Happy holidays from the Florence Project! We remain steadfast in our mission to ensure that all immigrants—whether in detention or at the border—have access to justice and are treated with dignity and compassion.

This is yet another escalation in the Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant children. It’s completely inappropriate to give kids these notices, at any time, but especially just as they have arrived to the U.S. and before they have the chance to consult an attorney.

This has been a year of unprecedented attacks on immigrants’ rights, but your support kept families from facing this alone.

This #InternationalMigrantsDay, we honor the resilience and strength of millions of families, adults, and children who have left their home in search of peace, safety, and opportunity. We also remember all who have perished during their journey.

Happy Holidays! 🌟 Each year, we partner with members of the community to write holiday cards for people in immigration detention in a variety of languages. Swipe through to read our holiday message in the different languages we share with our clients this year.

Congratulations to our client, Karla!* After losing the only family she had in El Salvador and enduring violence while living with her uncle, Karla saw no choice but to embark on a courageous journey to the U.S. in search of safety and support.

On November 24, in Tucson, 25 immigrant children appeared in court to fight their deportation orders, including a three-year-old child. 🧵

“The Trump administration is creating hopelessness by design,” said Laura St. John, Florence Project’s Legal Director, while sharing our clients’ experiences in detention during a shadow hearing “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Detention Abuses” on Thursday, December 4.

The Florence Project joins 130 organizations in a letter calling on the Trump administration to reverse harmful policies targeting immigrant communities and to restore this nation’s humanitarian and immigration programs, free from discriminatory or hateful policies and rhetoric.

For two decades, a network of nonprofit organizations has served as a guardrail to protect immigrant children and their rights. Now, for the first time ever, the Trump administration is seeking to privatize these services.

“Conditions in the immigration detention system have often been horrible. However, recently conditions have worsened and what oversight existed has been eliminated. Our clients have increasingly shared that they fear dying.” - Laura St. John, Legal Director, @florenceproject.bsky.social

WATCH: Laura St. John of @florenceproject.bsky.social discusses how the administration is creating “hopelessness by design.”

Parents detained by ICE have rights! Under its own policies, ICE is supposed to ensure that detained parents can make decisions about who cares for their children and what happens to them after a parent is deported.

Laura St. John, the Florence Project’s Legal Director, will be sharing our clients’ experiences in detention during the shadow hearing “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Detention Abuses” on Thursday, December 4th, at 8:30 a.m. EST.

We are truly thankful for the incredible support we received this #GivingTuesday! Your donations, your support, and your commitment to standing with immigrants all play a vital role in sustaining our work during this crucial time.

Giving Tuesday is about standing with orgs that make our communities a better place to live, work, and raise families. Right now, our friends and neighbors are living with daily risks no family should have to face.

After six months in detention, Ramiro* finally reunited with his sons. Together, we built his case, secured expert testimony, and stood beside him until the judge granted him relief. But thousands of people are still facing detention and deportation, many without support.

This Thanksgiving, all of us at the Florence Project are thankful for you. Thanks to you, we remain in detention centers, making sure adults know their rights despite the government’s termination of the legal orientation program nationwide.

Giving Tuesday is coming up on December 2! #GivingTuesday is about standing with organizations that make our communities a better place to live, work, and raise families. But right now, our communities are at-risk.

On any given day, thousands of adults are detained in remote facilities in Arizona solely because of their immigration status. The vast majority don’t have an attorney and are forced to represent themselves in immigration court, severely impacting their chances to win their case.

Florence Project Managing Attorney Laura Delarosa and Social Worker Bella Espinoza attended the Youth Transitioning to Adulthood On-Site Training Program hosted by @acaciajustice.bsky.social last month.

Mauricio (featured here with his family) is a U.S. Army veteran who was deported to Mexico eleven years ago despite having grown up in the U.S. and despite his immense sacrifice for this country as a soldier, completing over 100 combat missions while deployed to Afghanistan.

We are pleased to share our 2025 Fall Newsletter, in which we share the story of our client Ramiro* and the ways that we continue to stand with our clients during the current unprecedented attacks on immigrants’ rights. Read here: firrp.org/news-events/...

On graduation day, ICE deported two Louisiana high school students with Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), a visa granted to immigrant children who have been abused, neglected or abandoned by a parent.

This Dia de Los Muertos, we remember and honor the lives lost in immigration detention. There have been at least 25 deaths in ICE custody since the Trump administration took office, a record number of deaths within a calendar year since 2006. This is the deadliest year in ICE custody in decades.

Every Dia de Los Muertos, Florence Project social workers organize an Ofrenda in our Phoenix and Tucson offices. This year, our staff gathered to honor clients and people detained who have passed while in immigration detention, and a beloved colleague who we lost in 2024.

Congrats to our client, Dominic* for becoming a legal permanent resident! At just six years old, Dominic was selling tortillas and art he made on the streets of Honduras to survive. Abandoned by his parents and raised in an abusive home, he was forced to drop out of school in second grade.

