Behind the viral fundraiser: meet the aid group reuniting families

Raices, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, has been around since 1986. The not-for-profit group attracted little notice beyond Texas until this year, when almost overnight it became a national focal point for opposition to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, the subject of a major Guardian investigation this week. A Facebook fundraiser for Raices started in June by a Californian couple had an initial goal of $1,500. It went viral, and within a couple of weeks generated more than $20m – three times the organisation’s annual budget. When splitting parents and children at the border became explicit White House policy in the spring – creating outrage, anguish and chaos – Raices was among the aid groups urgently seeking to locate and help families. In June a federal judge ordered families to be reunified, but about 3,000 children, mostly from Central America, were separated as they entered the US from Mexico.

Read more at The Guardian.