Envision Freedom Fund

At Envision Freedom Fund, we pay bonds to free our neighbors from immigration detention, support them as they adjust to life after detention, and fight for systems change. We are the only organization in Brooklyn, and New York State, dedicated to freeing our neighbors by paying bond. Since 2018, we have spent over $14 million to free more than 1,500 people from ICE detention.

Immigration detention separates families and isolates people from their rights. 

When detained, individuals are cut off from the resources they need the most — medical care, lawyers, social services, and their loved ones. The county jails and federal detention centers where immigrants are incarcerated are rife with human rights violations and inhumane conditions, from inedible foods to racist treatment and abuse. Paying immigration bonds is one of the few pathways to freedom for people detained by ICE, but bond amounts set by immigration courts are often much higher than families can afford. 

Under the current federal administration, the immigration detention system has been supercharged. We are seeing a dramatic expansion of detention and deportation, building on the decades of policy failures that criminalize migration. We intervene in this escalating crisis—because the only acceptable number of people in cages is zero. 

But freedom from detention is only the beginning. On the other side of every bond is a person navigating a world turned upside down. Our team works one-on-one with every person we free, connecting them to legal support, cash assistance, and mental health resources. In 2025, we answered over 240 hotline calls, fulfilled 393 commissary requests, distributed over $24,000 in emergency funds. Through our newly launched peer support group, we build community among detention survivors, developing tools to cope with trauma and finding solidarity across language and background. Through community events and trips to Albany, we turn that healing into collective power to end detention in New York State.

In the face of relentless attacks on immigrant communities and a rapid expansion of immigration detention, we have seen a huge surge in bond requests and post-release needs. We have already freed 331 people this year with almost $4 million in bond payments — surpassing all of 2025 (167 people freed with $1.3M). 

A Decade of Fighting For Freedom

Envision Freedom was born in Brooklyn and Brooklyn is in our bones. Founded in 2015 as the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, we started paying bail in Brooklyn courthouses and in under five years, we freed nearly 5,000 people from jail. We incubated the National Bail Fund Network, co-launched Court Watch NYC, and helped win historic 2019 bail reform legislation in New York. When ICE enforcement intensified in 2018, we evolved to paying immigration bond and changed our name to Envision Freedom Fund in 2020.

Brooklyn remains our home and the right place for our work. As evidenced by the recent ICE activity across the borough and NYC, the federal administration is waging a targeted assault on Brooklyn’s vibrant immigrant community. We are ready to support Brooklynites in this crisis moment, including the growing number of immigrants detained at Brooklyn’s notorious MDC.

Envision Freedom’s vision is simple: a world where no one is locked in a cage because of where they were born. We are building toward a New York where immigration detention is abolished, where immigrant communities are safe and thriving, and where organizations like ours are no longer needed.