After detention, ICE or Border Patrol bring families directly to Casa Alitas where we offer shelter, food, clothing, toiletries, advocacy, and travel assistance. Our guests are helped to reunite with family across the country.

Casa Alitas guests are asylum-seekers. Most are families. They are parents, children and pregnant women from a variety of places around the globe, including Central America, South America, Mexico, India, Nepal, Africa, Eastern Europe and more. They have traveled here over several days, weeks or month seeking protection from persecution, war, violence, famine, economic collapse, or other severe hardship. Often they spend weeks or more at the border, then another two to fourteen days in detention before being released. Conditions in the detention centers are arduous. Before coming to us, asylum-seekers were screened for eligibility and can legally stay in the US while pursuing their immigration process.