Fight For Hugs: Visa Justice for Family Reunification & Mobility

Deportations and forced returns have separated families for more than a century, and in the last 25 years the US migration policies have used forced family separation as a weapon against our migrant communities, provoking strong emotional pacts between the people in our community.

84% of deported parents in Mexico City are separated from their children, who remain in the United States. This has a strong emotional impact on the people in our communities: separating our children, parents, friends is inhumane; it is a form of criminalization, violating our basic human rights and well-being. 

The process of applying for a visa through the Embassy and the US consulate in Latin America is arbitrary, discretionary, racist, classist and discriminatory. It means skin color, social class, gender, level of education, age, religion and even our state of health determines the approval or rejection of a visa. 

Furthermore, people who have been deported and forcibly returned see themselves affected at disproportionate levels because of their previous experiences living in the United States; undocumented and with links to families and communities that are used to criminalize them, even though they have already built a life in Mexico and that there are special B1 and B2 visas that review families.  

The price of applying for a visa is very expensive, not very clear and with no option for an appeal. Many of us have applied for visas one, two, three, four times… without positive results. Time passes and we are unable to connect with our families.  

Can you imagine the possibility of not being able to see your family or returning to your community? We’ve lived that reality for a long time and this is why we must work together and fight this. We have the right to be reunited with our families and communities!

The donations will go directly to our 2022 Family Reunification Fund, designed to help with the costs of applying for a visa, per diem fees nationally and internationally and the cost of Mexican and US passports, along with other legal fees. We also demand that our families and communities be reunited both here and there.