El Nido USA
Donation protected
El Nido USA, Inc. is a New York-based organization with two core projects:
1. El Nido House: a communal housing facility which will provide safe shelter, food, legal assistance, and connection to necessary medical and social services for up to five asylum-seeking mothers and their minor children for their first two years in the United States, and;
2. El Nido Legal Services: a legal service organization providing free or low-cost immigration legal assistance to indigent asylum-seeking families in the New York area.
El Nido was founded by Kate Chaltain, a NYC immigration attorney specializing in asylum and removal defense, and Kim Chaix, a conservation non-profit executive. Kate and Kim met in 2016 when Kate became the pro-bono immigration attorney for a little boy from Congo that Kim's family was fostering in Brooklyn. The idea for El Nido was born out of a volunteer trip to the Texas that Kate and Kim took in the summer of 2018 to provide legal assistance and translation services to families that had been separated at the border. At a detention center in Texas they met Kenia and Michael, a mother and 10-year-old son who had been separated for thirty days after crossing the border to apply for asylum after fleeing horrific violence in Honduras. Kenia and Michael were on the verge of deportation but after months of advocacy Kate and other volunteer attorneys were able to secure their release to pursue their asylum claim in the non-detained immigration court.
Kenia and Michael were released in November 2018 with literally just the clothes on their backs - no money, no work authorization, and nowhere safe to live - a situation that is unfortunately the norm for many asylum-seeking families in the United States. Kenia and Michael are now living in Brooklyn where their needs have been wholly supported over the past year by donations.
Meanwhile, Kate's law practice has seen a significant increase in the number of indigent asylum-seeking families from Central America that are in desperate need of legal assistance. We began hosting Community Dinners in the summer of 2019 for these families, as way to foster a sense of community for families and volunteers and as a way to connect families to volunteers and supportive services. Our experiences have made it abundantly clear that services that El Nido is designed to provide are desperately needed.
El Nido has been fortunate to receive legal assistance from two pro-bono legal teams with extensive corporate and tax experience and El Nido USA, Inc. is now in the process of obtaining 501(c)(3) charity status from the IRS. Donations made now will be retroactively tax-deductible once our 501(c)(3) status is approved by the IRS. We will begin a concentrated fundraising effort in 2020 for the creation of El Nido House and a basic operating budget for El Nido Legal Services.
HOW YOU CAN HELP RIGHT NOW:
We are in need of emergency funding to continue to provide food and shelter to El Nido's first sponsored family, Kenia and Michael. Although we anticipate that Kenia will receive her official work authorization in the next 6 weeks, she is still unlikely to find work that will pay her enough to support them fully for the next 6 months. Your donation will be used to cover the following immediate expenses:
Rent
Electricity
Food
Basic hygiene and household supplies
Cell Phone (required by ICE)
MetroCards for both Kenia and Michael
Incidental medical bills
School supplies for Michael
To learn more about El Nido please visit our website at www.elnidousa.org

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT
1. El Nido House: a communal housing facility which will provide safe shelter, food, legal assistance, and connection to necessary medical and social services for up to five asylum-seeking mothers and their minor children for their first two years in the United States, and;
2. El Nido Legal Services: a legal service organization providing free or low-cost immigration legal assistance to indigent asylum-seeking families in the New York area.
El Nido was founded by Kate Chaltain, a NYC immigration attorney specializing in asylum and removal defense, and Kim Chaix, a conservation non-profit executive. Kate and Kim met in 2016 when Kate became the pro-bono immigration attorney for a little boy from Congo that Kim's family was fostering in Brooklyn. The idea for El Nido was born out of a volunteer trip to the Texas that Kate and Kim took in the summer of 2018 to provide legal assistance and translation services to families that had been separated at the border. At a detention center in Texas they met Kenia and Michael, a mother and 10-year-old son who had been separated for thirty days after crossing the border to apply for asylum after fleeing horrific violence in Honduras. Kenia and Michael were on the verge of deportation but after months of advocacy Kate and other volunteer attorneys were able to secure their release to pursue their asylum claim in the non-detained immigration court.
Kenia and Michael were released in November 2018 with literally just the clothes on their backs - no money, no work authorization, and nowhere safe to live - a situation that is unfortunately the norm for many asylum-seeking families in the United States. Kenia and Michael are now living in Brooklyn where their needs have been wholly supported over the past year by donations.
Meanwhile, Kate's law practice has seen a significant increase in the number of indigent asylum-seeking families from Central America that are in desperate need of legal assistance. We began hosting Community Dinners in the summer of 2019 for these families, as way to foster a sense of community for families and volunteers and as a way to connect families to volunteers and supportive services. Our experiences have made it abundantly clear that services that El Nido is designed to provide are desperately needed.
El Nido has been fortunate to receive legal assistance from two pro-bono legal teams with extensive corporate and tax experience and El Nido USA, Inc. is now in the process of obtaining 501(c)(3) charity status from the IRS. Donations made now will be retroactively tax-deductible once our 501(c)(3) status is approved by the IRS. We will begin a concentrated fundraising effort in 2020 for the creation of El Nido House and a basic operating budget for El Nido Legal Services.
HOW YOU CAN HELP RIGHT NOW:
We are in need of emergency funding to continue to provide food and shelter to El Nido's first sponsored family, Kenia and Michael. Although we anticipate that Kenia will receive her official work authorization in the next 6 weeks, she is still unlikely to find work that will pay her enough to support them fully for the next 6 months. Your donation will be used to cover the following immediate expenses:
Rent
Electricity
Food
Basic hygiene and household supplies
Cell Phone (required by ICE)
MetroCards for both Kenia and Michael
Incidental medical bills
School supplies for Michael
To learn more about El Nido please visit our website at www.elnidousa.org
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT
Organizer
Kate Chaltain
Organizer
New York, NY