The Immigration Project hopes to expand its Rapid Response team and find more willing volunteers to help do it.
The Rapid Response team that was created earlier this year is looking for volunteers who are willing to help during rumored ICE sightings, connect detained people to free legal services, provide social service support for impacted families, and help Bloomington-Normal community members know their rights.
The Rapid Response Team is a network of volunteers, community members, and Immigration Project staff. Charlotte Alvarez, executive director of The Immigration Project, said they're looking for volunteers who are “ calm and cool and collected" and "can help us document and de-escalate when we are in tense situations.”
"Our goal is to help make sure communities are safe and protected in this time of increased immigration enforcement,” said Alvarez.
The name “Rapid response” plays into the type of volunteers the Immigration Project is looking for. Volunteers who speak Spanish or French are needed; the Rapid Response team is welcoming to all types of volunteers.
“We are looking for a team of volunteers who can be on call” as their schedule allows, Alvarez said. “We’re looking for people who can get to a location and follow the laws, the rules. We provide training on what to do. It’s very important that we are not engaging in any conflict or any violence in any way. We were filming and documenting. We’re providing resources and information on rights,” said Alvarez
Alongside documenting ICE activity, the Rapid Response Team helps immigrants connect with other organizations and services that are valuable to those affected by federal enforcement actions.
“We are founding members of the Midwest Immigrant Defenders Alliance, along with the National Immigrant Justice Center, Cook County Public Defender’s Office and The Resurrection Project … we have created this ‘defenders alliance’ so that when anyone is facing enforcement throughout the state of Illinois, they can call this statewide hotline, and all of those calls get sent to a centralized system, and then we are responding to the centralized triage system, and then attorneys from any of those locations including The Immigration Project, will respond to those calls,” Alvarez explained.
The Immigration Project can help those who have been personally affected by federal enforcement – and their family members.
“We doing Know Your Rights presentations so people can enforce the rights that they have and explain they have a right to not open a door unless they see a judicial warrant, explain they have the right to remain silent – explain all the rights they have being in the U.S.,” Alvarez said. “Our social services team is really great at connecting to other resources in our community, and we have great partnerships with local food banks, local mental health resources, with schools in our communities, and churches.”
If interested in the Rapid Response team, forms for volunteering can be found on The Immigration Project website, social media (Facebook and Instagram) or via email.
“Anyone can be a good volunteer for us, if you are interested and excited to be a part of the solution, if you are seeing what is happening and are thinking, ‘How can I be part of this?’ then you can go on our website and click ‘get involved,’” said Alvarez.
