Support for Zahara

[photo and fundraiser with permission from Zahara]

Zahara is one of several transgender women from Honduras currently seeking asylum in the United States.  She walked from Honduras to the border, and entered the U.S. in May 2018 as part of the 2018 Caravan. She is currently imprisoned in New Mexico in Cibola County Correctional Facility with her trans sisters from the Caravan.  None of them have broken the law. It is not a crime to seek asylum. 

Here is a photo essay about the transgender women of the caravan, including photos of Zahara.

(One of the asylum-seeking women featured in the article -- Roxsana Hernandez -- later died in ICE custody at Cibola prison due to medical neglect ).

Hristo Zisovski and I are sponsoring Zahara, which means I've pledged to the U.S. government (and I.C.E.) to give her financial and logistical support as she navigates the asylum process. The money collected through this fundraiser will fund Zahara's commissary and phone accounts while she's imprisoned (thus far myself and a few in my immediate community have been covering these costs). Commissary accounts provide extra food and personal care items, which the prison does not supply enough of.  The phone account allows her to have contact with the outside world (and me). 

Here is an article about the violent and inhumane abuse detained immigrants are subjected to at Cibola prison. 

When Zahara is released she will live with us. The money raised here will help transport her to our home in NYC, and cover essentials like clothing, personal care items, medical care, cell phone, transportation, and legal costs (I'm doing my best to secure her free legal representation, but she may have legal costs regardless). 

I became a sponsor because of my work organizing in resistance to white supremacy and racism.  I believe that people like me (white, cis, a U.S. citizen, economically stable) must put our "skin in the game" to resist fascism and ethnic cleansing.  I want my kid to grow up knowing our family did everything we could to live in revolutionary, defiant LOVE in the face of escalating dehumanization, oppression, and violence.  I know that resistance often requires that we take risks and "show up" for those most vulnerable to state violence. And finally, I'm a sponsor because I believe that “the very systems we are working to dismantle live inside of us" (Morgan Bassichis), and we cannot transform society if we don't intimately transform our own lives. We must risk what we can for a better world for all of us. 

I know that one person can make a difference, so I'm asking ALL OF YOU, to be that "one person". Collectively we can help Zahara find safety and security as she settles into her new home.