Our neighbors are being torn from their families

In the past few months our team has answered call after call. From rapid response members who've been up all night. From families who don't know where their parent weas taken. Sometimes from poeple calling from inside detention. All asking for the same thing.

One day, a family is sitting together at the dinner table. The next, a parent is gone.

Every day ICE takes people from their cars, their front foors, from court appointments, and from ICE check-ins they are mandated to attend. The cruelity is the poiunt, and the point is racial.

Detention kills poeple. At leas 30 people died in ICE custody last year, the most in two decades, and this year it could be worse. Detention is violence. Detention is injuman. Detention must be stopped.

The trauma follows families home. Into their routines. Children are left confused and scared asking: ¿Cuándo regresa mamá? ¿Dónde está papá?

This is a mental health crisis, and it creates ripple effects across our communities.

"When my dad left me, I was sad and scared"

This drawing and letter were made by the daughter of one of our clients after her father was detained.

In her letter, she wrote:

“My dad takes me to school and to the park… and we eat ice cream together. We play soccer and volleyball… and he lets me win. My dad is the best dad ever."

Children see empty chairs, missed birthdays, and bedtime without mamá or papá. When our clients are released and return to their families, they carry the trauma with them. This is the reality that our friends, colleagues, neighbors are living.

We're fighting back
What’s happening to families in our communities is not normal. People are being taken from the lives they've built and the people they love. We refuse to live in a world where that's normal, and we're doing everything we can to keep people out of detention.

While this kind of abuse and cruelty continues, the emotional harm done to families isn't talked about enough.

One of our clients was questioned by a local cop about his imimgration status. In California, SB 54 bars local law enforcement from asking. It happened anyway and it ended with him in ICE custody.

This isn't one agrency acting alone. The system works together. A local cop can be the first link in a chain that ends in a detention center. There's no single place to win this, and the moment calls us to be in as many as we can. This takes two kinds of work at once. The legal fith, and the healing.

Our legal team litigates removal cases at every leval, from the imigration courts to federal appeals. We bring people home. We keep families together. Our Behavioral Health team stands with families carrying the fear that this, or worse, could happen again.

This is what we've done together:

We've brought four people home. We're fighting to bring more. We can't do this alone. Please join us.

What your donation can do?

Bring someone home
Reunite families who have been torn apart
Stand with children waiting for a parent to come home
Fund removal defense at every level
Serce families carrying fear and trauma

Why SJC?

Social Justice Collaborative is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to protecting the rights of migrants facing the risk of deportation. We work to keep families together and ensure our communities have access to legal representation and justice. Beyond the legal work, we fight for immigrant rights and celebrate the strength and diversity of immigrant communities.

Your donation helps us respond to our community's needs where they’re needed most.

If you'd like to support this or a specific program, feel free to email Mariela Granados, SJC's Development and Engagement Coordinator, at mariela@socialjusticecollaborative.org.

Keeping Families Together