Dear John,

 

So far, 2021 has been a year of transition. In February, President Biden took office, and with his new administration our country seemed to enter a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic as mass rollout of the vaccine began. At Santa Fe Dreamers Project (SFDP), we’ve continued to adapt to the realities of the pandemic through innovative virtual models of legal services. Even in these times of transition that require us to change and transform, one thing remains clear for us at SFDP: Our work is not finished, and we need your help to do it.

 

Individual donations to SFDP are down 68% compared to pre-pandemic times. Before the pandemic, individual giving made up nearly half of our annual operating budget. The levels of loss we are experiencing as an organization has the frightening potential to disrupt or greatly reduce our ability to deliver our services. Your donation to Santa Fe Dreamers Project will enable us to carry out our mission to advance and protect immigrant rights. We need your help TODAY so that we may be here tomorrow. 

 

The end of Trump’s presidency was marked by a series of policy changes that drastically altered our work at SFDP. In December 2020, USCIS began accepting first-time DACA applications, and we responded by developing an entirely new model to assist DACA clients even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, including an online renewal process and resource website, monthly community workshops via Zoom, and COVID-safe, in-person clinics. Due to the closure of the Southern U.S. border, our Defense Team has been busy working with LGBTQ+ asylum seekers to prepare their asylum claims in Mexico in order to minimize/ eliminate any stay in the horrific U.S. immigrant prisons. 

 

Today, with these policy changes, the transition to Biden’s administration, and the potential for the border reopening, we’ve witnessed a marked rise in demand for immigration legal services, even as the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic have made SFDP’s work more labor-intensive for our staff. We depend on YOUR support and individual donors like YOU to keep our doors open to thousands of immigrant in our communities. 

 

Since SFDP’s creation, our relationship with our clients has remained at the center of SFDP’s work. We are lucky to work with individuals from countries all over the world, many of whom are survivors of severe trauma, and we feel grateful for the opportunity to accompany them along their migration journeys to the United States, whether as legal service providers, counselors, or sponsorship coordinators. 

 

Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing some of our clients’ stories and highlighting the SFDP staff members who assisted them with their immigration cases. These stories demonstrate the urgency and importance behind providing accessible, empowering, and skilled legal services to immigrant communities, and we need YOUR help to maintain these crucial client and community relationships as service providers. Individual donors like you make up a major portion of our budget every year. Help us respond to the increased demand for our services from our communities by donating to SFDP TODAY, and stay tuned this month as we share powerful client and staff stories on our social media!

 

We need your support today now more than ever. For more information and to donate, please visit our fundraising campaign page here: bit.ly/SupportSFDP.

 

Please help spread the word to your networks and encourage your fiends and family to donate today! Together we can help balance the scales of justice for immigrant families!!

 

Thank you for continued support!!

 

Sincerely,

 

Santa Fe Dreamers Project

 

*Please add our email "[email protected]" to your contacts list to make sure you stay up to date with our correspondence.