Omer wins his freedom
For decades, Sudan has suffered political and tribal unrest. The Janjaweed tribe - with backing from the Sudanese government - attacked Omer’s village in 2004, forcing Omer and his family to flee to a refugee camp where they have lived ever since. Over the years, Omer and others from his family were frequently imprisoned, beaten and tortured, and Omer finally fled to the United States to seek asylum.
While in the rural Imperial Detention Center in California, an immigration attorney named Elizabeth Lopez - with funding from the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund (CIJF) - took up his case, and Omer was granted asylum last month! He is now living in Washington state with his brother, and Elizabeth is helping him obtain a work permit. Thank you, CIJF donors!
Why we do this
Last year, a ragtag small group of us serving as Casa de Paz volunteers with a heart for the marginalized people navigating our nation’s asylum-granting system, decided we couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer. We needed to act. And many of you came alongside us to make this dream come true by creating the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund (CIJF).
Why did a Colorado fund help a detained immigrant in California win his freedom?
We started the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund (CIJF) with the goal of providing legal services to some of the immigrants we were visiting in the detention center in Aurora, Colorado. But, after ICE closed detention centers to visitors in March 2020, the visitation program was converted to a pen pal program, and volunteers expanded their reach by writing to immigrants in 33 detention centers in 12 states.
With this broader vision, and knowing that a large number of detained immigrants in Aurora were being adequately served by local legal providers, we decided to expand our vision in order to provide legal services to immigrants detained in underserved areas around the country. This led to the CIJF funding legal services for immigrants in detention in rural Louisiana and the California desert where support systems are meager and often almost nonexistent.
As a result of this shift in focus, Omer is a free man today!
This is where you can come in!
To those already donating, thank you! As of today, 113 of you are providing $4,300 a month to help meet this need. Our hope is that a growing number of folks will sign up as well and make modest donations ($5, $15, $25 or more) each month so that we can fund legal services for more detained immigrants. Of course, one-time donations are also welcome! If you would like to contribute, you can do so here.
Would you like to hear from someone in the eye of the storm?
Immigration detention has been a growth industry in Louisiana, home to over 10 detention centers - mostly in rural areas with minimal support systems for detained people. Some of the worst human rights abuses in ICE detention have occurred in Louisiana where immigration judges almost never grant asylum, regardless of the merits of the cases they hear.
We’ll be interviewing Lara Nochomovitz - a Louisiana attorney whose work we are funding - on a Zoom call on May 18 at 7:00 - 8:00 pm Mountain Time (https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81518339028). Please join the call if you would like to learn more about the state of immigration detention in Louisiana, the legal assistance that Lara is providing, and how we can help. Hope to see you then!
With hope and gratitude,
Greg Mortimer on behalf of the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund team
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