With the recent wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Maplewood and South Orange, local residents are turning to grassroots efforts for help.
One such resource is the DIRE hotline — The DIRE (Deportation and Immigration Response Equipo) rapid-response hotline, 1-888-DIRE-SOS (1-888-347-3767), which “supports undocumented individuals and their families facing immigration and detention crises.”
DIRE volunteers respond to the scene of the arrest, if possible, collecting information on who has been taken and where they have been taken, helping to contact family members and providing legal aid, among other tasks. Read more about DIRE and its volunteer opportunities here: https://diresupport.org/. DIRE is a program of Churches Improving Communities, a 501(c)3 non-profit community development corporation.
Local residents have also been turning to SOMA Community Cares, created by SOMA residents Matt Bloom and Cynthia Galeota, which supplies “direct relief to those impacted by immigration enforcement,” mainly to those initially detained at Delaney Hall. They can be reached at info@
In a recent interview, Bloom explained the genesis of SOMA Community Cares: “We’d been doing volunteer work outside of [the immigration detention center in Newark] Delaney Hall and had seen that there was a need for very targeted areas where there might be benefit to a 501(c)3 to help raise money, specific to commissary, legal aid, and then emergency needs.”
“We created SOMA Community Cares to focus on those areas,” said Bloom. The program came together this spring “right before the hunger strike at Delaney Hall. What we thought was going to be a much smaller nonprofit ended up becoming much larger than we expected as a result of that. So we’ve been able to do a lot more than we had initially intended.”
“The emergency aid has been interesting because — it’s been a little bit of medical needs like a released detainee needed emergency eye surgery and glasses and things like that. So we were able to do that,” said Bloom.
But the emergency services grew as local detainees were “shipped around the country.”
“One of the things where there’s a need is they get released and then they need to get home. So we buy them tickets home. So if someone gets released in Mississippi or Texas or Florida, if they need a hotel for the night, we buy them a hotel, but then we buy them their airplane ticket home or in some cases they don’t have an ID, so they have to take a bus.”
SOMA Community Cares also funds “commissary accounts” to supplement the food available.
“They [the detention center] feed you, but the food that they give you might not necessarily be edible,” said Bloom. “It could be frozen. You could be diabetic or have special needs and food they give you does not meet your nutrition requirements. I get messages that the water is not drinkable, so you’re buying your own water.”
Bloom said that detainees need to set up commissary accounts through the for-profit vendor running the detention center to get quality or specific foods. SOMA Community Cares can help fill that need.
Additionally, said Bloom, “You see people who end up in a tent camp in Texas that doesn’t even have commissary, but they have phones. So we make sure that they have funding on their phone accounts so that they can call their family.”
Plus, there is legal and bond funding.
SOMA Community Cares funds bills incurred for legal services such as habeas filings, asylum applications and appeals, representation at bond hearings, and more. The group also helps fund immigration bonds, working with established bond fund support groups.
“We support people that request legal aid, to help fund their immigration cases or, we support bond funding, which is amazing because you helped fund a bond and then the person gets released,” said Bloom. “That’s been great.”
Bloom reported that SOMA Community Cares is doing a “big last minute fundraising push this weekend because we are being asked to commit to fund $25k in bonds on Monday that would help to free four people.”
Those who want to help can donate here: somacommunitycares.org
(Maplewood Township is looking into creating a legal fund for detainees, and South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum recently called on Gov. Mikie Sherrill to release state funds earmarked for legal support.)
“Again,” said Bloom, “we intended to be much smaller, but because of all of this fundraising, we’ve been able to do a lot more.”
When he can, Bloom also offers his knowledge and resources to provide additional support for local families and those impacted beyond the financial aid offered by SOMA Community Cares.
Bloom says that the work has been “great and amazing and rewarding” but it is also overwhelming.
“As people get taken, and then you get names, and then you speak to the family, and you find out the basics, and then you try to make sure that everyone had attorneys, and the attorneys are good and reputable, and pairing some up with DDDI [Detention and Deportation Defense Initiative], and then helping the families track where the people are, either Delaney or Elizabeth, and then helping them … we had no intent of it becoming as big, but now that it is, we’re able to do so much. It’s amazing. Now is the moment to do it. But it’s a really tough challenge.”
Finally, Bloom credits South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum for helping to identify people, connect them and their families to services, and communicate what is going on to the community.
“Sheena’s been absolutely amazing,” said Bloom.
“We’ve been talking throughout the day every day. I think she’s sort of a model for what I would hope leaders could be when this happens.”
