clergy & faith leaderS’
toolbox for immigrant justice
- Start here
- Sacred Texts & Reflection
- Your Tradition
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- Teach & Learn
- Advocate & Organize
- Vote & Civic Engagement
- St. Louis & Missouri
- Build This Together
- Before you rely on this
This is the part of the toolbox that exists nowhere else. Everything above you could find with enough searching. This you cannot.
Local Tools - Start Here
Almost everything in the other sections offers national resources, or resources to be used more generally. This part is not, and it is the reason the toolbox exists at all. The St. Louis Rapid Response Coalition formed in January 2025 — roughly sixteen organizations and individuals came together to take stock of our region and identify gaps as the new Administration entered the White House. Today, the Ashrei Foundation serves as “the administrative and infrastructural home for the Rapid Response Hotline.” Ashrei also leads the Immigrant Family Emergency Response Fund, is the backbone organization for the Missouri State ID Access Coalition, runs a refugee resettlement project that began inside a congregation, and convenes this Clergy Collective (among other efforts).
This is not an entirely new endeavor. Ashrei’s Executive Director, Sara Ruiz, has worked in immigration justice in St. Louis for about 20 years — including several years leading the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America (IFCLA), an organization with a deep inter-faith history that was involved in local and national sanctuary efforts both in the 1980s and during the first Trump Administration. Furthermore, Ashrei’s founder, Rabbi Susan Talve, has been building interfaith justice partnerships in the St. Louis area since 1981.
As such, the conviction that faith communities belong at the center of immigration justice is not something this Collective invented in 2026. It is a St. Louis argument with nearly 4 decades decades behind it, and the Clergy Collective is part of its current form.
Ashrei is “firmly committed to healing and repairing the world, drawing on social justice traditions embedded within multiple religious traditions… All our programs emphasize presence, recognizing that while we might not be able to immediately shift short term realities or individual outcomes, we do have the power to reject isolation and dehumanization in these processes. Our work is to move our community forward on the path towards abolishing all systems of economic exclusion and oppression, to a future where all people may live with dignity, justice and freedom.”
The front door to all of it: the Hotline, the Immigration Enforcement dashboard, the IFER Fund, refugee resettlement, policy and advocacy.
Main website for the STL Rapid Response Hotline, which includes details, partner information and links to download fliers in several languages.
Bilingual operators, interpreters, locators, telecom navigators, impound support, attorneys. Two roles are open to people who speak only English — locator work and impound support — which makes this reachable for most congregations. Monthly volunteer meetings, first Mondays 6–7pm.
Emergency cash delivered in person to immigrant and mixed-status families, born out of a 40-organization service providers network. Ashrei recruits and trains the volunteers who make the deliveries. A congregation can fund it, or staff it.
The coalition’s own service-referral directory for the St. Louis region. If you only bookmark one local link, this is a strong candidate.
Understanding Local Realities - Data Tools
Ashrei maintains the Eastern Missouri Immigration Enforcement Dashboard, the first public database tracking local immigration enforcement in this region. It is built from Rapid Response Hotline data, de-identified, and updated monthly.
The finding that should reshape what clergy do: The majority of ICE detentions in this region begin with an arrest by local police — largely departments without 287(g) agreements — most often at a traffic stop. The next largest category is arrest at a scheduled immigration check-in. This means that the most consequential conversation available to most clergy is not with Congress. It is with your police chief, your mayor, and your city council, about what your municipality's officers do when they stop someone.
If you cite these figures, cite them properly. Ashrei offers the following: “This dashboard reflects the work and community partnerships of the Ashrei Foundation; all data and analysis presented herein are property of the Ashrei Foundation. Please cite the Ashrei Foundation and obtain permission before reproducing, distributing, or using this content.” Both — cite and ask. And carry the limitation with the number: not every detention in Missouri reaches the hotline, so this is a floor, not a total.
The live dashboard: referral types, services requested, arrest circumstances, apprehension locations by county and municipality, traffic stop data, countries of origin, age and gender. Downloadable monthly PDF reports at the foot of the page.
Maintained by Dr. Austin Kocher and his team at Relevant Research, this easy-to-use dashboard offers helpful context for Missouri's position among national enforcement trends.
Another national dashboard from the Relevant Research team, this one offers data about each ICE detention center (owned and contracted). Drill down to understand what is happening in Missouri jails.
