Community Support For Project Relief

Urgent Community Update & Call to Support Project Relief

On January 14, it was announced that Portland and Lewiston, Maine will see a significant increase in ICE presence. Maine has a large immigrant community, and what we are witnessing nationally is deeply alarming. Members of our own community have already been abducted by ICE. Families are living in fear.

Your donation allows us to respond immediately. It helps us hire lawyers, post bond, provide groceries, cover rent, arrange transportation, and support families left behind when a loved one is detained. This is mutual aid , showing up when systems fail our people.

Details about the Community Fund

We are young Black immigrant organizers. We don’t have institutional backing or wealthy donors behind us just community, courage, and the determination to never leave our people behind.

Since 2019, Project Relief has been a support line for immigrant and Black communities across Maine. We’re on the frontlines fighting systemic racism, resisting ICE, and protecting families.

When asylum seekers first began arriving in Maine in 2019, Project Relief volunteers were already on the ground assembling care packages, helping families secure housing, providing food support, and arranging transportation so people could get to medical appointments, schools, and safety.

ICE has intensified its targeting of our immigrant neighbors.

 Since the beginning of March 2025, we have already hired lawyers for immigrants who were violently abducted by ICE. Without legal support, they could have been left  inside detention centers for months or even years. Instead, because of this fund, they now have legal representation to fight for their freedom and the chance to return home to their families.

These funds don’t stop at hiring lawyers. 

They allow us to post bail so people can reunite with their loved ones, and they cover critical after-support such as rent, groceries, baby supplies, transportation, and other essentials families need to survive when a loved one is detained. When ICE detained a father earlier this year leaving behind a mother and her two-month-old baby with nothing we didn’t wait; we acted. We covered four months of rent so they wouldn’t lose their home. We partnered with Coffee By Design to rally community support.

We’ve sheltered more than 40 people, including children who had nowhere else to go. We’ve delivered groceries to elders and unhoused neighbors who had no food. We’ve prevented evictions, pushed back against white supremacist threats, and responded in real time to ICE raids keeping our community informed, protected, and never alone. We have hired many lawyers to fight for immigrants who were detained. Because of this work, many families have been reunited and returned home safely. And we don’t stop there.

This is mutual aid: direct, fast, rooted in love, and led by us. Your donations go toward helping detained immigrants with bail, legal fees, and after-support; supporting families left behind with the essentials of survival; providing for community members who are struggling; and sustaining the capacity it takes to keep showing up in these urgent moments.

Your generosity makes all of this possible.
This is resistance. This is love. We show up because we know what it’s like to be forgotten.

Thank you for standing with us.

(This is our long-standing Community Fund Campaign for Project Relief since 2021.)

The $214,000 balance as of January 17, 2026 reflects years of collective community support. These funds have already been used to assist many families with legal support, bond, groceries, and other urgent needs.

Moving forward, all new donations will be directed toward individuals and families currently impacted by ICE raids.

Project Relief is a volunteer-led mutual aid group. 

Donations are community contributions and are not tax-deductible.

Please consider becoming a monthly donor to help us continue this work. Thank you.