A Rapid Response Hotline STory
Maria didn’t expect to become her family’s legal advocate,
but when her brother was detained in a small town in Southwestern Missouri, she dialed the St. Louis Rapid Response Hotline.
Her brother was transferred to a facility in Kansas, isolated from community and legal counsel.
He had no attorney, and like so many people in detention, he couldn’t find one.
Many immigration lawyers won’t take detained cases because of the intense time constraints and the long travel required. Alone, with no representation, he was left to navigate a system designed to be impenetrable.
Maria tried to help. She searched online until she found someone who claimed they could “assist” with bond requests. When our volunteers dug deeper, they discovered the truth: it wasn’t an attorney at all. It was a paperwork service based in the United Arab Emirates—an English-language website selling hope to desperate families while offering no legal protection. A major red flag.
The hearing took place on a Tuesday, and good news came: The judge would consider granting bond.
The catch? Her brother had to submit letters of support to the immigration judge—by Thursday. From jail. Over a virtual system. With no meaningful ability to coordinate anything himself.
So Maria, who had recently received her green card, went to work.
She reached out to friends, family, and her brother’s longtime employer. She gathered letters showing his “good moral character:” fifteen years in the United States, a child who is a U.S. citizen, deep community ties. But she didn’t know how to get the documents to the court in time, or how to properly file them so they would actually count.
That’s where the hotline team stepped in.
With support from our Rapid Response volunteer team and on-call volunteer immigration attorneys, we walked Maria through preparing a pro se filing cover sheet, explained where the documents needed to go, and coached her through navigating a process not only intentionally wrapped in complexity but also designed to separate families, criminalize migration and fast track deportation. She had to submit the paperwork both to the judge and to the Office of Chief Counsel, the government attorneys arguing for her brother’s removal. She had to find the courthouse in Kansas City, a city unfamiliar to her, and advocate for her family in a language she doesn’t yet speak fluently. Even opening the emailed forms, finding a printer, and understanding the instructions felt like mountains to climb.
Maria climbed every one of them.
This is what the Rapid Response Hotline does. It doesn’t fix the system, but it creates lifelines within it. It makes justice reachable for people who are otherwise shut out by language, geography, cost, and intentionally opaque bureaucracy.
This story is deeply connected to Ashrei’s broader work on access—especially our belief that justice should not be “pay to play.” Whether someone is fighting an immigration case or simply trying to obtain a photo ID, no one should have to afford their rights. A $33 ID shouldn’t be the barrier between a person and housing, employment, banking, or safety. Legal protection shouldn’t be reserved for people with resources. Families like Maria’s shouldn’t have to navigate life-altering legal processes alone simply because hiring an attorney is out of reach.
At Ashrei, we work across these systems—from the Photo ID Clinic to the Rapid Response Hotline, because we know that access is the foundation of justice. When people can’t get IDs, they can’t stabilize. When they can’t stabilize, they become more vulnerable to detention, to exploitation, to losing their rights in processes they can’t navigate. When people lack representation, the system swallows them whole.
Maria’s story reminds us why our work matters, and why it must continue.
Maria’s brother went before the judge again, two days later, from a computer inside the jail.
This time, because Maria refused to give up, and because a community of volunteers stood beside her, the judge walked into that hearing with a more complete story of who he is as a person, not just the file number the system assigns him.
This is what access makes possible.
This is what dignity looks like in action.
And this is why we do this work.
The St. Louis Rapid Response Coalition formed in January 2025 to provide a coordinated community response to the increased immigration enforcement activity in our area. The Coalition is made up of non-profit organizations and advocates who engaged in a rigorous and thoughtful approach to educating the St. Louis Metropolitan of their rights before ICE while learning about ICE presence and tactics in the area. Ashrei is proud to be one of the founding and active members of the Coalition. The Coalition stands ready to support families who have experienced the arrest of a loved one.
The Coalition worked hard to build swift capacity to meet community needs, which includes launching the Rapid Response Hotline, a volunteer-led phone line designed to support families in crisis. Hotline volunteers provide accompaniment through detention and deportation by explaining rights and processes, helping families locate detained loved ones, coordinating trained volunteer attorneys to provide free case reviews for detained immigrants, supporting families with the telecommunications systems at each jail, making referrals to additional resources/services, and more.
With the anticipated arrival of increased federal law enforcement officers like the National Guard, much of the regional rapid response coordination shifted in September to our partners at the MICA Project, who has been coordinating meetings and organizing throughout the bistate area to strengthen community defense networks. To ensure that all Coalition members could honor and sustain their capacity in light of this, the Coalition reorganized to integrate our efforts into those led by the staff of MICA.
Because of this, Ashrei now serves as the administrative and infrastructural home for the Rapid Response Hotline.
The Rapid Response Hotline is staffed by volunteers from 7am-7pm, 7 days a week. Callers have the option to be transferred to a local partner that receives information about potential immigration enforcement activity in the region and dispatches teams of volunteers to verify any activity. Alternatively, callers can select an option to speak to a volunteer immediately. Our team of bilingual Hotline Operators field calls daily and activate additional hotline volunteer teams to respond to the caller’s specific needs; they calmly respond to community concerns and questions and ensure that community members have immediate support when they are personally impacted by immigration enforcement. Additional volunteer teams include: Attorneys on Call (AOCs), Detained Intake Volunteer Attorneys (DIVAs), Interpreters, Locator Support Team, Telecommunications Navigators, Impound Support, Passports for US Citizen Children & Powers of Attorney, and Outside Referral experts.
