Paul Bass Photo
Ana Maria Rivera-Forastieri and Hannah Chineyere at WNHH FM.
Immigrant-rights and bail-reform advocates have handed $300,000 to federal jailers. And they want to send more money.
No, the advocates haven’t suddenly become supporters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In fact, they still want to see the agency abolished and undocumented immigrants left alone to remain in the U.S. and lead productive lives.
Instead, the advocates have been handing over the money to post bail for immigrants who get arrested and otherwise remain behind bars while their deportation cases drag on for months and years.
They do so through a group called Immigrant Bail Fund, a special project of the Connecticut Bail Fund. Since 2016, the fund has helped over 200 immigrants reunite with their family and community by posting close to $1 million in total bonds on their behalf.
That makes a big difference, according to fund organizer Ana Maria Rivera-Forastieri: An estimated 68 percent of immigrants who bond out end up prevailing in their cases. They have a better chance of obtaining counsel, for instance. Most rounded-up immigrants lose their cases if they fail to bond out; an estimated 97 percent in federal detention without counsel are eventually deported.
Rivera-Forastieri talked about that during a appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. She was joined by Hannah Chineyere, who has been freed thanks to the fund’s efforts while a deportation case against her proceeds.
They came on air to plug a fundraiser scheduled for this Saturday, March 30, aimed at both building consciousness about immigrant rights and bail reform, and collecting another $30,000 to support the cause.
Entitled “Freedom Songs: An Interfaith Fundraiser for the Immigrant Bail Fund” it takes place at Long Wharf Theatre from 5 to 7 p.m. It features live performances by the Afro-Semitic Experience, Music Haven, Isabella Mendes Bossa Nova Trio, and Tina Colon Williams; as well as “direct testimonry from community members” whom the fund has bailed out.
Click on the video below to watch Rivera-Forastieri describe the group’s work and Chineyere tell her story on “Dateline New Haven”:
