Migrant Support Collective

05/15/2026

In March this year we started a monthly newsletter. Read this month’s newsletter for updates, events, programming info and more ways you can help support LGBTQ+ detained migrants.
🔗newsletter link in bio (also sign up to subscribe via email!)

[alt text] two graphics with purple background one reads May 2026 Mental Health Awareness, the other reads Mayo de 2026 Salud mental.

04/27/2026

A book doesn’t stay with just one person in detention. According to our referral partners, it get passed around, shared with friends, read aloud together. One book becomes a whole community’s.

This week, you can make that happen - and double your impact. Now through May 2nd, the Hull Family Foundation matches every dollar you spend on our wishlists with $1 to Migrant Support Collective, up to $1,000 (🔗 in bio)!

Your purchase also supports , a family-owned Chicago bookstore we love. Chicagoans, swing by Three Avenues Bookshop this week for MSC-themed merch too!

The match ends Saturday. Buy a book for someone in detention today!

04/15/2026

Imagine having to choose between eating enough, brushing your teeth, or talking on the phone to your loved ones.

In ICE detention, where provisions are commonly spoiled or moldy, toothpaste costs $11, and a 15 minute phone call can be as much as $17, migrants are forced to make that choice daily.

These high prices are not a mistake. ICE partners with private companies that set high prices for things like food, hygiene products, and phone calls, turning detention centers into a $45 billion industry. And migrant communities pay the price.

The vast majority of Migrant Support Collective's participants are LGBTQ+, and are more likely to experience poverty, making these costs even more impossible to bear.

That’s why Migrant Support Collective sends commissary funding to migrants in ICE detention.

By April 30, we need to raise the funds to give $100 to 30 people. Donate today to help someone meet their most basic needs.

Support detained migrants' basic needs, such as food, phone calls, and hygiene products.

01/21/2026

As we face heightened attacks on migrant and LGBTQ+ rights, we're in greater need of support. Please consider volunteering to help us fundraise to keep up the fight.

About Migrant Support Collective Migrant Support Collective (MSC) is a fiscally sponsored project of Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD). MSC runs direct service and advocacy programs dedicated to supporting the well-being of migrants detained in the United States. By advocating for...

07/21/2025

For week 4 of our 5-week fundraising drive, we’re excited to share another new project we’re launching soon: Data Transparency Initiative!

In addition to direct services, advocacy is a core pillar of Migrant Support Collective’s mission to dismantle systems of detention and criminalization that target LGBTQ+ migrants.

Through grassroots storytelling efforts, we will collect and amplify the experiences of trans and q***r people in detention. These stories are powerful tools for change: they expose the inhumanity of immigration detention and challenge narratives that erase LGBTQ+ voices from public discourse. 

We will work with movement partners to publish these stories in reports and social media campaigns that center the dignity and agency of detained migrants.

This initiative is designed to increase transparency and accountability, using data-driven insights to inform the public, support policy advocacy, and push for structural change.

➡️ We need your support to get this and other new programs off the ground. Donate today to support our advocacy work — link in bio!

07/18/2025

At MSC, we believe in the power of art to challenge injustice, spark imagination, and affirm the humanity of those impacted by detention. Creative expression is a form of resistance—a way to reclaim voice, dignity, and connection.

This year, we’re launching our Art as Advocacy pilot program to empower individuals in immigration detention to share their stories through original art. Their creations will be featured in a digital archive and community exhibition in Chicago.

✨ We’re currently looking for participants, guest artists, and volunteers to help bring this vision to life.

➡️ Want to learn more or get involved? Visit our website (link in bio) or contact [email protected].

07/17/2025

The Trump administration is imprisoning migrants at an alarming rate. Recently, the Senate passed a 265% annual budget increase for ICE’s annual detention budget.

✊ Now more than ever, it’s vital to show up for our community.

➡️ Donate today to support the wellbeing of detained migrants (link in bio)!

📰 Source: American Immigration Council, “Senate Approves Unprecedented Spending for Mass Deportation, Ignoring What’s Broken in our Immigration System.”

07/14/2025

For week 4 of our 5-week fundraising drive, we’re excited to share one of our new pilot programs launching this year: Art as Advocacy!

The Art as Advocacy Program empowers individuals in immigration detention to create and share original artwork and personal narratives. This program responds to the cultural erasure and emotional isolation of detention by positioning creativity as a powerful form of resistance.

Art becomes both testimony and vision—exposing the lived realities of detention while affirming the humanity, dreams, and resilience of those inside.

💡Interested in applying or volunteering? Visit our website: migrantsupportcollective.org/art-as-advocacy

➡️ We need your support to get this and other new programs off the ground. Donate today to support our advocacy work — link in bio!

07/11/2025

One of the most common things we hear from people incarcerated by ICE is that they feel alone.

ICE detention, like all forms of incarceration, is designed to make people feel isolated.

Having a pen pal might sound like a small thing. But for someone who has virtually no contact with the outside world, it can be life-changing.

Migrant Support Collective is building up our capacity to launch a pen pal program – but we need your help in order to make it happen.

➡️ Help us make it happen by donating today (link in bio)

07/07/2025

For week 3 of our 5-week fundraising drive, we’re featuring one of our programs that will be coming soon: Pen Pals!

One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we’ve received from folks in detention, as well as their social workers and legal advocates, is that detention makes it near impossible to meet one of the most basic human needs: connection with community.

✍️ While having a pen pal might sound like a small thing, for someone who is detained, it is sometimes one of the only connections you have to the outside world.

➡️ Interested in volunteering as a pen pal once we roll the program out? Sign up for our email list on our website to stay updated (link in bio)!

07/03/2025

The final section of the LGBTQ+ Mental Health Initiative guide offers reflective questions designed to help individuals recognize their own resiliency. People who endure the trauma of detention demonstrate incredible strength – and sometimes, it helps to have clear reminders of that resilience. We hope this guide serves as one of those reminders.

✨ What is something that gives you hope? Write it down here so that you can look at it when you’re feeling hopeless or sad.
💪 Which challenges or hardships in your life have taught you the most about your own strength? 
♥️ What have you learned from what you have gone through? 
🫂 Who are the people you love and care about most, and why?
🌈 What things in your life make you feel most proud of yourself?

➡️ Donate today to support the mental health and wellbeing of detained LGBTQ+ migrants (link in bio): https://donorbox.org/migrant-support-collective

Until the end of July, we’re offering a limited-edition Pride-themed MSC t-shirt to anyone who donates $100 or more!