Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America’s Children
APPENDIX 3 Overview of Service Delivery in the Sites Service delivery efforts in the sites involved a multitude of organizations and leaders, including faith-based providers and churches, state and local public institutions, CBOs, economic development organizations, business associations, informal cultural groups, and in some cases unions and the employers of the raided plants. Their various roles included fundraising, donating resources, coordinating services, and managing and organizing service delivery, direct service provision, and advocacy. Due to the limited, exploratory nature of our study, the following general descriptions of service delivery in the three sites include the major relief efforts undertaken but do not include all forms of assistance delivered. New Bedford, Massachusetts. The response effort in New Bedford featured relatively strong centralized leadership and coordination of providers and key elements of service delivery, centralized resource inflows and allocation of funds, and a strong supportive role by the public social service system. New Bedford benefited by its proximity to Boston and the substantial legal, social service, and advocacy resources based there. The response effort was initially facilitated by MIRA. MIRA stepped in to fill a local vacuum, as there was no single organization in New Bedford which represented the affected immigrant groups (predominantly Hondurans and Maya Kiche from Guatemala) and had the capacity to organize a large-scale response. MIRA had greater resources than local groups, including staff to coordinate the response effort. One respondent said, “[MIRA] took an all-hands-on-deck model to the response, and this is what will be required in similar raids of this scale and scope.” On the day of the raid, MIRA launched the first communications efforts and began networking with the key groups that would eventually work together on the response effort. As word of the raid spread, several conference calls were initiated with key local community and faith-based groups. The groups acted swiftly to convene a multitude of service providers and community organizers with the families More than 400 families and individuals affected by the raid attended this convening, which was held in the basement of a large church on the evening of the raid. Various service providers and community organizations set up booths on one side of the room to collect information on the identities of the families, and referrals to services were set up on the other side.
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