If you don’t know what RAICES is, you haven’t been paying attention. Nonetheless, it stands for Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services and it is currently helping immigrants who are incarcerated for crossing the border get legal council and other needs to try to keep these families in contact with each other, in more ways than just physical.
Here is an excerpt from an NPR interview earlier this week with a representative from the organization. A particular part of this interview struck me especially hard.
So one of our attorneys was visiting with some dads that had been separated from their children in Pearsall detention center here in South Texas, and they had not been able to speak to their children yet because in order to be able to speak to their children, they needed to pay $25 to get a commissary account. And then the phone calls are about $8 a minute. So we were able to, because we have this funding, put money in their commissary accounts right there so that they could go ahead and talk to their kids.
Jenny Hixon, Director of Outreach, Education and Development for RAICES
”Millions Raised For Immigrants Will Be Used To Provide Legal Support” Mary Louise Kelly, Host, NPR 6/21/2018
This is highway robbery. If you donate the $50 amount, it will cover one of these cards and 3 minutes of phone time. That’s a speedy version of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” soliloquy.
Commissary accounts are commonly used for prisoners in America so they can call their families outside of normal visiting hours. Yes, this is another example of the prison industrial complex that is making bank during the Trump administration.
I was only able to donate $20, but there have been just over 500,000 through the Facebook fundraising page. It might be over a million, but considering that most people on this site are aligned with this cause, I am surprised that the number is that small.
Give what you can. Because they are going to need more. They are currently just below $20 million on Facebook and have bumped the limit to $25 million. Let’s see if we can blow by that number, shall we?
Also, remember to check on your voter registration as soon as you can and vote in November.