Funds available for immigrants detained in Imperial County

The San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium announced Oct. 5 the launch of the Borderlands Get Free Fund, a bond fund to help bond out individuals from immigration detention if they are detained in San Diego or Imperial counties, or if they are long-standing residents of Imperial County or San Diego County.

“The fund will help us reunite families in our region who have been separated when their loved ones were detained by Border Patrol and/or Immigration Customs Enforcement,” the consortium said in a release.

Despite the recent media attention surrounding family separation due to the federal administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy implemented last year, family separation in the border region predates the policy by decades. Due to a high presence of Border Patrol and ICE agents in the region, families are often separated when federal immigration officers detain and deport their loved ones, the release said. In some of those cases, individuals are actually eligible to post bond, but their families often cannot afford to pay the bond. The minimum price of a bond is $1,500, and there are more than 1,700 individuals currently being detained in San Diego and Imperial counties alone.

For more information, or to apply for a bond, go to http://immigrantsandiego.org/about/borderlands-get-freefund/