The best national tool for tracking all active 287(g) agreements. Drill down and filter by state to follow which localities in Missouri enter into agreements and how we compare nationwide.
This is a national tool to access raw immigration data; use with caution.
The newest data tool from the Relevant Research team, this dashboard focuses on death in ICE detention -- numbers in the current administration are higher than any other period in US history.
Legal Resources
The coalition’s own curated list of local attorneys doing detained removal work — vetted by the people who make these referrals daily, and explicitly cleared for public sharing.
2650 Cherokee St., St. Louis, MO 63118. 314-995-6995, press extension 2 for intake — leave your name, phone and state; they review voicemails within 48 hours and respond by text. Family immigration, naturalization, removal defense, asylum and refugee matters, plus relief for domestic violence survivors. Sliding scale, free for serious financial need. Bilingual. Service area is parts of Missouri and southern Illinois. They also do Know Your Rights presentations and power-of-attorney workshops for congregations, and they need interpreters and pro bono attorneys.
One of two pro-/low-bono immigration law firms in the region. Immigration Department supports with asylum, family reunification, work permits, lawful permanent residency, citizenship, deportation/removal defense and more. Intake: 314-977-2775 (be prepared to leave a voicemail and someone will return your call).
3401 Arsenal St., St. Louis, MO 63118. 314-773-9090, Mon–Fri 8–4. Staff are partially BIA-accredited: they help complete paperwork for family reunification, permanent residence and citizenship, but they do not provide legal representation. Walk-in pre-screening Monday 2pm, Tuesday and Thursday 9:30am, limited slots. Free 15-minute consult.
5939 Goodfellow Blvd. 314-361-8834, intake@archcitydefenders.org. Note honestly: no immigration practice. But the right referral for the municipal court, policing and cash bail harms that so often entangle immigrant families.
Developed by volunteers with the STL Rapid Response Hotline, this simple guide offers practical advice to help families avoid becoming victims of fraud and scam in immigrant legal services. Please share publicly.
Direct Services and Mutual Aid
3200 Chouteau Ave., St. Louis, MO 63103. Patients 314-977-1250; volunteers 314-977-1258. Primary care and mental health for uninsured and underinsured people, especially immigrants and refugees, with GUIA navigators. Materials in English, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese. Important: their site states plainly that they do NOT have a 24/7 call line — do not send someone there in a night emergency.
PO Box 190005, St. Louis, MO 63119. info@abideinlovestl.org (no public phone). “We create belonging and advocacy through acts of love and care for families and individuals impacted by ICE detention or displacement.” Food outreach team is newly forming and needs people to shop, pack, drive, coordinate or donate. Their April food drive served 36 families with 38 volunteers, and Kirkwood United Methodist hosted a care-package event — they say directly: if you want to set up a similar service event for your congregation, reach out.
A program operated by a collaboration among several Roman Catholic parishes, IRM runs the local Accompaniment Program (where volunteers accompany immigrants to ICE/ISAP checkins), provides assistance with obtaining passports for US citizen children of immigrants, and more. A resource for congregational involvement and direct services.
The founding chapter of the Abide in Love network; volunteers maintain regular communication with people detained in ICE custody in Phelps County Jail (Rolla) and offer additional services.
The Ste. Genevieve affiliate of the Abide in Love network; volunteers maintain regular communication with people detained in ICE custody in Ste. Genevieve County Jail (Ste. Genevieve) and offer additional services.
A program of Hoyleton Youth and Family Services, Puentes de Esperanza is the organization that anchors immigrant services on the Illinois side of the St. Louis region. A critical partner for anyone supporting folks in Western Illinois.
Organizing and Faith Networks
The source of the places-of-worship guidance in Section 3 of this Toolbox. Their April 2026 win blocking Missouri voter-engagement restrictions makes them a natural ally on civic engagement.
info@mojwj.org, 877-644-0466. Organizes in St. Louis, Kansas City, St. Charles, Springfield-Ozarks and mid-Missouri, and states explicitly that it organizes “in our places of worship.” Consider exploring your local "Faith Labor Alliance" chapter of each JWJ affiliate.
Missioner for Public Advocacy: the Rev. Dr. Teresa Mithen Danieley, publicadvocacy@diocesemo.org.
