King Hall faculty comment for national media on pressing immigration issues

The Trump administration’s immigration policies continued to factor heavily in the news cycle during the past few weeks, with national and local media again seeking commentary from King Hall faculty.

Professor Holly Cooper, Co-Director of the Immigration Law Clinic, made the media rounds after the clinic helped file a new lawsuit in federal court alleging the Trump administration has detained children unconstitutionally, in inhumane and cruel conditions. The clinic is co-counsel on the lawsuit, which also maintains the government is delaying or refusing to release minors to family members.

At least a dozen national media outlets wrote about the June 29 court filing, including The Washington Post and USA Today.

Cooper was quoted by NBC News, NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” Al Jazeera, CNN and the Sacramento Bee, among other outlets. “I don’t think children should be in jail,” Cooper told Bee columnist Marcos Bretón, who was writing about the Yolo County juvenile detention facility. Cooper is a lawyer for detainees there.

Professor Elizabeth Joh, King Hall’s resident big-data expert, spoke to National Geographic about genealogy sites offering their services to try to reunite migrant children and the parents from whom they have been separated - an idea that sparks concerns about privacy.

“I think we should be very wary of any proposals to create a DNA database, even if the intentions are good,”Joh said.

Dean Kevin R. Johnson was quoted by Law360 regarding the costs of detaining migrants, and options to doing so. Law360 reported that an adult bed in a detention center costs about $170 dollars per day, according to ICE's fiscal year 2018 budget.

“We're not equipped to humanely detain thousands of people,” Johnson said.