August 12, 2014 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Grant makers are joining forces to establish at least two funds to buttress nonprofits working with newly arrived immigrant children who have spilled across the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers this year.
The James Irvine Foundation, the California Endowment, and the Marguerite Casey Foundation have committed a total of about $1-million to a fund established by Hispanics in Philanthropy and Grantmakers Concerned With Immigrant Refugees.
In addition, the California Community Foundation created the “Our Children Relief Fund,” with contributions from the Weingart Foundation, the California Wellness Foundation, the California Endowment, and the California HealthCare Foundation. The foundations declined to say how much they had contributed.
“This is about humanity, not politics,” Antonia Hernández, chief executive of the California Community Foundation, said in a statement.
Advice and Counseling
Nearly 63,000 unaccompanied minors were taken into custody at the border during the past 10 months, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That is double the number in the same period the previous fiscal year. Through last month, 62,856 families—often mothers traveling with children—had been apprehended, a nearly 500-percent spike in one year. Many immigrants report that they are fleeing extreme violence in Central America.
The flows, heaviest in south Texas, have overwhelmed government agencies and strained the capacity of nonprofits and social-service providers who work with immigrants.
Diana Campoamor, president of Hispanics in Philanthropy, says she would like to see the fund her group helped create grow to about $5-million. Most of the immigrant children are concentrated in 10 regions in the United States, says Ms. Campoamor, and organizations in those places are already providing legal advice, trauma counseling, and other services. She and her colleagues are developing lists of the providers to help foundations make “quick and informed decisions” about where the needs are greatest.
If her group had $5-million, that would allow for about 10 grants of $50,000 apiece in each area where the most minors are arriving, she says. It is not a huge amount of money, but it could make an enormous difference, Ms. Campoamor says.
“You saw during the Detroit crisis that more than 15 foundations pooled their funds,” she adds says. “I am hoping that as many foundations will step forward because I think it is an important human-rights issue.”
