Oumar wins his freedom

According to World Nomads, the “Northwest African country of Mauritania struggles with poverty, terrorism, slavery, escalating crime and heavily mined border areas.” A young man named Oumar fled those conditions and spent months in the Aurora, CO immigration detention center, hoping that he could win asylum. His native language is Pulaar, but he also speaks French, so our French-speaking friends, Sawyer and Christie, visited and corresponded with Oumar while he was detained. 

Oumar knew it would be nearly impossible for him to win his freedom without an attorney, so Sawyer asked the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund to assist. So, we are excited to share that Oumar was the first detained immigrant for whom we hired an attorney, and he was subsequently granted asylum on September 9th! (The photo above is of Oumar and two friends the night he was released from detention). Because of the generosity of Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund donors, he is living in freedom today.

Oumar told me that even in his native language he could not come up with words that could adequately express his deep appreciation for the people who had helped him gain his freedom and his complete amazement at witnessing strangers come to his aid. 

Fundraising update
To date, we have received over $10,000 in total donations for the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund. Our initial goal is to raise $6,000 in monthly donations, and we recently passed the $3,000 mark - over halfway! If you haven’t done so already, would you consider making a modest monthly donation (no gift is too small!) so that we can assist more immigrants in detention? 

A word about our fiscal sponsor
The Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund does not have 501(c)(3) (non-profit) status, so we are partnering with Project Renew, who serves as our fiscal sponsor. Project Renew is the justice and peacemaking arm of Denver Community Church, which in turn is a 501(c)(3). Because of this, all donations to the fund are tax deductible. In addition, Project Renew handles all of the accounting duties related to receiving and processing donations - at absolutely no cost to us. This means that 100% of the money you donate goes directly to covering the legal costs for the immigrants we assist. Project Renew is a strong advocate for immigrants, and is also a major donor to our fund. 

Next steps
As we are keeping an eye out for the next immigrant friend to support with legal services, we plan to send regular updates of our work, including more immigrant stories, progress on our fundraising efforts, and the legal services that your generosity enables us to provide. In the meantime, if you have questions for us, please feel free to respond to this email, or call/text me at 303-944-7146. 

With hope and gratitude, 
Greg Mortimer on behalf of the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund team