Wednesday became a day of freedom for a number of detained immigrants across the nation, after immigrant rights advocacy group RAICES, in conjunction with National Bail Fund Network, paid bond for 200 people in over 41 immigration jails across 20 states, totaling $2.1 million. Organizers said they believed that “Fall Freedom Day” was the largest coordinated effort to pay migrant bonds in a single day ever.
It’s not just that the Trump administration has defied congressional limits by jailing record numbers of immigrants; it’s also sought to make it harder for them to be released on bond. Even when bond is given, it can be extremely cost-prohibitive, with some going as high as $25,000. "It's ridiculous that people are coming to this country to seek safety, and they're having to pay these outrageous amounts of money," RAICES’ Blake Vera said. "We're stepping in to eliminate that financial obstacle."
Advocates began posting bond on Wednesday, with releases beginning as early as that day and will continue on throughout the week. RAICES said that for detainees—many of whom are asylum-seekers and span over 20 countries—freedom from detention can lead to a more positive outcome in their immigration cases, because they are better able to pursue legal representation.
“Immigrants who are not detained and have attorneys are five times more likely to pursue relief and are nearly five times more likely [to] win their cases than those without attorneys, according to the AIC study,” the National Immigrant Justice Center said. “Detained immigrants are 11 times more likely to pursue relief when they have legal counsel and are twice as likely to obtain relief than detained immigrants without counsel.”
RAICES has been a prominent advocate for migrant children and their parents, raising millions of dollars from donors across the U.S. to help reunite families cruelly torn apart by the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy. The funds to pay for Fall Freedom Day’s bonds also came from donors, the group said, with some freed immigrants given backpacks containing food and supplies as they journeyed to reunite with families and supporters across the U.S.
The fact is there is no need to keep asylum-seekers and other immigrants cruelly detained in deplorable conditions, and there have been alternatives to detention that are humane and work. The current administration has stomped on that, however. “The United States is grossly obsessed with incarceration,” RAICES said. “Whether called ‘detention center,’ ‘facility,’ ‘jail,’ or ‘prison,’ these systems share the same unjust design: to incarcerate black and brown people and strip them of their dignity.”