Alex was born in El Salvador and came to the US in 2014. He fled El Salvador after being physically harmed and threatened by the MS-13. Alex was informed by his friends that the MS-13 had plans to kidnap him and beat him. He temporarily moved to a new town but the gang went to his family’s home asking for him. After this he knew that he would not be safe anywhere in his home country.
Alex is terrified of returning to El Salvador as he knows that his death is certain. Since Alex has been in the US he has been working. He first landed in immigration detention in late 2017 after he was racially profiled by the police and improperly handed over to immigration authorities. He is being represented by a pro bono attorney at the Brooklyn Defender Services who is in the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project. Alex was granted a bond of $6K and he was only able to post bond thanks to YOU and the fundraising effort of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR).
Alex was released in early 2018 after months in detention. Upon return to his community Alex re-connected with his church and his community. He began working at a grocery store and relied on his bicycle to get to and from work. The pieces of his life were slowly coming back together when Alex was again subjected to police misconduct. While on his way home from work Alex was racially profiled and later arrested because he did not have a government ID and because he had a box cutter in his pocket. This box cutter was provided to Alex by his employer; he used the box cutter to open boxes and bags of fruit and vegetables in the supermarket. All charges associated with this arrest were dismissed. Despite the dismissed charges, ICE blindly insisted that Alex be transferred back into immigration detention in April.
At this point his prior bond was revoked and the money should have been returned to NMCIR, but it has still not been returned to NMCIR. Alex finally had his bond hearing in late May and the judge granted him a $5K bond. To date Alex is still detained because NMCIR is still waiting for the government to return the initial $6K paid for his bond. Despite countless calls made to ICE to retrieve the initial bond payment, ICE simply says that if NMCIR has not received the bond by September that NMCIR needs to initiate an inquiry to the US Department of the Treasury.
Alex does not have money to pay for his bond, and time is ticking. If Alex were able to pay his bond it would allow him to be released to his family and his community after months in detention. And, most importantly, this would allow Alex an opportunity to properly gather all of the evidence that he needs to support his claim for asylum in the United States. Doing this from detention is impossible and will lead to a negative outcome in his case if he is not released. Please join us in this rapid-fire bondraiser so Alex can be released and have a fighting chance to win his asylum claim. If Alex is deported back to El Salvador he will face certain death at the hands of his perpetrators.
