Best Practices BORDER in Sheltering SHELTER Asylum-Seeking Families at the U.S. TOOLKIT Southern Border February 2021 Contributing Organizations to the Border Shelter Toolkit • American Red Cross • Jewish Family Service of San Diego • Annunciation House • Kino Border Initiative • Border Servant Corps • Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service • Casa Alitas • Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest • Christ Ministry Center • Mission: Border Hope • Church World Service • New Mexico Hospitality Coalition • Colores United • Ozanam Center • The Deming Shelter • La Posada Providencia • La Frontera Shelter • Presbyterian Disaster Assistance • Galilee Center • Safe Harbors Network • Good Neighbor Settlement House • San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter • Holding Institute Community Center • Save the Children • Humanitarian Respite Center • The United Methodist Committee on Relief • The Inn • The United Nations International Children’s • International Rescue Committee and the Fund (UNICEF) Welcome Center On the cover: An asylum seeker from Honduras embraced her 3 year-old daughter at a temporary shelter for asylum seekers in Mexico City, awaiting assistance as they look for safety and a better life. ©UNHCR/Daniel Dreifuss All photographs of U.S. border shelters were taken with the informed consent of any guests pictured. UNHCR Border Shelter Toolkit Contents Introduction 2 Key Humanitarian Principles 8 Mechanics of a Shelter Operation 14 Community Relations 16 Safety and Security 18 Onboarding and Training Procedures for Staff and Volunteers 23 Volunteer Management 32 Data Management 34 Sanitation and Hygiene 38 Meal Planning 41 Donation Management 44 Overflow/Surge Capacity Contingency Plans 47 Transitioning Shelter Functions 49 Guest Services 50 Welcome Script 52 Language Access 54 Intake System 56 Medical Screenings 60 Legal Resources and Orientation 66 Sponsor Contact and Travel Arrangements 74 Onward Movement to Destinations in the United States 77 Preparing for Connecting Flights/Buses 79 Transport to Airport and Bus Stations 81 Working with Vulnerable Populations 84 Mental Health and Psychosocial Support 86 Case Management 90 Children 92 LGBTQI Guests 95 Disability Inclusion 97 Protection from Exploitation and Abuse 100 Appendices 106 New Shelter? Start Here 108 Additional Resources for Sheltering Displaced Populations 110 Shelters and Shelter-Coordinating Organizations 112 Acknowledgements 113 ⊲ Table of Contents 1 Introduction For people on the move by necessity, particularly those who have been forcibly displaced from their homes and communities by violence and other harm, finding safe shelter is one of the most immediate and pressing needs. When individuals are forced across international boundaries in search of refuge, the resulting vulnerability and insecurity often are heightened. The provision of shelter not only addresses their need for warmth and temporary security, but it is also an instrumental step in restoring dignity and the path forward to stability. For those who seek safety in the United States of America, finding safe shelter upon arrival and after processing at the border means discovering respite—an opportunity to be welcomed and to take a rest during what is commonly a long and arduous journey. Navigation Introduction 2 Key Humanitarian Principles 8 Mechanics of a Shelter Operation 14 Guest Services 50 Working with Vulnerable Populations 84 Appendices 106 © Ali Boyd ⊲ Table of Contents 2 UNHCR Border Shelter Toolkit A sunny courtyard and kitchen garden are available to guests at Casa Alitas in Tucson, Arizona. ⊲ Table of Contents 3 UNHCR Border Shelter Toolkit The humanitarian response at the southern facilitating their onward travel to destination border of the United States has evolved greatly in communities in the United States where they live the last decade in response to the growing arrival with sponsors while pursuing their claims to of asylum-seekers to the United States. Asylum- protection. The respite services provided by the seekers are people, often entire families, who shelter network tend to be short-term, as asylum- are requesting sanctuary by lodging a seekers resume their onward travel in a matter of protection claim based on a fear of persecution hours or days. Through the publication of the for reasons related to a protected ground (race, Border Shelter Best Practices Toolkit, UNHCR religion, nationality, membership in a particular seeks to highlight and disseminate the good social group, or political opinion) and whose practices of the border shelters, thereby bolstering own government is unable or unwilling to the border shelter community of practice dedicated protect them. The majority of asylum-seekers to receiving asylum-seekers. crossing the