing them – without resources or transportation – at the Port-of-Entry and other locations in San Diego. Desperate and in need of help, they are arriving at a Migrant Shelter in San Diego run by the San Diego Rapid Response Network (SDRRN) , a coalition of human rights and service organizations working for the protection of immigrants and their families.

• Donate to support the Emergency Migrant Shelter here.
• Buy specific items that the shelter needs from Amazon here.

For both kids and caravans, here’s how to 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
• Al Otro Lado – serves indigent deportees, migrants, and refugees in Tijuana & Los Angeles
• 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 on Facebook, here. 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/volunteer here with Immigrant Families Together.

Donate here, volunteer here to help.

Donate your frequent flyer miles

Hundreds of children remain separated from their families, and it’s looking like the government could care less. One of the ways we can help turn the tide is by donating **frequent flyer miles** (and other needed items) to advocacy groups like Michigan Support Circle: “We help support the reunification of families by providing rides, housing, clothing and other essentials once the families have been released.” We can enquire here for more info. Also, check out hellovuelo

Be a penpal to immigrants in detention

Being in detention is a lonely experience.  In addition to last week’s long list of volunteer opportunities and needed in-kind donations, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (https://www.lirs.org/connect-with-a-pen-pal-in-detention), First Friends of NJ and NY (https://firstfriendsnjny.org/volunteer-2/), and the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project (http://www.qdep.org/volunteer/) have pen pal programs, so we and our kids can write letters to immigrants in detention centers.  Visit the individual sites for more information.

Help PROJECT LIFELINE.

Since the US government is either unable or unwilling to provide for basic needs of immigrant detainees – sufficient water, food, hygiene products, blankets and warm clothes, humanitarian relief organization, PROJECT LIFELINE, is declaring the crisis and taking first action to help where our government has fallen short.  They are planning two caravans, one leaving from Houston and another from San Antonio and need to collect enough supplies to fill an 18-wheeler (semi) truck and 20-30 cars / trucks. We can contribute to their Amazon wishlist link, then share with our friends on social media.
Their Facebook page is here and their email is projectlifeline2018@gmail.com.

Donate or voluteer with Project Reunify.

Contact here. Facebook page to share here.

• To represent all detained minors in the Flores case,
• To locate forcibly separated immigrant children,
• Conduct legal & mental health interviews,
• Reunite them with their parents and relatives, and
• Prevent unlawful deportation without hearings.

Babysit.

EveryChildReturned.com gives us another way to bring notice to the displaced families.  “This website contains an evolving list of every location reported by major press outlets to be caring for or placing separated babies and children. We call on concerned citizens to take a shift by choosing a facility near them and making time each week to sit watch — for an hour or a few — until every child has been reunited.”  Let’s take a look and see where we can help.

Talk about it. A lot. Not everyone listens to the news.

According to CBS News, 90% of Democrats polled find the practice of separating kids and families to be unacceptable. Republicans are “more divided” with 39% saying it’s unacceptable and 1 in 5 saying they have not heard enough about it to say either way. If someone in your circle hasn’t heard about this, tell them, and tell them that you’re not standing for it.

Do you have computer skills?

CALLING ALL TECHIES!  RAICES, the Immigrants’ Rights group working to reunite families separated at the border, needs us. We can help build a database to  #ReuniteTheFamilies! They are looking for UX/UE Designers, HTML, CSS, JS, NODE JS, Python, C++, Ruby, Angular JS, Docker, MongoDB, CouchDB, MySQL, Postgres, Riak ESPECIALLY. While the first priority is connecting the adults with legal aid so they can process through the system quickly and be reunited with their children, RAICES is also looking for an advisory board and a list of tech volunteers to call upon for future projects. If we have technology skills, or can refer someone who does we can check out the Crisis Code website and sign up here:  https://www.crisiscode.com/ or contact Erin DeRuggiero at erin@crisiscode.com

Share yourself.

Give detained immigrants hope by becoming a detention visitation volunteer, a Freedom for Immigrants hotline volunteer, or a pen pal. (Postcards to Voters!) Sign up here for opportunities.

Teach your own kids empathy.

With this story pouring out of every smartphone, television and radio in our country, our children may be worried about the idea that kids are being taken from their parents. Parents may need to reassure their kids that they are safe, but there are other topics of conversation that can help our kids keep future children safe. By talking about empathy and kindness with our kids we can raise kind, empathic people who won’t let this happen to the next generation’s children.

Hold corporate collaborators responsible.

Sleeping Giants (who leads the charge against companies who advertise on Breitbart) and GrabYourWallet (aka Shannon Coulter who leads the boycotting of Trump-related products) have discovered the names of two companies are financially benefiting from the child separation policy: : A) MVM Inc. (Twitter: @MVMINC Phone: (571)223-4500), and B) General Dynamics (Twitter: @GDMS “Ethics helpline”: 800-433-8442).  Let’s contact them by phone, Twitter, or by using the email addresses listed here to tell them what we think:

lryan@generaldynamics.com
Carol.Smith@gd-ms.com,
DDuBard@nassco.com
david.hench@gdbiw.com
Mark.Meudt@gdit.com
porterr@gdls.com
rafael.moreno@gdels.com
heidi.fedak@gulfstream.com
heinz.aebi@jetaviation.ch
laurie.vanbrocklin@gd-ots.com
dbarrett@gdeb.com

Here’s an email template helpfully provided by Shannon.

Hello,
It has come to my attention that your business is holding immigrant children in jails. They are children and asylum seekers. They should not be separated from their parents and they shouldn’t be in concentration camps. Please ask your leadership to back out of this contract as there is no way to justify this.

Thanks,
[You]

Protest

Check out our events listing for the latest protests in this area. There’s a big one coming up on June 30th.

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.

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 on Facebook, here. 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

Translators of Meso-American languages.
RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services)  needs volunteer translators “who speak Meso-American indigenous languages (e.g. zapotec, nahua, ma’am, quich’e, maya, mixe, mixteco– not Spanish).”  Do you know anybody? They don’t need to be in Texas, or even in the US. They can translate remotely. For more info or to help, email: volunteer@raicestexas.org 

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!

Sign up to volunteer with L4GG and/or the L4GG Foundation here.