New York Times
By Jacey Fortin
August 16, 2018
On the morning of Aug. 6, a law professor at the University of Michigan wrote a tweet about a family that had been separated by immigration authorities after crossing into the United States.
Then the professor, Beth Wilensky, went for a run. Then she ate some lunch.
“I came back and checked my Twitter feed and said, ‘Oh my goodness,’” Ms. Wilensky recalled. Her post was blowing up, on its way to getting tens of thousands of retweets.
The tweet said: “My husband travels a lot. Downside: he’s gone a lot. Upside: frequent flier miles. We just used some to fly a 3-yr-old and his dad, who had been separated at the border, from Michigan (where the son had been taken) to their extended family. DM me if you have miles to donate.”
A “zero tolerance” immigration policy from the Trump administration led to the separation of thousands of children from their parents or guardians this year. In June, President Trump signed an order meant to stop the separations. But hundreds of children remain in United States custody without their parents, according to the Homeland Security Department.
Ms. Wilensky said she was seized by a desire to do something. She joined online communities of people who felt the same — citizens busy with day jobs and families of their own, now bound by Twitter threads, Reddit groups and Facebook pages.
But faced with the daunting and sometimes inscrutable bureaucracy of immigration policy and enforcement, many people wondered how best they could help.
The tweet appeared to strike a chord.
Asking for direct messages turned out to be a mistake; Ms. Wilensky could not respond quickly enough to the queries that came pouring in. So later that day she posted again, encouraging people to contact Michigan Support Circle, a group in her area to which she was connected via Facebook. The group was responding to the needs of migrant families on a largely ad hoc basis.
Michigan Support Circle coalesced about six weeks ago to support migrant families affected by the administration’s policy, said Rosalie Lochner, a founder of the group.
“I think a lot of people across both sides of the aisle believe that families need to be protected, and that the trauma of separating these families is something that, as citizens, we are responsible for,” she said. After seeing the tweet, people from across the country reached out to the group on social media, asking how they could help.
Ms. Wilensky also included a link to Miles4Migrants, a two-year-old group that uses donated frequent flier miles to transport refugees to new homes or to reunite families divided by conflict.
Andy Freedman, a founder of that nonprofit, quickly noticed that something was up on Monday. There were more visitors to the website. A few more inquiries. A small spike in donations. He wondered if the extra attention was the result of some new campaign or a smart social media post.
It was, it turned out, the tweet from Ms. Wilensky, a stranger in Michigan. On that Monday alone, Mr. Freedman said, his organization received pledges of over one million miles. That number has now ballooned to more than 28 million.
Miles4Migrants grew out of a Reddit group dedicated to “credit churning,” a risky practice that involves systematically signing up for credit cards to win bonuses and points to cover airfare and hotel costs, and even to get cash back.
It is a time-consuming and “dorky” hobby, said Seth Stanton, a founding member of Miles4Migrants, which coalesced after one member of the Reddit group, Nick Ruiz, shared a story about using his air miles to help reunite a Pakistani family.
In the years since, Miles4Migrants has partnered with donors and aid organizations to reunite dozens of families on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis. The refugees and asylum seekers they helped had international itineraries: Islamabad to Manchester. Addis Ababa to Edinburgh. Tehran to London. (The founders work around day jobs. Mr. Stanton, an optometrist, sometimes arranges flights between patients.)
But this week, flush with more than 28 million newly donated frequent flier miles, the organization is thinking about how to tackle the logistics of reuniting families in the United States.
The group’s overall mission is not really about American politics, and that won’t change now, Mr. Freedman said. “We’re about reuniting families,” he said. “The way we do that is fairly simple. We help them with a flight.”
So far, Miles4Migrants has booked two flights for migrants within the United States. Mr. Stanton said that while the logistics and the bureaucracy are daunting, they hope to do more and are looking for partner organizations, including airlines, to help them do it, as well as cash to cover the fees and taxes associated with flights.
Michigan Support Circle is working with Miles4Migrants to arrange flights as needed, but it, too, is in need of more than just miles, Ms. Lochner said. The organization helps families in whatever way it can, for example by donating home goods or facilitating medical care.
But Ms. Lochner said the extra attention has been encouraging. “I’m so impressed by how much people want to be involved, and how willing people are to help in whatever way they can,” she said.
Ms. Wilensky still wonders why her post was so effective and why the idea of frequent flier miles donations held such appeal for thousands and thousands of strangers.
“I think a lot of people out there, like my husband and I, have watched all of this unfold — this family separation policy — with a sense of absolute horror,” she said. “I think a lot of people felt like we did, which is, ‘Oh my gosh, here’s something real and concrete that might help to fix this problem, even if it’s just for one family.’”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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