Father's Day: Family Beyond Bars and Borders

This Father’s Day, write a letter to a community member in immigration detention, unable to celebrate Father’s Day with their kids or loved ones. Help break the debilitating isolation our community members endure and uplift the resilience of those facing detention and deportation. Let’s extend ourselves as a family - we are not whole as a community until they are released!

Here are 5 stories of community members representing hundreds of thousands of people locked up by a system bent on diminishing their humanity, including people who have been criminalized by racist policing. You can also help #FreeOurFathers by contributing to the Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund to get people out of detention and back with their families.

Raul was arrested during a routine check in with ICE. Raul is from Guatemala and has been in the US for over 20 years. Raul is married and has 4 children for whom he was the sole provider for. His wife has now had to become the provider for our 2 youngest kids, by taking on two jobs. Raul is a very giving father, husband, and brother. He is very dedicated to his family and works long hours to provide for us. As any other person, Raul has made mistakes in his past, but unfortunately our immigration authorities are trying to hold him accountable for those mistakes even after having already paid his dues to society. We are fighting to bring Raul home because he deserves to remain in the United States with us.

José is a father, who for the past eight months of detention, has been unable to care for his daughter, who currently lives with her mom. Help set José free by contributing to his bond fund. Jose moved to the U.S. when he was 15 years old--more than two decades ago. However, skyrocketing rent forced him to choose between paying his rent and providing child support to his daughter. He chose to pay child support and had no choice but to move into his car. After someone reported to police that he was living in his vehicle, he was taken into custody, where he was then transferred to a detention center where he remains. He was granted a $20,000 bond but raising that amount is personally out of his reach.

Noelia was detained at the border and he is currently detained at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia. Noelia identifies as a gay man for now, and also feels like "a woman trapped in a man's body." He has not had the safe space to explore his own gender identity in Guatemala, and just started doing so when coming to the US at age 36. His next hearing date is June 25th. Noelia is a loving person. Despite all the abuse and attacks he has experienced and continues to experience in detention, he still has the biggest heart and is in huge demand for love, acceptance, and community.

Aaron was detained by ICE from jail, he is currently detained in Florence Correctional Center in Florence, Arizona. Aaron fled Liberia as a refugee when he was about 10 years old, after witnessing & experiencing horrific violence against himself and his family. He grew up in a refugee camp, and came to the US when he was about 21 years old. While in prison in 2016 serving a 16 month sentence, Aaron was diagnosed with PTSD for the first time in his life. For the first time, Aaron began receiving treatment to deal with the anger, depression, and anxiety caused from his PTSD. Aaron is the main support for his US citizen fiancee and her 3 sons. Aaron's youngest stepson has a heart defect, and requires constant medical care. Aaron's sons and family really miss him during this time.

Alexey was detained during a routine check in at DHS' office in San Francisco. He's 43 years old, from Russia, he has a wife and two children- a son and a daughter. He spent all his time with the kids; took them to school and back and evening reading before sleep was an obligatory ritual. All the free time the family had was spent together going to the ocean, hiking, visiting libraries, museums, parks and enjoying family bicycle rides. For almost 20 years he developed his construction business in Russia. In 2014 he and his family had to stay in the USA to ask for asylum because of the persecution from the corrupt Russian government. His business in Russia was raided and bankrupted. Being here he devoted himself to the family, while his wife, Anna was studying and then working hard to start a new career
Rethinking his business experience, Alexey started a new venture, not long before his arrest in 2017. He was excited with an idea of bringing unique Russian dietary supplements to the US market. Alexey has been in detention for ten months now, Alexey is absorbed in studying psychology, and recently he started learning Spanish to talk to his multiple friends in custody.

If you would like to write physical letters or host some friends for letter-writing, you can mail your letters to Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity at 310 8th St. #310, Oakland CA 94607. Blue or black ink only.