“We want them to know there are some people who love them, some people who support them – we want them to have hope”
Local faith leaders and community members have spent every day this week leading up to Mother’s Day working to deliver yellow flowers – “symbols of hope, kindness and compassion” – to moms who are currently in federal immigration detention and separated from their children, CBS News 8 reports. The campaign, “Mother’s Day Across Borders,” seeks to let these loved ones know that they haven’t been forgotten and are missed by their families and communities.
“We want them to know there are some people who love them, some people who support them – we want them to have hope,” Pastor Maria Santa Cruz told CBS News 8. “Children who are suffering without their parents, and parents who are suffering without their children.”
“According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), detention levels have surged to historic highs, with roughly 61,000 individuals in custody in late 2025, and approximately 40% of them were women,” as Dr. Maia Niguel Hoskin wrote in February. While it’s unclear exactly how many mothers make up that percentage, the federal government’s reopening of a notorious migrant family jail in Dilley, Texas, has resulted in the detention of more than 5,600 parents and children, Human Rights First said last month.
That report found that parents and children detained at the privately-operated Dilley Immigration Processing Center have been subjected to mistreatment and inhumane conditions, including dirty water that has sickened families, moldy food, and inadequate prenatal monitoring, “placing both mothers and their unborn children at serious risk and detaining them in violation of ICE’s own policies,” as Human Rights First said.
Just this week, The Guardian revealed that mass deportation agents have arrested the parents of at least 27,000 children in the first seven months of the Trump administration, in a new family separation crisis “that has far surpassed in scale the ‘zero tolerance’ policy of the first Trump administration, when the US systematically separated immigrant children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.”
It’s likely that in many cases, the same facilities that are currently denying moms and children food that hasn’t been contaminated by worms will not allow community members to deliver any flowers this Mother’s Day weekend. “If the flowers are not accepted, these pastors still plan to write letters to the moms who are in custody – and they will display the flowers, outside of the courthouse and detention center – so that they at least raise awareness,” CBS8 reported.
Other Mother’s Day events seek to support immigrant moms amid the federal government’s mass deportation agenda, which is actually risking the wellbeing of communities everywhere by making us poorer, sicker, and less safe.
In Washington state, “Immigration Resources and Immediate Support (IRIS) has launched a fundraiser to provide groceries to 20 immigrant single mothers who are guardians to more than 58 children across Whatcom and Skagit counties,” The Bellingham Herald reports. “Many have either seen their partner deported or left a relationship due to domestic violence.”
“Whatcom County had the third-highest number of per capita Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests across all Washington counties in 2025, according to data released by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights,” the report noted. The organization hopes to raise enough funds to help mothers access groceries, personal hygiene products, and clothes.
In Texas – the epicenter of migrant family detention – a Mother’s Day fundraiser organized by a borderlands organization that has for years provided free legal services to community members “aims to celebrate families while supporting immigrant communities across the region,” KTSM reports.
“Estrella del Paso, a nonprofit organization that provides immigration legal services, is hosting ‘Madres y Mariachis,’ a brunch event honoring both Mother’s Day and Día de las Madres,” the report said. The event will feature a buffet‑style brunch, live mariachi music, live auction, and good vibes, the organization said. “Every ticket helps provide free immigration legal services to low‑income immigrants, mixed‑status families, refugees, and asylum seekers in El Paso and New Mexico, many of them mothers fighting to keep their families together.”
In the face of nationwide attacks, it’s the everyday people who are stepping up and working tirelessly to help keep our communities safe and united. They deserve our heartfelt gratitude. We also hope this Mother’s Day can be another reminder that what all mothers need is stability to raise their families to their fullest potential. That means a just, people-centered system that respects them, their children, and their humanity. This Mother’s Day, we send our love to all the moms out there, and promise to keep fighting for them and their kids.
