As the Office of Refugee Resettlement rapidly expands its shelter network, it’s adding providers with little experience and troubling track records.
Patrick Michels
Reporter
Patrick Michels is a former 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.
Posted inImmigration
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.
Posted inAccountability
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.
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Posted inImmigration, Inequality
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.
Posted inImmigration, Kids on the Line
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.
Posted inAccountability, 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.
Posted inInequality, 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.
Posted inImmigration, Inequality, Kids on the Line
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.
Posted inAmerica's Ring of Fire, Climate Change, Environment, Sustainability
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.
Posted inImmigration
The government pays for migrant children’s lawyers. Challenge the government, and they can lose their funding
For most migrant children detained alone, the only lawyers they’ll see are being paid by the same agency that’s holding them.