Reunite an immigrant parent with their child camping goes viral raises 18 million dollars in 4 days

[link to www.newsday.com (secure)]

As images and headlines of families being separated at the U.S. border have spread across social media, a viral fundraiser has collected more than $18 million in response.




What is the fundraiser?
The campaign — called “Reunite an immigrant parent with their child” — was created on June 16 after Charlotte and Dave Willner saw a viral photo of a 2-year-old Honduran girl crying as her mother is searched by U.S. officials, the couple said in interviews. The couple told the Mercury News of San Jose that they have a 2-year-old daughter.

They set an initial goal of $1,500 to pay for one bond to release a parent from detention. But just as the photo captured attention, so did the fundraiser, which went viral. As of Friday, about 480,000 people had donated and driven the fundraiser’s goal up to $20 million. Donations continue to come in by the minute and the goal continues to climb.

The donations are a response to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, under which agents had been separating children from parents who were detained attempting to cross the U.S. border.

The policy has been enforced for the last two months but images of children in detention circulating last week struck a chord on social media