Role of Social Media and Computing in Organizations aiding Asylum Seekers and Undocumented Migrants in the United States

Every year, an increasing number of displaced people arrive at the United States of America's border to request asylum. Several groups are working to help migrants by providing them with essential items and services, housing, and legal advice. Drawing on ethnographic findings, this work presents a situated perspective of how citizen responders utilize technological systems to provide relief to those affected by the immigration crisis. Often, these citizens with common goals come together to form organizations. This study investigates how social media and technology support on-the-ground work, advocacy work, care-work, and invisible work of these organizations. Further, I highlight how technological systems fail organizations and how the emergence of care-work replaced these systems. Finally, I make design recommendations to social media and technological systems' design to boost the efficacy of collective crisis response by citizens.