New Sacramento immigration support organization announces partnership amid raids
Organizations that support immigrants in much of Northern California announced a new partnership Thursday, only hours after federal agents detained at least 12 people in south Sacramento.
“This is the opportunity for us all to join hands and support all of our community members,” said Jessie Mabry, CEO of Opening Doors, an organization that supports immigrants and refugees.
The timing was coincidental. But Mabry said creating the new group, the Sacramento Regional Immigration Support & Empowerment Hub, was in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement over the last six months.
“The reality is that the gap between the community’s need for high-quality pro bono immigration legal services, and the community’s need for information that can really be empowering to them, in terms of knowing their rights and helping their families be prepared, is so huge,” Mabry said. “No one organization can do this alone.”
Opening Doors is leading the effort.
NorCal Resist, an activist organization that responds to suspected immigration operations in the region and monitors arrests at Sacramento Immigration Court, is one of the groups involved in the partnership.
“At this hub, we will continue to ensure immigrant families that they are loved,” said Khatima Jafar, a NorCal Resist representative. “And we will show the government that there is a movement of resistance against injustice.”
A NorCal Resist volunteer, who is a U.S. citizen, was arrested during the morning’s operation.
The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the California Immigration Project, which provides free legal aid, and La Familia Counseling Center are also involved in the partnership. It will serve immigrants in Sacramento, Placer, Sutter, Yolo, Yuba, and El Dorado counties.
“There are many people and families, like mine, that need this help,” Rolanda Diaz, a green card holder who lives in Northern California, said in Spanish. She is an immigrant from Mexico who fled to the U.S. to escape violence and received support from Opening Doors on her asylum case.
Mabry said the hub received money from the California Department of Social Services and is one of 11 across the state.
