Making a family preparedness plan.

Some of what follows — particularly anything about children and legal guardianship — is state law and differs where you live. It is information, not legal advice.

Why a plan works

The first day after someone is detained is spent on things that could have been done in advance: finding a birth certificate, working out an A-number, guessing at a phone number stored only in a phone that is now in a property bag.

None of that is hard. It is only hard at the moment you need it. The point of a plan is to move that work to a calm afternoon.

1. The documents

Gather these for every member of the household. Keep the originals somewhere safe, and give copies — paper or photographs — to one trusted person who is not living in the same home.

• Birth certificates, for everyone including U.S. citizen children.
• Passports, from any country.
• Every immigration document: work permits, green cards, notices from the immigration court, anything from ICE or USCIS.
• Marriage or divorce certificates.
• Proof of how long each person has lived in the United States — leases, utility bills, tax filings, school records, medical records. This kind of evidence goes directly to what an immigration judge weighs at a bond hearing.
• Medical records and a written list of prescriptions and dosages.
• Contact details for any lawyer who has ever handled an immigration matter for the family.

Photographing everything and keeping the images somewhere reachable from any device is worth doing as well as, not instead of, the paper.

2. The A-numbers

Write down the alien registration number for anyone who has one. Seven to nine digits, usually with an A in front. The detainee locator wants exactly nine, so if it is shorter, add zeros at the front.

It is the number the detainee locator needs, the number the immigration court is organised by, and the number bond cannot be posted without. Give it to the trusted person along with the copies.

3. The children

Decide, specifically and in advance, who collects them from school and who looks after them. Then make sure the school and the childcare provider have that person on the list of adults allowed to collect them — a decision made at home is no use if the school will not release a child to that person.

Beyond the school list, there is a legal question about who may make decisions for a child — medical care, schooling, travel. States answer this with different instruments, under different names, with different requirements and different consequences. Some are simple forms; some involve a court.

We are not going to name a document here, because the right one depends on where you live and getting it wrong can matter enormously. Ask a family lawyer or a legal-aid organisation in your own state. Many will help with this at no cost, and it is a common request.

Tell the children something age-appropriate and true: who will come for them, and that it is not their job to fix it.

4. Phone numbers, memorised

A detained person usually has no access to their phone, and almost nobody knows a number by heart any more.

• Choose one emergency contact. Ideally someone outside the household, ideally a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.
• Everyone in the family memorises that number. Practise it.
• Write it somewhere on each child — inside a backpack, on a card in a pocket.
• Add a lawyer’s number if there is one.

Remember that detained people can generally call out but cannot be called. The emergency contact needs to be someone who answers unknown numbers.

5. Money

Detention removes an income immediately and adds costs at the same time — phone accounts, commissary, travel, possibly bond.

• Make sure more than one person can reach the household’s money.
• Write down account details, and where the rent or mortgage is paid from.
• Work out in advance who could act as a bond obligor if a bond is ever set. That person generally has to be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, and identifying them early saves days later. See how to pay an immigration bond.

6. Know Your Rights cards

Print them, and put one by the door, one in each wallet and one in the car. They state the right to remain silent and the refusal of consent to enter, so nobody has to produce those sentences from memory under pressure. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center publishes them in many languages.

Then read what are my rights if ICE comes to my door? with everyone in the household, including teenagers.

If someone is released, the plan is not finished

Release comes with conditions, and the conditions are where cases are lost.

• Every hearing must be attended. A missed hearing can produce a removal order in absentia — made without the person there.
• If a bond was paid, the person has to report whenever ICE sends the obligor a written demand. Failing to is what loses the bond.
• Any check-in or monitoring condition must be complied with exactly.
• Address changes go to both the immigration court and the Department of Homeland Security, separately, each with its own deadline:
  • The immigration court within five days, on Form EOIR-33 (8 C.F.R. § 1003.15(d)). EOIR explains how. Miss it and hearing notices go to the old address — which is how people end up with an order made in their absence.
  • DHS within ten days (8 U.S.C. § 1305). USCIS explains how. If they are under ICE supervision, their release papers usually require telling ICE as well.
  Doing only one is a common and expensive mistake.

Review it twice a year

Documents expire, people move, phone numbers change and children change school. Put a date in the calendar. A plan nobody has looked at in three years is close to no plan.

Where to get help

• Immigrant Legal Resource Center — family preparedness materials and red cards.
• National Immigration Law Center.
• National immigration legal services directory — free and low-cost providers by state.