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.
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
Kids on the Line
N.C. shut down a group home last year. The US just gave it a contract to house migrant children
As the Office of Refugee Resettlement rapidly expands its shelter network, it’s adding providers with little experience and troubling track records.
Immigration
How jailing migrant children became an act of compassion for one Northern California community
During the summer of family separation, Yolo County rethought its role in detaining unaccompanied minors. And it decided it liked it.
Accountability
Flood thy neighbor
This week, we team up with ProPublica to investigate how rising waters have set off a race to build the highest levee.
Immigration
Trans national migration
We meet an immigration judge who rejected nearly every asylum case that came before her, then follow a transgender woman as she tries to claim asylum.
Immigration
Government acknowledges 15 to 20 migrant children held in ‘out of network’ facilities
Reveal previously reported that the government is housing unaccompanied children in secret facilities without the knowledge of their attorneys.
Kids on the Line
US government uses several clandestine shelters to detain immigrant children
A Reveal investigation finds the resettlement agency relies on clandestine shelters to hold unaccompanied minors.
Kids on the Line
‘They used the kids to get to parents like me’: How ICE’s human smuggling initiative targeted parents and children
A review of the operation by Reveal casts doubt on the official narrative.
Immigration
No one on the inside can talk about what’s happening at the tent city for migrant kids
Lack of access to the pop-up federal detention camp has frustrated town residents and alarmed advocates who question the conditions there.
America's Ring of Fire
Burning hotter and faster
We look at the recent Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive in California’s history, and revisit an investigation from earlier this year.