Volunteer groups both old and new have emerged to aid those facing detention with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s presence increasing across southwest Missouri.
Judith Gonzalez, the director of Programs and Services at Springfield’s Hand In Hand Multicultural Center, said that HIHMC has been busy offering services to immigrants.
“HIHMC has served people from 44 different nationalities and more than 50 different languages,” Gonzalez said. “HIHMC provides different programs and services to the first, second and third generation of immigrants. Programs include but are not limited to: Conferences for women, and for youth; Prevention is the Key, a program focusing on prevention of firearm-injury and death; sexual assault and domestic violence prevention.”
The Rev. Silas Engstrom is the vice president of Abide in Love Springfield, a community-oriented volunteer group.
“Abide in Love is a group of local volunteers that began in Phelps County,” Engstrom said. “We seek to provide support for individuals detained by ICE. We have a group of volunteer ‘Penpals’ that text with detainees and put funds in their account so that they can contact us or their family. Through listening to their stories we may learn of other ways to assist such as: providing funds for the video call app, supporting their commissary or connecting them with other resources. We also have a small, but growing, group of local clergy and interpreters that visit the jail to provide emotional and spiritual support.”
Through volunteer efforts, Abide in Love is able to track detainees.
“We maintain a spreadsheet that gathers public record information about detainees that includes the date of entry and length of stay,” Engstrom said. “This information also helps track the number of people currently detained as well as demographic data. From this information, we try to assign Penpals to as many of them as possible in order to make connections and find out about their needs.”
Engstrom said the goal of Abide in Love is to provide care to immigrants facing hardships in detention.
“Abide in Love is about connection and support,” Engstrom said. “We provide conversation partners that respect the dignity of the individual and let people — who are in an extremely isolating situation — know that there are people who care. Connection is the goal. We are often able to help detainees connect with their family, legal assistance and material resources. This is a humanitarian effort.”
Jonathan Willmoth, an immigration attorney from Kansas City, said that sometimes the people released from detention will be set free with just the items off their back.
“We had someone released in the afternoon in Greene County,” Willmoth said. “He lives in Indiana, so we had to contact churches and charities and eventually an attorney in Springfield for someone to go to Greene County and pick him up.”
Trying to find information on detainees without proper documented information can be difficult.
“So in the beginning, when someone’s first detained, nobody knows where they are,” Willmoth said. ”It’s impossible to find them. ICE does have an online detainee locator, but it requires you to have the information for them and the name spelled correctly, and sometimes people’s names and whatever information is not accurate in there, and so until they actually get their information entered into these computer systems, it’s actually very difficult to find them.”
Engstrom said the support from the community has been valuable.
“We have received a lot of support and positive feedback from the community,” Engstrom said. “I think people are becoming aware of the difficult circumstances that these individuals are facing and generally people just want to help.”
