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This June, Haydi Torres found herself on the phone with a stranger in Arizona who wanted to help free Ivan, a 39-year-old Russian man, from the San Luis Regional Detention Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) jail near Yuma. Ivan had already been granted bond. But by the time an advocate contacted Torres, who is a bond and community associate at Envision Freedom Fund, about Ivan’s situation, he needed more than just money for bond — he needed help making a more than 2,000-mile trip home to western New York.

“They’re sending people to new jails all across the country where you don’t even know what’s going on,” said Torres, who shared the details of Ivan’s case with Truthout on the condition that his real name was not used. Envision Freedom Fund helps pay immigration bonds and provides other support to migrants whose homes are in New York or New Jersey. When Torres was preparing to cover Ivan’s bond, she told Truthout, “I was scared that he’s not going to have a phone, and he doesn’t speak English, and he’s going to get lost.”

Stories like Ivan’s are becoming more and more common as the second Trump administration shuffles migrants through its growing nationwide network of immigration jails to execute its mass deportation agenda. For migrants and their loved ones, being granted an immigration bond and securing the funds to pay it are huge reliefs. It means not only that a person can get out of jail and return to their community, but also that they will have more resources and often extra time to build their immigration case.

But what comes after a bond is paid can be high-risk because “the same death-making machine that is detaining and deporting people also doesn’t care what happens after they get released,” Elizabeth Nguyen, who coordinates immigration bonds for the National Bail Fund Network, told Truthout.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) often releases migrants in the middle of nowhere, sometimes overnight, and sometimes without a means of calling for help. Some have died after release, including Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a 56-year-old low-vision Rohingya refugee whom Border Patrol agents abandoned on an evening in February in freezing temperatures on the outskirts of Buffalo, New York. His death was later ruled a homicide. The following month, Daphy Michel, a 31-year-old Haitian woman, froze to death after she was similarly released in harsh winter weather in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while she was experiencing a mental health crisis and wearing only summer clothes. Her death was also ruled a homicide, and her family has said they intend to sue.

Jail Support for Immigrants Held in Missouri Offers Resistance in a Red State

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