Almost everything above this section is national. This part is not, and it is the reason the toolbox exists at all. The St. Louis Rapid Response Coalition formed in January 2025 — sixteen organisations and a great many volunteers — and the Ashrei Foundation serves, in its own words, as “the administrative and infrastructural home for the Rapid Response Hotline.” Ashrei also leads the Immigrant Family Emergency Response Fund, is the backbone organisation for the Missouri State ID Access Coalition, runs a refugee resettlement project that began inside a congregation, and convenes this Clergy Collective.

And this is not a new departure. Ashrei’s executive director, Sara Ruiz, has worked in immigration justice in St. Louis since 2003 — including six years leading the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America, an organisation deeply involved in local and national sanctuary efforts. She was born and raised here, holds a master’s in Latin American Studies from Arizona with an emphasis on the US–Mexico border, and did her graduate research on migrants who disappear on the journey north. Ashrei’s founder, Rabbi Susan Talve, has been building interfaith justice partnerships in this city since 1981.

Which is to say: the conviction that faith communities belong at the centre of immigration justice is not something this Collective invented in 2026. It is a St. Louis argument with more than two decades behind it, and the Clergy Collective is its current form.

Ashrei’s own framing, and worth reading before you go looking for a national programme to join: “We are 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.”

STL Rapid Response Coalition314-370-7080 Staffed by volunteers 7am–7pm, seven days a week. “A group of trusted organizations, community groups and advocates that provide legal and other services to immigrant communities in the bistate St. Louis area.” Volunteer-led, administratively housed by the Ashrei Foundation. stlrapidresponse.org

What the hotline actually does, in its own words: accompaniment through detention and deportation by explaining rights and processes; helping families locate detained loved ones; coordinating trained volunteer attorneys to give free case reviews for detained immigrants; supporting families with the telecommunications system at each jail; and referrals onward. That is a far wider offer than most people assume from a phone number, and it is worth describing in full when you give it out.

Download the flier — it already exists in five languages. The hotline page carries printable informational fliers in English, Spanish, French, Ukrainian and Russian, with more coming. If your congregation serves any of those communities, print these rather than making your own: they are already translated and already correct. stlrapidresponse.org/hotline

Ashrei publishes the Eastern Missouri Immigration Enforcement Dashboard, the first public database tracking local immigration enforcement in this region. It is built from Rapid Response Hotline intake data, de-identified, and updated monthly. As of 30 June 2026: 943 contacts documented, 8,221 hotline calls, people from 60 countries. Source: Ashrei Foundation.

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. That means 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. National organisations cannot tell you this. Ashrei can, because it answers the phone.

If you cite these figures, cite them properly. Ashrei asks, in its own words: “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.

Two honest notes, so nobody wastes a phone call. Metropolitan Congregations United is a real and well-run St. Louis faith organizing network, but it has no immigration program — its value to you is Sacred Votes and its roster of roughly thirty member congregations, which is essentially a ready-made invitation list. The Interfaith Partnership of Greater St. Louis and Empower Missouri likewise have no immigration programming; Interfaith Partnership’s value is convening and its Cabinet’s official-statement mechanism.

Four facilities, and the list is not permanent. Greene, Ste. Genevieve, Phelps and Ozark are the primary Missouri jails holding ICE detainees. 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, before anything else

Jail calls are recorded, and can be used against the person. This is the single most important thing a clergy person can pass on, and the coalition 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 coalition'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 organises visitation, that rule protects the visitor. Most facilities also require the detained person to submit an approved visitor list first.

Ste. Genevieve County Detention Center

55 South Third St, Ste. Genevieve MO 63670. Sheriff Gary Stolzer, sheriff@sgcso.com. Jail Administrator Lt. Andrew Johnson, ajohnson@sgcso.com. The county describes the facility as serving local, state and federal agencies, housing approximately 300 detainees daily, ranging from “civil detainees to dangerous felons.” Civil detainee is the ICE category, though the page does not name ICE.

Visitation, quoted exactly: “VISITATION IS ON SUNDAY FROM 12:00 TO 4:00. THESE VISITS ARE FOR 30 MINUTES, BASED ON FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE.” Note the collision with Sunday morning worship — plan around it.

No phone number appears on any Ste. Genevieve County page we could read. Do not print one. And no clergy or chaplain access information exists on any official page — do not imply clergy have a special route in. Email the Jail Administrator to ask.

Phelps County Jail (Rolla)

500 W 2nd St, Rolla MO 65401. Sheriff Michael P. Kirn. Non-emergency 573-426-3860, Mon–Fri 8–4. Visitation is by HomeWAV video, 30-minute sessions.

If your congregation plans a letter-writing ministry, read this first. Phelps County accepts mail from friends and family only on 5x7 postcards, with a return address. Anything else is rejected. Address it exactly: full name including middle name, Phelps County Jail, (POD Number), 500 West 2nd Street, Rolla MO 65401. Legal mail is photocopied and the originals shredded in front of the person.

Greene County Jail (Springfield)

Sheriff Jim Arnott. The Sheriff’s Office describes operating a jail housing six hundred people. That is all we could verify.

Address, phone, visitation policy, mail policy, clergy access and ICE status are all unverified — the county website blocks automated readers. Someone must phone this one in.

Ozark County Jail

Completely unverified. We could not locate any official Ozark County or Ozark County Sheriff website that resolves. Nothing about this facility should appear in print until someone confirms it directly.

Two open questions worth answering

First: the ICE field office. Vigils in St. Louis gather at 1222 Spruce Street, and that is a real federal building — but we could not confirm from any official source that ICE ERO is housed there, or what its public contact and jurisdiction are. Second, and more consequential: the Justice Department’s immigration court listing shows a Kansas City immigration court and no St. Louis immigration court. If St. Louis-area cases are being docketed to Kansas City or heard remotely, that changes any court-accompaniment plan completely. Ask MICA or Legal Services of Eastern Missouri to confirm.

Clergy are often the first call, before a lawyer and sometimes before family. What follows is what the hotline’s own volunteers work from.

Have this ready before you call the hotline

• 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 will 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

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 a delay between apprehension and appearance in the system, and misspellings are common, so try variations before concluding someone is not there.

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.

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.

Missouri immigration, in numbers

From the American Immigration Council’s Immigrants in Missouri, published 2020, figures from 2018 unless noted. Label these with their year when you use them — we could not obtain newer state figures, and we found no St. Louis metro-specific data from an authoritative source at all.

• 258,390 immigrants, 4% of the state population — and another 4% of residents are US-born citizens with at least one immigrant parent.
• Top origins: Mexico 15%, China 8%, India 7%, Vietnam 5%, Bosnia and Herzegovina 4%.
• 127,336 — 49% — had naturalized. 84% reported speaking English well or very well. 44% of adult immigrants had a college degree or more.
• Undocumented population (2016): 60,000, or 1% of the state.
• Immigrant-led households paid $1.9 billion in federal and $790.8 million in state and local taxes; undocumented immigrants alone paid $62.3 million in state and local taxes.
• 14,795 immigrant business owners generated $397.7 million in business income; total spending power $6.8 billion.
• Immigrants are 25% of Missouri residents working in the life, physical and social sciences.