Yesterday at dusk, I shared a picnic blanket with dear friends, on a country hill, near a beautiful orchard, sipping tea in porcelain cups, mixed with tears and tear gas.

Jamil’s family was forced to move to Honduras after his mother and father were placed in deportation proceedings. In this video, he recounts the struggles he and his family faced, and how those struggles inform his work and life today.

This video was produced by AFSC's Echoes of Incarceration program, as part of the 2018 Liberation Summer Camp.

Joyce Sandy is a retired educator and attorney who lives in Durham, NC. She is a Quaker and a member of Chapel Hill Friends Meeting.

Sophia Perlmutter works for AFSC as the Quaker Voluntary Service Friends Relations Fellow. She helps manage and write blog content for the Acting in Faith blog. She is a recent graduate of Guilford College where she majored in Sustainable Food Systems and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies. 

For months, headlines have been dominated by the devastating impacts of the Trump Administration’s immigration policies and the growing movement against them. Loved ones have been torn apart at the border, thousands have been funneled into a cruel and inhumane detention and deportation system, and there are almost 500 children who still remain separated from their families.  

Reports this week indicate that the U.S. is planning to end all funding to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA).  

UNRWA provides vital funding to millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the Middle East. Ending U.S. funding to UNRWA places already vulnerable communities at a higher risk and politicizes humanitarian assistance that should be given based on need.