IFT is one of the most comprehensive organizations meeting the needs of immigrant families. We also provide support and resources to the families we've reunited:

• Legal Counsel
• Medical 
• Housing
• Food Security 
• Transportation 
• Clothing
• PPE
• ESL (English) Classes
• Post Secondary Financial Aid for Tuition and Books

In addition we have programs for:

• Assistance to volunteers and partners on the border, primarily in El Paso, who are serving those affected by the Remain in Mexico, Migrant Protection Protocols. 
• Detention Support which expands work in detention prisons by providing funding for pro-bono legal services in rural Pennsylvania.  

 We are so grateful to those of you who have supported IFT with a donation in 2022, especially as this year has brought unprecedented fundraising challenges. With inflation impacting most folks' budgets and calls for donor support coming from all issues and all over the globe, it's been a challenging year for non-profits dependent upon fundraising to literally keep their lights on and services going.

We are proud that in 2022, we were able to fund $100,000 worth of legal services that resulted in a 99% success rate of non-deportation and pay 4 bonds. Release from detention prisons without bond is possible with legal representation.

We are also proud that we have been able to mobilize a humanitarian aid rapid response to the cold weather crisis creating challenges at the southern border, providing hot food, clothing, and hygiene items to asylum seekers awaiting entry into the United States in the El Paso area. The shelters we support provide stability and safety for migrant families while they prepare to join their friends and families elsewhere. We hope to continue supporting these projects throughout 2023. 

In addition to these 2 main projects,  we couldn't be more proud to announce our ESL program is entering it's 3rd year. 

We plan to continue all of this work and more in 2023, and we need your support! 

We hope you will consider a contribution to our work, by making a tax-deductible donation to Immigrant Families Together. You can donate online through
GoFundMe.  

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ift-general-fund

If you prefer to send a check, your donation can be made payable to Immigrant Families Together and mailed to: 

Immigrant Families Together

 c/o Julie Schwietert Collazo,

PO Box 7769, NY, NY 10116. 

2022

Immigrant Families Together is excited to announce that we have completed our process of discernment about our 2022 focus, goals, and work. 

Partners and colleagues in immigration advocacy led us in this intensive process, informing us with their assessments about greatest unmet needs, as well as overlooked fronts where immigration enforcement and detention will be playing out in the coming year. We are grateful for their guidance, time, labor, and expertise in leading us through this period of discernment. 

After reflecting deeply on these conversations, we have arrived at the decision to make a bold commitment to the support of and justice for women and girls who will be imprisoned in a detention center for females that is opening in 2022 in Pennsylvania. 

This focus expands upon the detention support program that we launched at the end of 2019, and seeks to make a dramatic, tangible impact by supporting local attorneys and activists who have been engaged in the long-term, intersectional labor of challenging the systemic and structural abuses of immigration detention. 

What this means specifically is: 

• IFT is funding the full annual salary of a full-time immigration attorney to represent detained women and girls. This will be a part of a new program dedicated to women's defense, adding capacity to the existing capabilities of our colleagues at Aldea - The People's Justice Center. 

• IFT is funding the full annual salary of a full-time assistant who will support this attorney representing detained women and girls. This is also a new staff position.

• IFT will be guided by our colleagues at Aldea - The People's Justice Center to scale up a detention support program for the women and girls imprisoned at the Pennsylvania detention center. This program will include the consistent, adequate provision of hygiene products and food. Without this support,  detained women and girls would be all but required to participate in the detention facility's "volunteer" program, which pays ONE DOLLAR PER DAY for their labor. At that rate, a woman or girl would need to work A FULL WEEK or longer to buy just one small bottle of shampoo. 

• IFT will collaborate with Aldea - The People's Justice Center to disseminate  information that keeps supporters up-to-date about the detention of asylum- seeking women and girls, and to offer opportunities to engage in advocacy and activism around this urgent issue. 

In addition to these new commitments, we will continue to provide support to the families for whom we posted bond both during and after the 2018 zero tolerance policy that resulted in the separation of thousands of families. To date, we have paid 124 bonds, totaling more than $1.18 million. The majority of the families for whom we posted bond are now self-supporting and are proceeding through their asylum cases before the immgiration court, though we continue to cover legal, housing, and grocery costs for some families. In addition, the ESL program we launched in 2021 is going strong, having just launched Level 2, which students attend three nights per week. We continue to provide case management support and COVID relief services to families and to border partners, which include regular shipments of PPE and information and support for accessing and receiving vaccines.