Charleston Linea Directa Comunitaria Inmigrante launches as community resource

Charleston, SC – On September 22, the Charleston Linea Directa Comunitaria Inmigrante (Charleston Hotline) opened its phone lines to serve Charleston’s Latino community and alert them of ICE’s presence when verified.

In preparation for the hotline’s launch, a team of volunteers has spent months training operators to take calls and texts reporting suspected ICE activity as well as link callers to community resources when available. After receiving a report, the operators work with a team of verifiers that have been trained to arrive at the site of reported ICE activity, investigate and confirm or deny the report. When ICE activity is confirmed, volunteers alert the operator so that the hotline can make an announcement public.

The Charleston hotline developed in the aftermath of an ICE raid of El Alamo, a popular Latino-owned nightclub in Ladson, South Carolina back in June. This, along with spotty reports of ICE activity in the area set organizers in motion. “We want to keep the community informed of ICE activity so they don’t feel the need to isolate themselves out of fear of being racially profiled and kidnapped,” says Gillian Bergeron, one of the hotline organizers.

More South Carolina counties have been signing 287(g) partnerships with ICE in recent months. These agreements effectively turn local police into arms of ICE and make federal immigration law a priority underlining the importance of the hotline. As a result, many community members are self-isolating and self-deporting due to the threat of heightened ICE activity and the persistence of many false reports of ICE in the area. The launch of the hotline is meant to support communities to take their power back and live fuller, more dignified lives.

Trainings for both the operator and verifier roles have been well attended. “I think people in Charleston see the harm this is doing to the local Latino community,” another organizer said. “Family members, friends, and coworkers are being kidnapped and trafficked to immigration facilities and we are fighting back and saying no, this is our community. They belong here.”

Since launching, the hotline has primarily received calls from community members verifying that the phone number is online and working, but the team is confident that they’ll be ready to alert the community once reports start coming in. While the training of operators and verifiers continues, work to spread the hotline’s phone number has become a primary focus. Organizers have posted online, flyered in Latino neighborhoods, businesses, at Latino heritage festivals and more.

Hotline organizer Dulce Lopez said “We have been working hard all summer to get this hotline off the ground and we love that it came together just in time to celebrate Latin American Heritage Month in the Lowcountry.” Charleston has a well-documented history of a strong Latino presence reaching back to the 1840s and beyond. There are many events going on in the community celebrating this history and hotline organizers plan to be present to make the existence of this new and important community resource known.

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