Sojourners
People fleeing persecution in their home countries who request asylum at a U.S. port of entry are arrested, handcuffed and confined to immigration detention — a traumatic experience that adds to their suffering. In New York, Sojourners volunteers reach out in friendship with regular visits to the most isolated of immigration detainees — those who have no friends or family in the area who can visit them.
Asylum seekers can spend months, even years, in windowless detention centers before they win asylum or are deported.
Sojourners responds by sending a team of volunteers two Saturdays each month to visit detainees, providing hope, solidarity, and a link to the outside world. Sojourners also seeks to support those recently released from detention with no one else in the U.S. to help them with free housing, connection to food pantries/soup kitchens and other services and social support.