Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund Has Merged with NorCal Resist
As many of you know, the Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund (BAIBF) has joined forces with NorCal Resist. After five years of work, the BAIBF concluded that two organizations doing similar work in Northern California were no longer needed, and that noncitizens held by ICE would be better served by combining our efforts. NorCal Resist will take on the BAIBF’s assets and use them to keep paying bond for undocumented immigrants.
We could not ask for a better partner to carry our work forward than NorCal Resist, a grassroots, community-led non-profit that fights for a safer and better future by supporting undocumented immigrants through bond payments, know your rights workshops, deportation defense, and financial assistance. If you would like to keep supporting the BAIBF’s work, please consider giving to NorCal Resist’s bond fund! In today’s political climate, we must keep one another safe through collective action and mutual aid.
Each year, thousands of immigrants—many of them lawful U.S. residents—are arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and held in detention centers while they try to fight to stay in the country.
Immigrant detention separates people from their families and communities, puts their homes, jobs, public benefits, and healthcare at risk, and keeps them from properly defending their right to remain in their home. Because detention limits access to high-quality legal representation, it denies people the chance to make their legal case for staying in the U.S. Many immigrants are granted bonds yet remain detained simply because they cannot afford to pay them.
By raising money to help post bonds for those who cannot otherwise afford them, we empower individuals to resist deportation and return to their homes, jobs, families, and communities while they await their hearings.
José
José is a father who was held by ICE for nine months and could not care for his daughter. He came to the U.S. at age 15, more than two decades ago. He was granted a $20,000 bond, but raising that sum was out of reach for him personally. As a result, he stayed in detention, unable to defend himself or give a judge the crucial evidence that might have allowed him to obtain permanent legal status.
After nine months, we were able to pay most of José's bond and secure his release. Today José is staying with his cousin while he prepares for his July hearing. He can now see his 9-year-old daughter and gather evidence to try to remain in the United States with his daughter and the community he has been part of for more than two decades.
*Figures sourced from the Northern California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and TRAC Immigration.