U.S. southern border in the past decade are fleeing the North of Central America The Border Shelters but also includes asylum-seekers from elsewhere in the Americas and from across the The shelters along the United States’ southern globe. As insecurity in the Central America region border receiving families released from has driven people from their homes and immigration custody are rooted in their border communities at increasing rates, the U.S. communities. In recent years, as the number government has coordinated with local of asylum-seekers presenting at the border community-based shelters along the southern swelled, so too has the response. While some border to meet the specific needs of the families shelters had over four decades of experience to and other particularly vulnerable people as they draw upon when responding to hospitality are released from short-term government needs, others had never operated a shelter custody. Release to these shelters not only before or worked with asylum-seekers. And yet, provides a safe and supportive next step for when asylum-seekers were released from asylum-seekers, but it also provides a more government custody without a place to go, orderly, reliable process for the federal community members instantly responded with government authorities and the border shared motivation to welcome asylum-seekers communities receiving them. with solidarity, dignity, and respect. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global The community response at the U.S.-Mexico organization with the mandate to protect the rights border has resulted in a dynamic network of of refugees, asylum-seekers, and stateless people shelters that spans from San Diego, California worldwide. UNHCR works with governments, civil to Brownsville, Texas. Within the network, society, and impacted populations to ensure that there are a variety of models and proven good anyone who fears persecution, conflict or violence practices that fellow shelters, and those who are at home has the right to seek asylum and find safe looking to begin this work, can draw upon refuge. Integral to guaranteeing the right to seek in their area. Some shelters were established asylum is the availability of a safe and orderly independently with the specific mandate to system to receive and register individuals as shelter and welcome the asylum-seeking and asylum-seekers, provide for their immediate basic immigrant community. Other already-established needs, and to equip them with information on how organizations responded to the immediate needs to navigate the asylum process. UNHCR of those seeking asylum by expanding existing recognizes the crucial role the border shelters play shelter services to the asylum-seeking population for individuals and families seeking asylum in the and others by adding hospitality to their existing United States–providing them with safe and immigrant rights and refugee resettlement work. dignified services to meet their immediate basic In some communities, public-private partnerships needs, orienting them to where they are and what between local nonprofits and government entities the next steps are in their asylum process, and developed to meet needs. ⊲ Table of Contents 4 UNHCR Border Shelter Toolkit Asylum seekers from Venezuela cross the border by a “trocha,” muddy footpaths that cut across the scrubland. © UNHCR/Vincent Tremeau Border Shelters’ Role in the Many individuals are detained in government Journey of Asylum-Seekers custody for a few days or weeks prior to their release to the shelters. The border shelters The families and individuals released to border receiving these individuals and families play shelters are primarily asylum-seekers, meaning a pivotal role as a safe waystation. There, that most fled from their home countries due to these asylum-seekers are treated as guests, conflict, violence or persecution and are afraid receiving short-term hospitality (including a safe to be forcibly returned home, back to danger. place to sleep, a hot meal and shower, clean Immigration officials at the border register clothes, and any needed medical attention) individuals in order to identify them and to along with information that orients them as to initiate immigration legal proceedings. Absent where they are geographically and within the any security concerns, the families are released immigration process as well as assistance in to the shelters which provide for their immediate making contact with family or friends in order to needs.1 The immigration legal process, which arrange for travel to their eventual destination takes several months or years and generally will within the United States. Recognizing the take place in the asylum-seekers’ inland particular vulnerabilities of asylum-seekers, destinations, determines