Banding Together: DIRE’s mission to helping those in need during the immigration crisis

The current immigration situation in the United States has been raising concern for many families. People are facing deportation while others are fearful of being detained and sent to crowded detention centers. Alejandra Caballero works for DIRE and has been a part of the organization since early 2019. DIRE helps people who are going through deportation or immigration issues, she said. She spoke with me about DIRE’s work. The interview has been edited for clarity.

Can you give us a little background on the organization?

DIRE is an organization that was created in 2017. It was started by a group of people in the Reformed Church of Highland Park. At the time, there were many Indonesian families who were arrested and detained. Because of this, the church started doing something for people who are going through deportation. The initial reason for their work was for families like that. Now, because of changes to the immigration situation under the Trump administration, they wanted to create a response team. The response team was tasked to respond whenever there was a deportation situation. They wanted to have groups go [to those places] and help those people.

And how do those past experiences compare to what they do now?

It is growing, the number of people who need our services. This organization is changing and moving toward what the needs of the community are. For now, we are responding to immigration situations but we do not receive many calls about raids. However, we have been receiving many [calls about] asylum. We are in the process of working with these people who are seeking asylum.

Can you explain more about these people reaching out for asylum?

That was something that was unexpected but we are helping those families. We connect people with the resources that are available and also the resources that the organization has.

What exactly does DIRE do regarding the detention centers, like the one in Elizabeth county?

We’ve gone to visit the Elizabeth detention center because, in the Essex center, the family [of those detained] have to request who’s going to visit. This makes it difficult for us to help, which is why we go to Elizabeth where the only thing you need is a driver’s license and the name of the person you want to visit. So at the moment, we only visit the Elizabeth center unless a family member reaches out from the Essex center.

How does DIRE attempt to help those immigrants and other people in need?

When someone is going through deportation, usually the one who calls us is a family member of the person inside [the detention center]. They usually call us because they are desperate, sad and just scared. One of the things I try to provide them with when we talk over the phone is comfort. We are there for them. They are not alone in this. This is an important part because then they open up and feel that they can trust us. Then, we start finding resources that are available to them. For example, for legal services, we do not have an attorney working for us. So, we are connecting [those in need] with other organizations that have legal services. One of them is Legal Services of New Jersey and they visit the detention center with names of those who need their services. When a new name comes up for us, we let them now and they connect with those in the centers. If they have the money to pay for an attorney, we provide a list of attorneys that we know are trustworthy so they could contact them.

They are other situations where a family might have a father/mother detained, leaving the children behind. We try to see what the needs are for the family. Are they in need of rent money? Are they in need of food or other resources? We try to find those resources for them. In some situations, we are able to find jobs for the wife or we are able to help with a month of rent. For families who are undocumented, that don’t have many of the resources that are [there] for an American citizen. So there’s no rent assistance for them or it could be difficult for them to find. We aim to help in those areas.