KWESI started in 2015, when an asylum seeker named Kwesi from Ghana had requested a visit. He was released in May 2015, after spending two years in detention only because of advocacy on his behalf in the way of protests, letters, and appeals by lawyers and community activists. Since then, members of KWESI have been regularly visiting many asylum seekers and other immigrants awaiting deportation hearings who are from all over the world: Cameroon, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, India, México, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Somalia. KWESI volunteers do not proselytize or offer legal advice to immigrants. In addition to visiting immigrants at Mesa Verde, KWESI supports people in other ways: upon release, people often need clothes, backpacks, toiletries, and food to take with them to their destination in another part of the U.S. Frequently, they need a place to stay for a night or a few days. Across the US at any one time, over 34,000 immigrants are held in privately-owned and federal detention facilities. Not only do these immigrants often face long, uncertain stints in detention, but multinational corporations such as GEO (who owns Mesa Verde) and CCA make staggering profits ($120-$160/day per detainee) by keeping them locked up. This is not a humane way to treat immigrants. How you can help:
- Attend a training and then visit immigrants in detention.
- Donate money or expenses such as bus tickets, bonds, or commissary accounts.
- Donate clothes - especially for winter.
- Write letters and cards to uplift immigrants in detention.
- Write letters to congressmen and the media.
- Share stories of the immigrants and tell others about how the U.S. locks up asylum seekers.
