Giving Compass' Take:

• Lornet Turnbull explains that "Crossing South" is a free resource for people who are deported from the United States to countries where they do not have ties. 

• Is deporting people to countries where they do not have ties an acceptable practice? What role can philanthropy play in supporting people at risk of being deported? 

• Read about schools supporting students affected by deportation. 

What happens to people after they are deported from the United States? And if they no longer have family in their countries of origin, how do they make their way in an unfamiliar place?

In 2014, Christina Zaldivar found herself pondering these questions with some fellow activists after she had accompanied one of them to an immigration check-in in Centennial, Colorado. That friend had been living without legal status in the U.S. for more than 30 years and had no family left in Mexico.

“We sat in [a coffee shop] afterward for about an hour or two talking about this,” recalls Zaldivar, who is a member of #Not1More, an informal, immigrant-led campaign sponsored by American Friends Service Committee that advocates for and supports those caught up in deportation proceedings.

“And we’re asking, ‘What are people supposed to do, how do they find help? If you’ve not been there for 30-plus years, and they just drop you at the border, where could you go to find resources?’”

That 2014 conversation led to the creation in October 2019 of a resource guide called Crossing South, which provides those returning to four countries—Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala—with information they’ll find useful along the way.

“Crossing South” draws on American Friends’ decade-plus experience navigating the detention and deportation system, community-based programs in the four countries, and extensive research. It distributes the guide through targeted outreach—email blasts, social media posts, through immigration attorneys and advocates, and at public events. Also, the organization is working on a number of fronts to get the information to people in ICE detention.

Crossing South is available online in both Spanish and English, and in a wallet-sized hard copy version people can easily carry with them. It explains what people can do if they have time to plan before they are removed, or what they can do if they are suddenly detained and then deported.

Read the full article about Crossing South by Lornet Turnbull at YES! Magazine.