How a Network of Moms Is Posting Bail for Immigrants in Detention and Reuniting Families
NewsPoliticsIn June, a New York woman named Julie Schwietert Collazo heard a news story about Yeni Gonzalez-Garcia, a woman from Guatemala detained at the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, while her three children were detained at the East Harlem Cayuga Center in New York as a result of the Trump administration’s brutal policy of family separation. She learned that a $7,500-bond stood between the reunion of Gonzalez-Garcia and her kids and immediately launched a fundraiser, paid Gonzalez-Garcia’s bond, and organized a caravan to transport her to New York. Collazo, a freelance writer, raised $50,000 and launched Immigrant Families Together, a network that stretches across the nation to post bond and offer aid to families separated by the administration. Since June, Immigrant Families Together (IFT) has posted bond for about 50 families, and works with around 100 families across the country to help them navigate the byzantine immigration justice system and offers them basic support by ensuring families have food, shelter, and clothing.
Their organization is run by a network of what Los Angeles-based IFT organizer Casey Revkin calls “normal” people, mostly moms, across the country. While other, more established organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services offer essential services to immigrant communities, IFT is one of many smaller groups providing a smaller, but equally vital service: posting bond and connecting people with necessary resources while their cases proceed.
Revkin recently spoke to Jezebel about the bond process, how the IFT volunteer network works, and what migrant families need after they have been released from detention.
JEZEBEL: What happened after Julie posted Yeni’s bond, and how did Immigrant Families Together come together?
REVKIN: Yeni came with a list of other women who were in detention with her, so we raised more money for bonds for more women in the same Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. Their kids were all over the country and so we organized caravans to different places. We didn’t want to be too public about it because we were afraid of crazy racists showing up and trying to hurt these women, but we needed to reach out to people. So I thought: who do I know in Arkansas? Who might I know who might know someone in Arkansas? We did that for ten mothers, and it was pretty incredible the way people would come together to find someone.
And then the reunification deadline happened and [most] families were reunited by Judge [Dana] Sabraw’s order. Our mission sort of shifted to taking care of these now-reunited families: families that had been separated, been in detention for weeks and often months, and were just given a bus ticket and a sandwich and sent on their way. We had a team in the Dallas bus station that was identifying families and approaching them: Oh someone’s going to be in the Memphis bus station at 4 in the morning. Would you go and meet them and bring them some supplies and maybe give them $40, some food, some diapers? It was kind of amazing how that worked out. We didn’t always find everyone–sometimes the bus was really late, sometimes the bus would come through and we didn’t see a family—but it was pretty incredible how people came together. We did that for about three weeks.