UCLA Associate Professor Chris Zepeda-Millán demonstrates most Americans would support immigrant child detainees being released and having access to medical care. Dr. Zepeda-Millán’s data illustrates that the current administration’s immigration policies regarding child detainees are not supported by public opinion. He further notes this can be a bipartisan issue elected officials can rally around in order to provide humanity and aid to child detainees.
Interview Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
0:46 – How has Covid-19 impacted incarcerated populations and immigrant detention centers?
4:41 – What does your data reveal in terms of public support for treating and releasing child detainees? Implications?
7:23 – If there is an overwhelming amount of support to protect and release child detainees why is the current administration choosing not to?
To learn more about Dr. Chris Zepeda-Millán‘s forthcoming book, Walls, Cages, and Family Separation: Race and Immigration Policy in the Trump Era (under contract with Cambridge University Press) with Sophia Jordán Wallace (University of Washington), check out a recent brief by the Latino Policy & Politics Initiative (LPPI) that draws on portions of the book. Titled “COVID-19 & Migrant Child Detainees: Releasing & Treating Children in Detention” (May 2020), the brief provides evidence of public support for releasing child detainees during the coronavirus pandemic, noting the poll took place before COVID-19 began. It also provides “straightforward, bipartisan, and implementable” policy recommendations. To read the full brief, click HERE.
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