Believers Bail Out (BBO) is a zakat-eligible community-led abolitionist organization that uses zakat and sadaqa to bail out Muslims from pretrial and ICE incarceration and support them post-bailout.  

As Muslims, we believe our faith calls on us to fight for liberation, commit to upholding justice, and stand firm against oppression. We work to free our brothers and sisters whose lives and freedom have been stolen by the carceral system and ICE, and we support them in their transition back into the community. 

Bail bonds are racist and criminalize poverty. Rather than providing communal safety, they punish those who are poor. The majority of incarcerated people are Black, Indigenous, and/or Latinx, and Muslims represent about 9-15% of the incarcerated population. The Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is rooted in a deep history of anti-Black racism, and it builds upon anti-Muslim racism to expand policing, surveillance, and incarceration targeting the most marginalized. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security further criminalize communities often fleeing regions impacted by US imperialism and racial capitalism. BBO  continues our critical work with national partners to bail out individuals in ICE incarceration. This work continues to be crucial in the face of the current federal administration’s increased immigration incarceration, inhumane deportations, and vilification of non-profits and groups providing immigration support. 

In the prison system, Muslims face increased victimization, surveillance, and denial of religious freedom due to the far reaching tentacles of anti-Muslim racism. When we post bail for Muslims who cannot afford to do so themselves, we help reunite them with their communities and restore their freedom while they fight their cases, which can take years.. 

As was revealed in the Holy Qur’an, “whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity” (Surat al-Ma’idah verse 32).

How is bail zakat-eligible? And why should we free Muslims with zakat? 

The Qur’an (9:60) specifies eight uses for zakat. After deep consultation with Islamic scholars, we provide zakat by paying for bond based on the eligibility criteria listed below:

• The Destitute (al-fuqara): Those with neither material possessions nor livelihood.
• The Needy (al-masakin): Those with insufficient means for their basic needs
• The Indebted (al-gharimin): Those in deep burdensome debt such that after paying the debt, they will not have assets above the Nisab ($8,000). When people cannot afford their bail, money bail becomes a burdensome debt..
• The Stranded Traveler (ibn al-sabil): Those who are refugees being held by ICE in immigration incarceration
• The Captive (al-raqib) Captives or enslaved people whose freedom must be secured through payment.

How we work

Since our founding in 2018 in Chicago, we have expanded to help bail out Muslims across the country.

Last year, we bailed out 40 individuals from pre-trial incarceration and 9 individuals from immigration (ICE) incarceration using your zakat and sadaqa donations.

The Carceral System in the United States: 

The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term used to describe the relationships between government institutions and private companies that build, manage, and service prisons to profit off of the use of surveillance, policing, and imprisonment. 

The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Almost 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, with over 450,000 held in pretrial incarceration awaiting their trial. 

Although the American legal system claims people are “innocent until proven guilty,” those who have experienced pretrial incarceration know that this presumption is rarely afforded them. Bond penalizes people who don’t have the funds to free themselves; 

• People who cannot pay bond can be jailed indefinitely in environments that are often overcrowded, unsanitary, and otherwise filled with human rights violations, sometimes for years.
• Pre-trial incarceration can result in people losing jobs, custody of their children, their homes, and even their lives -- all without ever being convicted of a crime.
• More than 60% of people who are in pretrial detention are there because they are not able to afford the bond amount so they can fight their charges from home. While the Eighth Amendment prohibits the use of “excessive bail”, bail bond amounts are often set by judges subjectively and end up disproportionately affecting individuals with lower incomes. The median bail bond amount for a felony is $10,000, equal to about 8 months worth of income for the typical person in jail who cannot afford a bail bond.

Even after a bond is paid, individuals face numerous bureaucratic hurdles. 

Upon release, people have limited freedom and job opportunities because of surveillance through electronic monitoring. Electronic monitoring, often through ankle bracelets, limits their ability to leave their homes to just two days per week. Within these limited hours, they must prioritize essential tasks such as getting groceries or picking up their children. 

As an abolitionist organization, we seek to build a world without prisons. Abolition is the vision to eliminate imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and, in their place, create long lasting alternatives rooted in community care, accountability, and safety and dignity for all.

Immigration Incarceration in the United States:

As of January 2026, more than 70,000 people are being held in ICE prisons, a number that has almost doubled in the past year. In the face of increased ICE violence and raids across the country, using zakat to bail out Muslims from pretrial incarceration is now even more urgently necessary. 

