Immigrant Detention and COVID-19: A Tragic Call to Action for Federal and State Officials

Immigrant Detention and COVID-19: A Tragic Call to Action for Federal and State Officials

Caitlin Patler, PhD, University of California, Davis
Jackie Gonzalez, JD, Immigrant Defense Advocates
Hamid Yazdan Panah, JD, Immigrant Defense Advocates

In this issue brief of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard, we review research on immigration detention, with a particular focus on conditions of confinement and the pains of imprisonment experienced by detained people in the United States. We then discuss federal and state actions to save lives and uphold human dignity in both the shorter-term timeline (of the pandemic) and the longer-term.

KJ