Secure Families Collaborative Kick-off Event

WHAT: Secure Families Fund Community Foundation Sonoma County is pleased to announce the launching of the Secure Families Collaborative, a network of non-profit organizations providing deportation defense and other services to Sonoma County’s immigrant communities

WHEN: Wednesday, February 13, 2019 from 4 PM to 6 PM

WHERE: Beer Baron Bar & Kitchen (614 4th Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95404)

SPEAKERS: Lisa Carreno
Executive Director, United Way

Shirlee Zane
Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District

Bill Hing
Founder, Immigration Legal Resource Center/ Director, USF Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic

Greg Sarris
Chair, Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria

INTERVIEWS: There will be an opportunity to interview a mother who recently received asylum status thanks to the intervention of VIDAS as part of the Secure Families Collaborative.

The mother and her teenage son fled El Salvador after the gang Mara 18 accosted the minor on several occasions as he was entering his church. The teenager was even threatened with a knife by gang members in attempts to recruit him as part of the organization.

Mother and son left El Salvador on February 2018, and settled in Rohnert Park where they requested legal aid to start an asylum process. On December 2018, both received asylum after an immigration judge determined that the boy’s participation in the church, and his religious choice were a central reason for the persecution.

Now the family continues to work through the Secure Families Collaborative to petition the father and husband, and reunite their family in the United States.

Contact for interviews: Richard Coshnear
rcoshnear@vidaslegal.org(707) 495-3270