Category: Resources

Last week, fathers, sons, brothers & grandfathers reached out to us from inside Mesa Verde immigration detention center with an urgent plea: #COVID19 “will turn our detention into a death sentence.” They have pleaded with ICE to no avail. We created this video to amplify their voices. Now it is up to us. Please share and urge California Governor Gavin Newsom and ICE to take action NOW. #FreeThemAll #FreeThemAllGov #Faith4Liberation

• Thank you to Creative Commons licensed contributors:
• Film Kenia’s Story by @patucon, patucon@gmail.com
• Doctor image by valelopardo from Pixabay
• Gavin Newsom image by Gage Skidmore CalTV
• ICE Raids What Does the Future Hold COVID map by Dan Polansky
• Music:
• New Worlds Awakening by Tristan Lohengrin
• Inspirational Cinematic Piano and Strings by A Shamaluev Music
• Edited by:
• www.OutOfTheShadowsMedia.com

Many thanks to Diane X Guerrero, who reposted our video to her Instagram account on March 31, 2020, resulting in more than 44,000 views of that post alone.

From 2016-2019, IM4HI & the SHARE Foundation organized several pilgrimages bringing several hundred delegates to Honduras to deepen their knowledge of the root causes of migration. The goals of this pilgrimage were to:

1. Listen and meet with grassroots and religious partners in Honduras to more deeply; understand the regional root causes of migration (e.g. economic, drug, military, border, and immigration policy).

2. Hear the recommendations and root solutions coming out of Central American partners.

3. Shift the narrative by engaging in advocacy and education in the US and Canada, calling for addressing the root causes of Central American migration and the protection of migrants.

This pilgrimage coincided with the assassination and subsequent anniversaries of the assassination of Berta Caceres, a Honduran environmental activist, Indigenous leader, and founder of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH). The journey was centered around a return to the center of pivotal events embedded in the land itself, such as Berta and COPINH’s struggle around the land and rivers.

Below are a collection of resources created as a result of the pilgrimage.

• Honduras Pilgrimage Policy Brief: US Responsibility & Roadmap for Change 
• Toolkit for Advocacy: From Experience to Action
• People of Faith Root Causes Delegation: 2019 Pilgrimage blog (reflections, photos, essays)

“Alexa Lopez protested her father’s detention by ICE by dancing in front of his prison – a dance she was supposed to share with him.” — The Lens.

Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity practices Sanctuary by accompanying families who are advocating for the release of their loved one in detention. At our monthly interfaith vigils we gather to provide a space to nourish our activism, to connect with families, to educate, and to get involved.

In 2018 we supported the Lopez family by training an accompaniment team from First Congregational Church of Berkeley to assist them in their campaign to #FreeRaul. That year Raul’s daughter Alexa was turning 15 and would be celebrating her Quinceañera, but since her father has been detained, this was not an option. Nonetheless she insisted on making a statement of the impact her father’s detention is having in her life. This video was filmed at our interfaith immigration vigil where Alexa performed her “Vals” coming of age dance outside the West County Detention Facility in Richmond, CA, where her father was detained. Her statement gained national media attention, and public support for Raul’s bond hearing.

Update, June 2019: In September 2018, this family celebrated Raul Lopez’ return home to the Bay Area California. He and his lawyer continue to fight his deportation order, but at least he is now with his family, and not incarcerated.

Film by Deborah Svoboda for The Lens YouTube channel.