Florence Project staff recently attended a training from the National Compadres Network titled “Remaining Grounded/ Rooted in Who We Are.” It was a beautiful opportunity to gather as a team, in community, and connect with each other and our roots.

ICE detention centers are becoming dangerously hot. A new @washingtonpost.com analysis found that people held in ICE facilities face far greater exposure to extreme heat than those in other prisons, with some centers enduring three months of unsafe temperatures.

Thank you to everyone who has generously donated their time and talents to support our mission and vision. Your contributions make a lasting impact on the lives of our clients, and we truly couldn’t do this work without support of our community.

This week is #NationalProBonoWeek, and we are celebrating the tremendous people who embodied hope in action and stood with our clients in 2025! Last year, with your support and in partnership with our pro bono attorneys and volunteers, we served over 15,000 people.

As #LatineHeritageMonth comes to a close, we honor our Latine staff, supporters, and clients who are so much more than their legal cases or immigration statuses. They are culture, resilience, art, talent, hopes, and dreams.

Our 2024 Annual Report is now available on our website! And we are proud to share last year’s service figures. These figures capture the incredible impact our teams make, and the immense challenges we face, to achieve justice for our clients and all immigrants.

We are deeply alarmed by reports that the government is rolling out a plan to attempt to incentivize unaccompanied children to waive their rights under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and accept "voluntary" return to their country of origin in exchange for $2500.

On Sept. 25, a federal judge in Arizona granted a preliminary injunction protecting 69 unaccompanied immigrant children from Guatemala and Honduras in government custody in Arizona from being summarily repatriated from the U.S. without having the chance to present their case to an immigration judge.

Save the date to join us virtually! We will honor and celebrate the pro bono attorneys and volunteers who embodied hope in action for our clients and our mission in 2024-2025. We will be streaming the event live on Facebook and hope you can join us virtually!

As we reflect on all that your support made possible in 2024, we do so amid a campaign of dehumanization targeting immigrant communities and a dismantling of protections that safeguard immigrants’ rights. In this moment, we may be overwhelmed and feel despair and powerlessness. But no one is alone.

Laura St. John, Legal Director of the Florence Project, spoke to the @nytimes.com about the mental health toll on detained immigrants and lack of attention to mental health in facilities across the U.S. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/16/h...

“They Didn’t Let Me Say Bye” is the latest report from the Kino Border Initiative, revealing the human impact of deportations to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico between May and July 2025. www.kinoborderinitiative.org/wp-content/u...

ICYMI: Recent media ft. the Florence Project’s advocacy responding to the Trump admin’s attempt to illegally remove our child clients to Guatemala despite fear of being returned and in violation of their rights. Your support makes this advocacy possible. www.the-independent.com/news/world/a...

As we kick off #LatineHeritageMonth, we honor our resilient clients, dedicated Latine staff, and generous supporters. 💛 At the Florence Project, we recognize and value Latine culture and heritage year-round.

The Florence Project and Kino Border Initiative were invited to speak to a Senate staff delegation at the U.S.-Mexico border recently. The delegation consisted of staff from the offices of Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, alongside ten other offices.

Good news! A federal judge has extended a temporary restraining order that blocks the removal of unaccompanied children from Guatemala and Honduras who are currently in immigration shelters in Arizona.

ICE is detaining more people than ever before, according to new analysis by @vera.org: 1️⃣ 59,000+ detained in a single day — a record high 2️⃣ 59 new ICE facilities and 77 reopened ones 3️⃣ Thousands denied access to lawyers, fair hearings, left in inhumane conditions 4️⃣ Detaining families again

Right now, thousands of people in our communities face: ▪️ Arrests at routine ICE check-ins and court hearings ▪️ Inhumane detention with little to no access to lawyers ▪️ Separation from their families and communities ▪️ Fast-tracked deportations and unjust case dismissals

Late Saturday night, with little to no notice, the US government sent private transportation contractors to shelters housing unaccompanied immigrant children with the intent to take away and illegally repatriate our child clients to Guatemala against their wishes.

www.cnn.com/2025/08/29/p... We are deeply concerned by the Trump administration’s escalated targeting of unaccompanied immigrant children. Children seeking protection in the U.S. have rights, and this process violates those rights. We call on the Trump administration to abandon this plan now.

Congratulations to our client Julia* on winning asylum! After a harrowing journey from Venezuela and five months in immigration detention, Julia finally feels like she can be well. She can finally “eat and sleep, just live like a normal person,” she says.

August is Make-A-Will Month, a time to reflect on the future and the values we share. By including the Florence Project in your will, you plan for the future while also ensuring that immigrants have access to critical services and advocacy for years to come!

A new investigation led by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon reveals that LGBTQIA+ youth in residential treatment facilities (RTFs) often face extreme isolation, abuse, and discrimination rooted in their identities. 🧵