Congratulations to Justice & Diversity Center (JDC) immigration staff Claire Fawcett and Valerie Zukin who participated in the Oakland Running Festival on Sunday, March 24, 2019.

Claire participated in the half marathon, and Valerie in the 5k race, helping to raise money for the Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund. The fund, in partnership with its fiscal sponsor, Freedom for Immigrants, is an organization that raises money to post bonds for immigrants in immigration detention who have a bond that has been set and cannot afford to pay it. Claire recently had a direct experience with the fund: “I alerted it to the case of an unrepresented female asylum seeker who I saw when I was the Attorney of the Day. She was only 21 years old (from a country in Africa) and had been brutalized by the police in her country for practicing her religion. She had only one cousin in the U.S. and the cousin could not afford the $4,000 bond that ICE had set. The Bay Area Bond Fund paid her bond and she is now released, is living with her family, and is able to more easily look for an attorney to help her with her claim.”

To learn more about the Bay Area Immigration Bond Fund, visit https://www.bayareaimmigrationbondfund.org