While there are no clear data to confirm the religious backgrounds of ICE or DHS detainees, intense government surveillance of Muslim communities has been well-documented for decades. Recent years have seen many Muslims detained for engaging in pro-Palestine or anti-Trump speech. High-profile cases include those of: Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Dr. Badar Khan Suri, Leqaa Kordia, Sami Hamdi, Ya’ub Ira Vijandre and others. 

The Trump administration has also decided to terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from multiple Muslim majority countries such as Syria and Afghanistan, stripping thousands of people of legal status and work authorization. This will force many people to live as undocumented immigrants in the US who risk deportation by ICE or return to their unstable home countries. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is currently detaining more than 70,000 people, a number that has almost doubled in the last year. This includes both lawful permanent residents (“greencard” holders) who have been charged with criminal offenses or whose status may have lapsed, and undocumented immigrants.

Even after a criminal case is dropped, people may continue to be held for their immigration case. ICE holds asylum seekers fleeing from violence in their home countries, qualifying them as zakat recipients. 

Similar to those who are held in pretrial incarceration, people held in ICE incarceration can lose their 

• jobs,
• housing, and
• custody of their children

in addition to enduring the unimaginable hardship of incarceration. 

It is extremely difficult for immigrants to find legal representation from behind bars, and even when they have it, individuals can be arbitrarily denied their right to speak to legal counsel. Those who can pay bond are five times more likely to find a lawyer and twice as likely to win their case.

In addition to this, the current administration is doing away with “due process” in immigration cases and deporting people without a fair hearing. For this reason, we, and bail funds we are partnered with, are seeing a much higher urgency to pay increasingly expensive immigration bonds quickly to allow folks a chance to access legal counsel and pursue their immigration case from outside of detention.

The Changing Landscape of Cash Bail and Our Work in the Next Year:

After years of grassroots organizing and collective lobbying in Illinois, cash bail was eliminated in Illinois in 2024 through the Pretrial Fairness Act, which went into effect September 2023. Since then, BBO has expanded to bail out zakat-eligible folks across the United States. 

While the elimination of cash bail in Illinois doesn’t eliminate the racist carceral system, it is a major victory by giving more people the opportunity to fight their cases from outside jail. 

• With cash bail still in existence in every other state, BBO now turns to helping our incarcerated siblings by partnering with bail funds in jurisdictions where cash bail is still in place.
• Meanwhile, we are continuing our community support and organizing in Chicago, and advocating for the end of cash bail across the country.

In the coming year, we aim to:

• Use Zakat to bail out Muslims in states where cash bail is still in place
• Support incarcerated Muslims whom we can’t bail out, using zakat or sadaqa, as appropriate
• Support Muslims after their release from jail or from ICE prisons

Paying bond is one way we take a stand against the PIC, and our ultimate goal must be prison abolition and the building of community infrastructures that respond to the call of our Lord - for the righteous believers “to feed for the love of Allah, the indigent, the orphan, and the captive” (Qur’an 76:8)

Participatory Defense

BBO is partnering up with several local Chicago organizations to launch a community defense hub later this year. The hub will serve as a biweekly community space where individuals facing criminal legal charges/ convictions, their families, and community members come together to learn about the legal process, support each other, and advocate for better outcomes within the carceral system. You can learn more about the general principles and benefits of participatory defense here.

Post Release Support 

BBO’s work doesn’t end with a bailout. 

Once someone is released from pretrial incarceration, there are few, if any, support services for people who are on electronic monitoring and fighting their cases. People being released from a carceral facility already face intense stigma that limits access to housing, employment, and meaningful connection to community care. Electronic monitoring (EM) systems that presented as a more humane alternative to pretrial incarceration, are in fact, a means by which Black people are criminalized and hypersurveilled.

Ankle bracelets are known to regularly malfunction, burdening people on EM to not only abide by the severe restrictions that their post-release mandates create for them, but to constantly prove that they have not violated EM when their monitor loses signal or glitches. It is notoriously difficult to get movement on EM outside of their two pre-approved days each week, and getting a job while on EM has proven to be a challenge for many of the people we’ve bailed out.

 The BBO post-release support team assists those we’ve bailed out to 

• get to their court dates,
• get groceries,
• help secure job interviews, and
• provide a Muslim community they can turn to.

Learn More

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook learn more about the carceral system and what BBO is doing to build community as Muslims to fight this unjust and racist carceral system.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/believersbailout/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BelieversBailOut/ 

To subscribe to our email newsletter, use the sign-up form at the bottom of our website: www.BelieversBailOut.org 

Get involved

Join us in the fight for abolition! See how you can be involved with Believers Bail Out: http://believersbailout.org 

If you work with a community bail fund in another city and want to partner with BBO, please get in touch. We are always looking for partners to expand bail outs in other cities!.