Butterfly-decorated paper and envelopes covered tables at Delta College’s Dreamer Success Center on Tuesday as students and staff wrote letters of encouragement to immigrants held in detention.
By the end of the four-hour event, organizers collected 119 letters. The messages, along with donated books and Bibles, will be sent to Chaplain Ronald Seidl at the CoreCivic detention center in California City, according to organizers.
For Tina Leal, who coordinates the Dreamer Success Center, the activity was designed to do something simple but specific: make sure someone sitting in detention hears — in writing — that they are seen.
“It might seem small, but it’s so big,” Leal said. “It’s just letting those in the detention centers know that they’re not alone.”
Trinidad Araya, a chemistry lab technician at Delta College, contacted Leal to ask whether the Dreamer Success Center had books available to donate for detainees.
Leal said that conversation prompted her to expand the effort into a drop-in letter-writing event, where students and staff could write messages of support and learn more about what detainees are facing.
The center stayed open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with participants encouraged to write one letter or dozens. Leal said people came and went throughout the day, and some participants texted her asking if she could include specific messages.
The butterfly theme wasn’t accidental. Leal described the envelopes as a symbol of hope and transformation — “the coming out of the cocoon,” she said — and she kept returning to the image of a person in detention receiving something soft and intentional, something bilingual, something they could hold.
“I just imagine someone opening that envelope and knowing somebody thought of them,” she said. “We’re not blind to what’s happening.”
The gathering included not only students, but also campus employees and students.
Leyla Perez, an administrative assistant for Student Services focused on Access and Equity, said she attended to help counter what she described as the isolation of detention.
“It might be an isolating experience,” Perez said. “To let them know there’s people out there that are advocating for them and really thinking about them, and they’re not forgotten.”
Perez said reports about conditions in detention facilities are difficult to read and “upsetting,” adding that writing letters felt like a way to take action even without political power.
“I think it’s a way for people to take action, even if the smallest gesture of a letter,” she said.
Student Carol Martinez, a Delta drama major, said she was motivated by national news about immigration enforcement.
“I saw the government separating families,” Martinez said. “I hope the letters make them feel good.”
The local effort comes as immigration detention numbers have risen nationally. As of Jan. 25, 2026, ICE was holding 70,766 people in detention, and 74.2 percent had no criminal conviction, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based research center that tracks federal immigration enforcement data.
Organizers said the letters, books and Bibles will be mailed to the California City facility in the coming days. For Leal, the goal is simple: to reach people who may feel forgotten.
“It’s not them or us,” she said. “We all matter.”