Bilingual worship resources; missioner the Rev. Dr. Valori Mulvey Sherer.
MO Workers is the home of Fuerza, an immigrant-led community organizing committee pursuing change in North St. Louis County. This group uses community organizing & labor rights principles to pursue liberation and a citizenship that works for all people; current campaigns focus on the communities in the Ritenour School District.
The Missouri Jails Contracting with ICE
Currently, there are four facilities actively detaining people for ICE in Missouri, but the list is not permanent. Greene, Ste. Genevieve, Phelps and Ozark County Jails are the primary facilities holding ICE detainees in Missouri. Additional county contracts are reportedly in the works, and ICE renegotiates these regularly — so treat any list, including this one, as a snapshot with a date on it rather than a fixed picture.
People are also transferred out of region — to Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Texas and Arizona — often within days. If a congregant disappears from the local jails, they have probably been moved, not released.
Two people have died in ICE custody in Phelps and Ste. Genevieve counties in the past year. What follows is only what we could verify from official county sources. The gaps are marked, and they are real — someone with an ordinary browser and a telephone needs to close them before this section goes to print.
Two things to tell every family impacted by detention, before anything else:
Jail calls are recorded, and can be used against the detained person. This is the single most important thing a clergy person can pass on, and the Hotline is emphatic about it: remind families to remind their detained loved one not to discuss how they entered the United States, when they came, where they were born, or what their status may be. It is the government's job to prove someone is not allowed to be here. It is not the family's job to prove it for them.
Do not send someone to visit who cannot safely go. The Hotline's standing practice is that anyone visiting a jail in person should have lawful status and no outstanding criminal or legal matters anywhere — no probation, no parole, no warrants. If your congregation organizes visitation, that rule protects the visitor. Most facilities also require the detained person to submit an approved visitor list first.
How to find where someone is being held. If you do not have a person's A number and country of origin, you can search by name and country of origin.
A search tip worth knowing: On the ICE locator, search with one first name and two last names, no hyphens and no accents, plus country of origin — and leave the date of birth out. There is often a delay between apprehension and appearance in the system, and misspellings are common, so try variations before concluding someone is not there.
If Someone in Your Congregation is Detained
Clergy are often the first call, before a lawyer and sometimes before family. What follows is what the Hotline’s own volunteers work from.
Gather as much of this information as soon as possible:
- The person’s full name — all first and last names, spelled correctly
- Country of origin, and date of birth
- Their A-number if known (formatted A ### ### ###). Someone who entered without detection and has never had contact with immigration enforcement may not have one until ICE assigns it — its absence is not a bad sign
- Who made the original arrest, and when
- Any prior immigration or criminal history that may be relevant
Two things that surprise families
Deportation is usually not immediate. Families often assume being picked up on Monday means removal on Tuesday; in this region that is rarely how it goes. And people are frequently pressured to sign paperwork — often voluntary departure — without it being explained. It is their right to refuse to sign anything they do not understand. A clergy person who knows only those two facts can steady a family considerably.
Start here. Then county jails, then the immigration court system.
Immigration court case status. This requires knowing an individual's A number and country of origin; without it, you cannot obtain court status information.
County corrections database, searchable by partial name. Useful when someone has not yet appeared in the ICE system. Illinois at /state/IL.
Step-by-step guide to the IC Solutions system, produced by the Hotline and explicitly cleared for public sharing. One caution: there are two deposit types, and only one lets the detained person call anyone other than the depositor.
Step-by-step guide to HomeWAV, also Hotline-produced and cleared for sharing. Phelps is now video-only; on-site visits must be booked 24 hours ahead and run Monday and Saturday only.
Step-by-step guide to CityTeleCoin, also Hotline-produced and cleared for sharing.
Dialed free from inside a facility to reach an advocate, Mon–Fri. The number to get to someone who is detained, not to their family.
Elected Officials and Missouri Numbers
Rep. Wesley Bell represents Missouri’s 1st District and has already engaged with this Collective — he responded personally to the 80-signature clergy letter, and visited Ste. Genevieve. The outstanding asks from that letter were: a written report on the May 26 Ste. Genevieve visit; a date for a Greene County visit; partnership in appealing to mayors, police and sheriffs to end ICE partnerships and profit-driven contracts; and a meeting. Those are still the asks.
Official lookup.
By nine-digit ZIP.