Access for Good: Supporting RAICES, human rights, and immigration in Texas.

As part of our Access for Good initiative, we donate 1c for every online top-up sent to support human rights, and immigration with RAICES' ONG, based in Texas, USA.

Access for Good is our way of giving help to those who need it. We partner with organisations around the world to provide better education, healthcare, equality, and more. By donating 1 cent from every online top-up sent via our app or ding.com, our Access for Good initiative allows us to provide funds to charities all over the world, to empower people and change their lives.

As part of our Q4 donations, we’re supporting RAICES, based in Texas, USA.

What is RAICES?

Founded in 1986, RAICES is more formally known as the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, and work in the defense of immigrant and refugee rights. By empowering people, families, and communities, RAICES are active advocates for liberty and justice, and we’re proud to get behind all that RAICES stand for.

What does RAICES do?

RAICES supports immigrants from all over the world who leave home in search of a better future, through:

Legal Services:

Providing defense to low-income immigrants in court means that RAICES actively save them from attending court alone. Their legal services range from “low-cost residency and citizenship services to pro-bono representation for families and children in detention, with service offerings for Residency & Citizenship Services, Asylum Seekers, Removal Defence, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Legal Representation for Family and Children, and more.”

Social Programs:

Providing aid through services like case management, immigrant resettlement help, connecting immigrants with the services and facilities in their locality, helping with transit support for recently released migrants, and more. In doing so, they actively help in the ongoing global fight against oppression, and contribute to agents of change positively, while improving the lives of the people who need help.

2020 was a catalytic year for RAICES, proving why their work is so important. We’ve rounded up some of the key activities to highlight how life-changing their work is:

In 2020, RAICES provided legal support to more than 8,000 clients. Amongst those clients, were families, separated by pandemic laws preventing union.

That year alone, RAICES united more than 400 families through their #FreeTheFamilies campaign in the USA. Working in partnership with Amnesty, RAICES became the voice of those separated within border facilities, leading to legal changes. Their work enabled changes that meant families separated for more than a month were forced to be released.

Outside of familial support, RAICES has kept advocating for children’s rights central to their work. They opened 10,548 cases in 2020, serving over 8,719 clients.

There is no end to the work done by RAICES, and we can’t wait to get working with them. Outside of working to fight for immigrants, they support LGBTQ+ rights, advocation for black immigrant rights, voting rights, defending women and children, defending DACA, asylum seekers, and more. For more information, see here.

If you’d like to contribute to the ongoing efforts of RAICES and help those who need it the most, you can donate to the cause.