How you can help the refugees and asylum seekers

© 2019 Christy K Robinson

 
 

Many people have asked how they can help support the great needs of the men, women, and children who are fleeing government violence, drug gangs, rape, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, climate-caused drought, and grinding poverty in Central America. 

Here are my suggestions.

Volunteers of all ages, even children, are eager to prepare and serve food to the asylum seekers.
Bilingual volunteers help us "un poquito Espanol" folks to communicate with our guests.

These are suggestions for tax-deductible charities that directly work with asylum seekers who have been processed and released by ICE. Click the colored links to go to their donation pages.

International Rescue Committee: "Since 1994, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Phoenix has worked to provide vital services for refugees, immigrants, vulnerable populations, and the Phoenix community as a whole. America’s proudest moments have always been when we welcomed those fleeing life-threatening violence and persecution and offered them an o pportunity to restart their lives." Website: https://www.rescue.org/united-states/phoenix-az 

Lutheran Social Services organizes volunteers, works with ICE to route buses to host churches, solicits in-kind donations, accepts new clothing and underwear, provides travel assistance and social work, and much more. Some local groups have an Amazon wishlist for supplies that you can pay for and have delivered here, where they're needed. There's a group that provides "burner" phones, and another that fills backpacks with essential supplies for immediate travel to sponsor families.

The mobile showers trailer is set up at host sites so immigrants can have their first shower in weeks.

One Hundred Angels provides medical checkups and treatment.

Doctor interviews a family just released from ICE detention.
Faces have been obscured for their security.

Red Cross provides cots, blankets, towels, hygiene packs, diapers, etc. 

One of the greatest needs of asylum seekers and immigrants is for pro bono or low-cost immigration legal services. Immigrant Legal Resource Center is one of many such agencies, and they have a high rating with Charity Navigator.
If you’re not quite sure where to donate, ActBlue has set up a couple of donation portals to help kids at the border and families separated and detained. Your donation will be split between roughly a dozen organizations all at once.

There's a group that is unrelated to what we do (we help asylum seekers processed and released by ICE) that has been in the news lately, namely, No More Deaths. You may recall that some of their volunteers have been arrested and tried for their humanitarian efforts and for trespassing on federal land. They leave jugs of lifesaving water along desert trackways, so immigrants who are walking through the harsh Sonoran Desert can find sustenance. Border Patrol and "hatriot" groups are known for destroying these water caches.  

 

On a more local level, my local group of volunteers has a PayPal account for the purchase of rotisserie chickens, boxes of fresh fruit, and ziploc bags for the travel food packs. Most of the cost of the food we prepare comes from our own wallets, though. And the time necessary to cook the food, drive it to the host site, and serve it is not something we seek compensation for--it's our privilege.