Family Reunification

Together Rising has distributed every penny of the $11,331,773.29 we’ve raised to the following organizations to reunify and advocate for separated families:

Al Otro Lado, $250,000.00 on 11/7/23

Al Otro Lado (AOL) has been a trusted partner of Together Rising for years in the work to reunify separated migrant families at the Mexico/US border. AOL’s continued mission, especially with the ending of Title 42, is to ensure that asylum seekers will not be turned away at the port of entry and will not be deported to other areas of the US illegally. Our promise to not stop until all families are reunited is shared by AOL and a grant of $250k in 2023 will be put towards that goal.

Justice In Motion, $176,000.00 on 3/27/23

Justice In Motion (JIM) continues to work to defend the rights of thousands of migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua each year. Via JIM’s Defender Network, defenders from the aforementioned regions (which currently includes more than 40 organizations) partner with US lawyers to advocate for parents separated from their children at the U.S. border, migrant workers exploited by U.S. employers, and children seeking safety from harm.

Al Otro Lado, $771,650.00 on 5/4/22

To continue boots-on-the-ground efforts to find, advocate for, and reunify separated families.

Respond Crisis Translation, $52,000.00 on 3/29/22

To provide a Training Programs Lead, which will allow the organization to train close to 1,000 interpreters and translators, representing over 100 languages, in trauma-informed interpreting and translating. It also allows for an Indigenous Languages Training Project Coordinator and an addition to the financial team to maximize impact.

Al Otro Lado, $81,347.52 on 4/5/21

To continue boots-on-the-ground efforts to find, advocate for, and reunify separated families.

Justice in Motion, $302,000.00 on 3/11/21

To continue efforts, through The Defender Network, to search and find additional parents who have been separated from their children.

Al Otro Lado, $245,072.40 on 3/11/21

To effectuate the return of 38 parents for reunification with their children with whom they were separated, including but not limited to travel fees, finding sponsors, living expenses, and mental health services.

Safe Passage Project, $56,000.00 on 3/11/21

To provide advocates that will represent refugee and unaccompanied children after they are released from detention and to provide the children with critical social work services in connection with health, educational, mental health challenges.

Justice in Motion, $250,000.00 on 10/26/20

To continue efforts, through its Defender Network, to search and find the parents who have been separated from their children. This grant aligns directly with the news in the media about the “unreachable” parents of the 545 children still not found and reunited.

National Center for Youth Law, $456,705.00 on 9/14/20

To provide a full-time employee for three years to support Neha Desai, the director of the Immigration group. As counsel under the Flores settlement since 1985, NCYL has unique access rights and focuses its work solely on unaccompanied kids.

Aldea – The People’s Justice Center, $100,000.00 on 8/3/20

For researching and strategizing ways to drive litigation efforts to a successful end that results in the release of families in no other way but together. For advocacy and support in all detention matters, including needs for clothing, food, and hygiene items.

Al Otro Lado, $200,200.77 on 1/28/20

For financial assistance and mental health services for the 6 new reunified families, to hire an attorney in San Diego to help with detained representation, and to hire a new staff member to coordinate training of pro bono attorneys to represent separated and detained families.

Al Otro Lado, $20,000.00 on 1/16/20

To provide the necessary financial resources to prepare for and bring 6 families unlawfully deported to Guatemala and separated from their children back to the United States to begin the court-approved reunification process.

Al Otro Lado, $120,750.00 on 12/30/19

For financial assistance for 27 reunified refugee families during the wait for Employment Authorization Documents, and infrastructure improvements for Al Otro Lado to enable more effective and efficient advocacy efforts.

Aldea – The People’s Justice Center, $80,000.00 on 12/30/19

To hire a Litigation and Detention Programs advocate to further their litigation efforts to ensure more children receive counsel, and to support additional litigation to ensure children have access to courts and the legal protections afforded to them by law.

Al Otro Lado, $200,000.00 on 7/29/19

You sent $200,000 to Al Otro Lado to increase their ability to identify particularly vulnerable children entering the US detention system, marshal volunteers to assist them at the border and effectuate litigation on these children’s behalf.

