Dear friend,

This holiday, many people in Louisiana are gathering around tables, sharing meals, hugging loved ones, welcoming family home, and remembering old stories with parents, siblings, and grandparents.

For so many in our community, those same tables feel very different.

As plates are passed, families are talking about immigration raids and the militarization that could begin as early as next week. Instead of only planning reunions, they are asking: “Will our family still be whole?”

Children—many of them U.S.-born—are quietly wondering: “Am I about to lose my parents?”

In just the last few months, we’ve watched U.S.-citizen children deported from Louisiana—including a two-year-old and a four-year-old with stage-four cancer—and a mother of two in Hammond taken from a minor traffic stop in shackles to a detention center hours away. These are not distant headlines to us. They are our neighbors.

As this reality closes in, the Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants (LORI) is one of the only Black immigrant–led, statewide organizations that families are turning to for help.

This Giving Tuesday and holiday season, we are seeking to raise $220,000 to power four urgent priorities

1. Deportation Defense & Legal Access
2. Family Safety & Know Your Rights
3. Mutual Aid & the Wellness Center
4. Statewide Coalition & Language Access

SUPPORT A WORTHY CAUSE

In the past few weeks, many schools, faith communities, businesses, service providers, and over 150 individuals have reached out to our office asking support and guidance:

• What are our rights?
• How do we protect our children?
• Who can help if someone is detained?

This Giving Tuesday and holiday season, we are launching an urgent goal of $220,000 to respond with the strength and care our communities deserve.

Your gift will fuel four critical priorities:

• Deportation Defense & Legal Access - Hire a deportation-defense attorney and strengthen our legal team so families have a real advocate, not just a case number.
• Family Safety & Know Your Rights - Provide multilingual workshops and simple, clear tools that help parents create safety plans for their children, understand their rights during raids and traffic stops, and know exactly what to do if a loved one is taken.
• Mutual Aid & the Well Community Center - Support food, diapers, emergency assistance, and the opening of our community “humanity center” —so families have a safe place to gather, breathe, and find help when they are too afraid to do it alone.
• Statewide Coalition & Language Access - strengthen coalitions like Free the Swamp, train community and faith leaders as first responders and advocates, and provide interpretation and translation so families who speak Spanish, Arabic, French, Vietnamese, Swahili, Mandarin, and more can access life-saving information in the language they understand.

My dear friend, your gift today does something powerful. It says:

“You are not alone. Your children matter. Your family matters.”

Will you make an early Giving Tuesday gift to help LORI reach $220,000 and protect families through this crisis?

From the bottom of our hearts at LORI, thank you for standing with our neighbors in this urgent moment.

With deep gratitude,

Team LORI

Organization Address, City, State, Zip Code - Company Phone Number