Fund will provide immediate relief to those individuals impacted by immigration detention in Louisiana & around the country
Freedom for Immigrants is set to launch a rapid response support fund to meet the escalating need that immigrants are facing around the country as the Trump administration continues to implement a brutal anti-immigrant agenda.
The first $2,500 raised will go directly towards expenses incurred by those responding to the current detention expansion in Louisiana. At least four new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prisons — all run by for-profit private prison companies — have popped up in rural communities in the state since Fall 2018.
“We are witnessing not only the rapid growth of immigration detention, but also more and more people are being locked up in remote areas, far from lawyers and loved ones and left to suffer rights abuses with little to no oversight,” said Sofia Casini, Southern Regional Coordinator with Freedom for Immigrants. “The increasing isolation of immigrants is intentional, as it functions as a dirty tactic by ICE to break the spirit of those in its custody. Community members must be able to monitor what’s happening inside these jails and prisons and provide critical support to them and their families.”
In the long term, Freedom for Immigrants is working to open a house in Louisiana to provide short-term housing for people released from immigration detention and their families, as well as facilitate visitation to further assist those impacted by the cruelty of this detention expansion. All additional contributions to the fund will be allocated accordingly, such as purchasing calling cards for a hunger striker whose rights are being abused or providing emergency food and shelter for a family seeking asylum.
The launch of the support fund coincides with the nationwide growth of our visitation and monitoring program. Freedom for Immigrants welcomes Dania Darwish as Regional Program Coordinator in the Northeast and Sofia Casini as Regional Program Coordinator in the South.
Click here to support the Rapid Response Support Fund.