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Cville Immigrant Freedom Fund (CIFF) is a non-profit organization that works with families in paying for legal representation and ICE bond.  CIFF also posts bond on behalf of those we support because, if a detainee's family member is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident, they are prohibited from posting their loved one's bond.

 

In 2020, CIFF directly assisted 44 people through bond and legal support, with an indirect impact on more than 200 family members, many of them children or elderly parents. Our contributions allow folks to more easily pay rent, buy food and send remittances. When families are able to contribute to the bond payment, their contributions are returned once a case is closed and ICE returns the bond.

 

CIFF's work necessitates daily collaboration with attorneys, caseworkers, allied organizations, families and friends, sometimes locally, sometimes regionally or nationally. It is complicated and often urgent.  Bond applications often require dozens of emails, texts and calls to obtain information, coordinate logistics and, most of all, ensure that anyone for whom we obtain release from detention is safe and reunited with loved ones.

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WHO WE SUPPORT

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The individuals supported by CIFF are community members and Virginians. They include recently arrived single mothers with children, family breadwinners who have lived here for decades, adolescent girls assaulted on their journeys north, young men tortured by gangs back home, and husbands arrested and detained for driving without a license.

 

Each one, whether they fled violence and crossed the border in 2019 or have worked in a poultry factory for years, is caught in the trap of a cruel and racist immigration system.  None of them deserve to be in detention.  All deserve due process.