Our Story
In 2017, we started visiting immigrants in the Aurora, CO GEO Detention Center, with the primary goal of providing friendship and emotional support to immigrants housed in detention. Our small group of friends quickly learned that - due to lack of access to legal services - most immigrants in detention are at high risk of being deported to dangerous situations in their countries of origin.
As interest in our visitation work grew, we raised money via GoFundMe sites to fund the asylum cases for 15 immigrants. This provided the momentum to create the Colorado Immigrant Justice Fund (CIJF) - a legal defense fund for the immigrants we met as part of our visitation efforts.
Due to the pandemic, we converted our visitation program to a pen pal program in March 2020. Since that time, hundreds of volunteers have written to over 1,500 immigrants in 54 detention centers around the country. Because of this, we expanded our focus to provide legal services to immigrants around the country who we meet through visitation and letter-writing efforts.
Since launching CIJF in July 2020, we have funded legal services for nearly 200 detained immigrants in Colorado, California and Louisiana.
In May of 2022, ICE again allowed visits to immigrants in detention, so volunteers are now both writing to and visiting with immigrants in detention. And the legal needs of our detained friends are as high as ever.
Read more about the importance of legal representation and about our Mission, Vision and Values