Kids In Need of Defense (KIND) , $350,000.00 on 7/29/19

You sent $350,000 to KIND to protect vulnerable unaccompanied children, preserve access to justice, strengthen local capacity and supportive policies to ensure children’s wellbeing, and advance the development of regional so solutions that respect children’s rights and safety. With your funds, KIND will monitor treatment and conditions for unaccompanied children seeking access to Mexico and the United States, as well as Mexican and U.S. compliance with international and domestic legal obligations, advocate for children’s rights and best interests and for Mexican migration policy that is consistent with human rights, and strengthen regional protection options and capacity, including Mexico’s asylum system.

Safe Passage, $200,000.00 on 7/29/19

You sent $200,000.00 to Safe Passage Project to take on 60 new children as clients over the next 6 months. These children have been detained in horrible conditions at the border, many after being separated from their families. Your money to Safe Passage Project ensures that each child will have a dedicated attorney, as well as receive social work services to help with health care, school issues and mental health challenges, and a 1-2 year commitment to stand with them.

Immigration Defenders Law Center, $100,000.00 on 7/29/19

To help unaccompanied children at the border by preparing them to present their petitions for asylum and accompanying them when they present to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Immigration Defenders Law Center, $100,000.00 on 7/29/19

You sent $100,000 to ImmDef. With your support, they will be able to file individual habeas petitions in federal court when children are held for more than 72 hours in detention at the border in violation of the FLORES settlement. Your support will create systemic change in the treatment of detained children by enabling ImmDef to monitor conditions in detention centers and to publicize information about the treatment by filing cases when children’s rights are violated.

Justice In Motion, $800,000.00 on 7/16/19

You sent $800,000 to Justice in Motion. Thousands of detained children are alone – meaning their families and their documentation proving their identities are often thousands of miles away, which presents a huge obstacle for their release from detention. Your money to Justice in Motion will help solve this by building up their system to obtain documents and records for detained children both in U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Office of Refugee Resettlement custody, and by mobilizing a Defender Network to locate and access the parents of detained children to help get the kids released faster. Your support will increase their ability to file civil rights lawsuits on behalf of children who were detained illegally.

Immigration Law Clinic at UC Davis, $900,000.00 on 7/5/19 & National Center for Youth Law, $900,000.00 on 7/8/19

You sent $900,000 to Holly Cooper and her incredible team at the Immigration Law Clinic at UC Davis Law, and another $900,000 to Neha Desai and her fierce advocates at The National Center for Youth Law – both of whom, as attorneys of record in the crucial FLORES settlement have the unique ability to access any detention facility in the nation.
These two brilliant, courageous women devote their lives to rescuing and defending these children. What they have already done with such little funding is astonishing. With your dollars, their reach and impact will be magnified exponentially: to travel to detention centers to inspect and investigate abuse, interview the children, remove them to protect their health and safety, and build legal cases to demand these atrocities end. In the week we funded them, these warriors won an order on their legal demand for emergency relief for children detained in Texas. Since then, all children have been removed from the notorious for-profit Homestead detainment center in Florida, against which Cooper’s team had filed suit. Funding the work of these seasoned attorneys of record in the FLORES settlement is incredibly vital right now, as the FLORES-mandated protections for children are under new attack.

Al Otro Lado, $225,000.00 on 4/12/19

For advocacy of reunified families, as well as support of sponsor families caring for newly reunified families as they await asylum proceedings.

Other Expenses, $8,679.91 on 3/11/19 – 3/27/19

For 13 families after crossing the Border with Together Rising on March 2 in order to be reunited with the children who were taken from them, were re-detained for 42 days. These funds went to pay for food for the 13 families while they were detained as well as pay for them to be able to make phone calls to their children and advocates. Additionally, these funds were for immediate physical needs for families who were immediately reunified after March 2 crossing.

Al Otro Lado, $150,000.00 on 3/5/19

For support, advocacy, and reunification of separated families.

Justice in Motion, $55,000.00 on 11/30/18

To continue work detailed below.

