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Dear Friend,

The immigration bond system is an important tool used to free our community members from cages. One of only a few ways to be released from detention, a bond provides a critical lifeline for many. Yet bonds exist within the same immigration enforcement system we are working to abolish. This is the complicated reality Freedom for Immigrants and our partners have grappled with over the years, as the urgent need to release people from detention hasn’t stopped.

The bond system is filled with inequities and barriers that make it difficult to navigate. This year, ICE found a new way to deepen these inequities by launching the online ICE Bond system. The online platform was advertised as a way to make paying bonds easier, since in-person bond payments can take hours or a whole day to process. But in typical ICE fashion, the new system has actually made the process even worse.

The online ICE Bond system is provided only in English and Spanish, making it inaccessible to people who speak any other language. The online system is also complicated and cumbersome, to the point where experienced advocates struggle to use it, let alone people with less technological access or experience.

And even if you can overcome those hurdles, the process itself is lengthy, with some reporting it can take days or longer for the bond to be accepted. What's worse, even after the bond is paid, it frequently takes days longer for the person to be released, making it difficult to get people released on an urgent timeline (which is often why that bond is being prioritized to begin with). And now, ICE has terminated its acceptance of in-person bond posting, leaving this faulty system the only option for getting people free.

	Despite all the hurdles to paying bond, in the last fiscal year, you helped us raise enough funds to pay for 20 bonds -- thank you! As 2023 nears its final months, we expect the number of bond requests coming our way to drastically increase, as it has every year .Last year alone, we received 299 bond applications, or roughly $2.3Mil in requests.

The best way to help is to donate to our bond fund and share the link with friends and family. With your donation, the FFI team will continue to help families navigate the inequities of the bond system and post bond to secure freedom for their loved ones. In the words of Fannie Lou Hammer, "nobody’s free until everybody’s free!"

In solidarity,

Jennaya Dunlap
Immigration Detention Bond Fund Coordinator

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