Being a Jennifer Caldwell Fund recipient allowed me to continue working with the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) researching immigration detention. From September 2020 to August 2022, I was part of a team within the UWCHR working on a quantitative social science project seeking to understand the impact of immigration detention capacity

Letter from the Director Lately I’ve been contemplating history as cyclical rather than linear. In part this is because I’ve found myself frustrated by the fits and starts of teaching during Covid-19. (We’re on Zoom! Now we’re in person! Now back on Zoom!) We are all eager to leave the pandemic behind, yet it lingers, transforms, resurfaces.

This summer I worked for Reprieve, a human rights advocacy nonprofit. My role was, in part, financially supported by the Peter Mack and Jamie Mayerfeld Endowed Fund for Human Rights through the UW Center for Human Rights. Being a Peter Mack and Jamie Mayerfeld Fellow allowed me to engage in work that I believe in,

Starting in spring of 2022 and through the summer, I worked on the Migrant Redress Initiative: Freedom and Dignity project with Alejandra Gonza, Executive Director of Global Rights Advocacy (GRA), in collaboration with La Resistencia. The Redress Initiative is a project that empowers immigrants to reach international justice by bridging the voices of the most

Last week, on September 20, 2022, we filed a lawsuit against DHS and ICE for failure to lawfully respond to FOIA requests. ICE’s stonewalling of our FOIA requests leaves us with no other option but to bring suit against the agency. We bring FOIA litigation because we know that access to information is a human

On September 20, 2022, the University of Washington Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for failure to lawfully respond to more than a dozen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The records sought by the UWCHR include data and documents

This spring quarter, the Benjamin Linder Fellowship has allowed me the opportunity to continue the research into the enforcement of the Keep Washington Working (KWW) and Courts Open To All (COTA) acts which UWCHR’s Immigrant Rights Observatory team began conducting in 2019. Their August 2021 report, Protecting Immigrant Rights: Is Washington’s Law Working?, analyzed the

This report is part of a series of research reports by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights examining Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations nationwide.  Download additional resources and one pagers: Haiti: Sports Travel & U.S. Deportation of Haitian Asylum-Seekers Syracuse University & Haitian Deportations Texas Universities & Haitian Deportations Introduction Every week,

This report is part of a series regarding Human Rights Conditions at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, based on ongoing research efforts and released to highlight initial findings in the urgent context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contents: • Introduction • Background, Methodology, and Human Rights Standards • Sanitation of Food and Laundry •

Letter from the Director As a professor and a parent soldiering through the third year of schooling upended by pandemic conditions, it’s sometimes hard to be upbeat. My eight-year-old recently said she doesn’t want to join the rest of the family at the dinner table because all we ever talk about is “the destruction of