Accountability
United, we’re not
Where does America go from here? We talk with an asylum-seeking family, Georgia women on abortion and West Virginians on the impact of Black Lives Matter.
Staff
Biography
Patrick Michels is a reporter for Reveal, covering immigration. His coverage focuses on immigration courts and legal access, privatization in immigration enforcement, and the government's care for unaccompanied children. He contributed to Reveal's award-winning project on indigenous land rights disputes created by oil pipelines. Previously, he was a staff writer at the Texas Observer, where his work included an investigation into corruption at the Department of Homeland Security and how the state's broken guardianship system allowed elder abuse to go unchecked. Michels was a Livingston Award finalist for his investigation into the deadly armored car industry. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master's degree in photojournalism from the University of Texas at Austin, where his work focused on government contractors grappling with trauma and injuries from their time in Iraq. Michels is based in Austin, Texas.
Articles
Criminal Justice
Stopping a movement
Millions of Americans have protested racism and police brutality. The federal government cracked down, filing charges against protesters in 31 states.
Immigration
‘We sent 500 tests. They don’t answer calls’: Inside ICE’s coronavirus testing disaster
Internal emails show ICE rebuffed New Mexico public health officials offering to help contain COVID-19.
Immigration
Where ICE reports COVID-19 cases
Reveal looks at where ICE has reported coronavirus cases, with numbers for individual immigration detention facilities.
‘My daughter died giving her heart helping.’
Part four of our illustrated series on inequity in the time of pandemic.
COVID-19
Home school
Online learning works only if you can get online. We explore why tens of thousands of families are caught on the wrong side of the digital divide.
COVID-19
Dozens of grocery store workers have died. Here’s what workers say their employers did wrong.
Policies incentivized sick and vulnerable workers to report for duty. Masks and gloves were forbidden. Confusion reigned within chains.
COVID-19
Essential workers
Farmworkers, grocery store clerks and airline employees are on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis. But what’s being done to protect them?
COVID-19
How federal agencies put immigrants and immigration workers at risk amid coronavirus
As American life grinds to a halt, the immigration system – with agencies across two federal departments – has often continued with business as usual.
Immigration
Troubled youth detention firm seeks to open migrant child shelter in Los Angeles
VisionQuest has faced decades of citations for violence against youth in its custody.