Immigrant rights advocates in Houston, Texas, have been assisting recently reunited migrant families with food, diapers, formula, and even carseats so that they can travel safely with their children. “If they wish,” the Daily Beast reports, “the migrants can provide their names and ID numbers so that Immigrant Families Together can arrange a pro bono immigration lawyer for them at their destination city.”
It’s been this kindness that families have been relying on, because the government that tore them apart in the first place has been releasing them into a country that’s a stranger to them with nothing more than bus tickets and the burden of their trauma. “The government is just putting them on a bus with a ticket,” said organizer Dionne Ukleja. “They’re exhausted—they’re hungry, thirsty, confused.”
Isabella, a reunited Central American asylum-seeker, told the Daily Beast that she was on her way to meet her husband in Indiana after being separated from two of her three kids in McAllen. Her youngest is just two years old. The family carried “everything they owned in a few tote bags,” and their experience wasn’t unique, either. “Isabella was just one of five Central American mothers, each with young children in tow, who arrived on the same Greyhound bus from McAllen on Sunday.”
“The migrant families are being dispersed,” said attorney Ruby Powers, another organizer from the campaign. “They’re traumatized. They have to reunite with their children after being separated. They have to find a school, they have to navigate their legal options. They need clothes, food, cell phones, finances.” And imagine doing all of that when you don’t even know the language.
This is where the incredible and affirming work of the helpers around the nation has come in. Just days ago, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) donated $3 million to the “Flights For Families” campaign, which is assisting other recently reunited families with airfare, temporary accommodations, and other logistical planning.
For vulnerable asylum seekers like Isabella, one less worry—like how to get formula for her child—means more time she can dedicate to fighting to stay here in the U.S. after her arduous journey. “I’m very happy to be back with my children,” she said. “The day they separated us, I cried and cried. My son was screaming.”