Justice in Motion, $250,000.00 on 10/12/18

To locate parents deported without their children, advocate for their reunification wishes, and handle the legalities & logistics of bringing families back together, doubling the Defender Network — a group of 40 organizations and law firms across Central America who:

Travel throughout Central America to locate and make initial contact with the deported parents deemed by the administration “ineligible” for reunification with their children.

Obtain signatures, documents, and coordinate travel and other activities to reunite parents with their children; and connect parents to U.S. lawyers to facilitate reunification.

Immigrant Defenders Law Center, $336,980.00 on 8/28/18

For the Family Unity Project to hire an additional full-time staff attorney for two years to maximize attorney time focused on detained parents who unknowingly signed away their rights to be reunified with their children and a full-time Program Associate to assist with Community Defense efforts.

Al Otro Lado, $285,000.00 on 8/22/18

To hire a full-time Director of Family Reunification and a paralegal.

For travel expenses for parents who need to travel back to the US to pick up a detained child.

For mental health costs and reintegration services for reunified families.

For Indigenous language interpreters to communicate with deported parents and detained children and to speed up reunification with their children.

KIND, $133,600.00 on 8/20/18

To hire a full-time attorney, a case management professional, and a social worker to help reunited families connect with mental health, medical, housing and other resources — as well as vital trauma recovery services.

Texas Civil Rights Project, $270,000.00 on 7/9/18

To hire a six-month visiting attorney and a new mid-level attorney, as well as fund a program director and paralegal position to advocate and reunify separated families.

To fund the costs of bilingual private investigators, translators, and travel required in connection with the advocacy and reunification efforts.

Immigrant Defenders Law Center, $500,000.00 on 7/5/18

To represent all separated parents from Southern California local detention facilities and facilitate reunification with their children.

To locate and provide representation to the parents of the nearly 70 separated children who are already their clients.

To provide social services and resources to reunited families required as a result of the trauma of separation.

Safe Passage, $125,000.00 on 7/2/18

Provide representation to fifty unaccompanied immigrant children who have been relocated to New York from the border, and are not with their parents.

Al Otro Lado, $500,000.00 on 7/2/18

To develop a screening and referral system throughout Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador to identify parents who have been deported without their children and to refer them to attorneys to work on reunification and representation of the child in the U.S.

To hire two attorneys and two paralegals to help with reunification and to represent families who have been separated.

To hire a staff member to work with separated families in Los Angeles to coordinate mental health, medical, and other social services required by parents and children as a result of the trauma of separation.

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, $309,000.00 on 7/2/18

To provide bond funds for all immigrant parents and guardians in detention in Washington State whose children were taken from them at the border. The bond funds will allow the detained parents to be removed from detention pending the completion of their asylum claims and immigration proceedings.

Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), $344,787.69 on 6/22/18

To provide family reunification for 2,000 families by funding a new Family Reunification Supervising Attorney, Family Reunification Staff Attorney, and Family Reunification Legal Assistant.

To pay for two children’s staff attorneys who will provide full legal representation for 100 unaccompanied children who have been released from detention, along with other associated costs.

KIND, $200,000.00 on 6/18/18

To fund a new staff lawyer expert in child protection law to support the pro bono lawyers, a new social services coordinator and 33 pro bono training presentations to train more volunteer attorneys to represent children and reunify them with their families.

Safe Passage, $125,000.00 on 6/18/18

To provide a lawyer and part time paralegal for a legal advocacy organization for unrepresented children facing deportation. As children form lines in front of the courthouse, stepping in to face deportation hearings alone, these advocates step in to ensure that they are represented.

Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, $315,000.00 on 5/31/18

To cover the costs of a lawyer and social worker who will be operating around the country and on the border to provide advocacy and healing to unaccompanied, detained children.

Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, $487,000.00 on 5/31/18

To fund the work of a team of four lawyers and three legal assistants, responsible for representing every child in the Arizona detainment center and every one of their parents, to establish and maintain contact between child and parent, reunification of families, and safety and rehabilitation of each child.