Donate to Help: Mathias and Keyli

On Thursday, July 10th, ICE agents raided a cannabis farm in Camarillo, California apprehending over a hundred employees, some undocumented, many legally working with a work visa, and many others were US citizens. After being handcuffed and held at their work site for 20 hours by armed ICE agents, they were then loaded onto buses and taken to the detainment facility in Camarillo, the next day to Los Angeles, and the day after that, to ICE detention centers in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Because of the terrible conditions of these holding facilities, many have voluntarily signed deportation papers and have already been relocated to Mexico without due process. Those able to endure the inedible food and cold temperatures (men have been given shorts to wear and no blankets at night) desperately await their meeting with an immigration judge in hopes of being reunited with their families in Oxnard.

Pictured here are my 5th grade student, Mathias, his younger 3rd grade sister, Keyli, and their young 30-year-old mother, Jennifer. This family came to the US legally a year ago (both parents have a work visa) from Colombia looking for a better life. Mathias and Keyli are both excellent students. Mathias is a math wizard and Keyli is already speaking, reading, and writing proficiently in English; they are not only incredibly intelligent, but they are respectful, kind, and very well behaved children.

Sadly, Mathias and Keyli's father was one of the Glass House Farms employees taken into custoday by ICE on this inauspicious day in July and is now being held in a detainment facility in New Mexico. Because their income was cut in half, their mother, Jennifer, is unable to pay their rent in Oxnard and was told by the landlord that she needs to move out by the end of the month. As she shared this information with me, she began to cry as her two young children hugged their mother in support. My partner-teacher, my aide, and my partner's aide and I are currently working to secure resources, a new affordable place to live, and to raise funds to get this young mother and her children through this difficult time. Lawyers in the area are currently charging up to $4,000 to represent their clients. The funds raised by GoFundMe will also go towards the legal representation of Mathias and Keyli's father when he meets with the immigration judge.