When our communities are in need, Alliance San Diego does what it does best: steps up to support those who need help.
During the height of our Civic Engagement program for elections, we answered the call to provide support and resources for Central American families and children being released by border agents into San Diego to apply for asylum. Drawing from lessons and experience gained from our work during the arrival of Haitian families in 2016, we were able to jump in and quickly convene stakeholders to assist the families seeking refuge.
Because families were released from detention day and night, we worked with a team around the clock for ten days straight to make sure no one was left without a place to go. For ten days, Alliance San Diego coordinated shelter and other assistance with sister organizations and local churches who graciously opened the doors for the children and their families seeking temporary refuge, before they continued their journey to their destination cities where they will present their asylum cases.
Many of the families have destination cities on the other side of the country, but few resources to get there, so we set up a travel fund to help them. Thanks to the rapid and generous support of Alliance San Diego’s friends and community members, we were able to help more than 50 families travel from San Diego to the safety and care of loved ones. For the initial ten days, we dedicated our staff to assisting migrants with travel and made sure they made it to their planes, trains or buses.
We have since handed off shelter coordination to sister organizations led by Jewish Family Services who are continuing to help migrant families and children. Alliance San Diego is extremely proud of our staff and of our community for coming together to assist migrant and asylum-seeking families in their hour of need.
Moving forward, we will continue to build our travel fund to assist migrants at the shelter to get to their place of destination. You can learn more about the travel fund and contribute here.