Immigration

Government Accountability Project has a history of working with immigration whistleblowers. Our former clients include Cathy Harris, a former senior inspector for the U.S. Customs Service (USCS) at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. Harris disclosed that USCS had been practicing discriminatory racial profiling. Harris’ revelations resulted in a landmark GAO study of USCS profiling practices and federal legislation to reform these unconstitutional practices.

Beginning in 2018, Government Accountability Project has been representing government whistleblowers who work within the U.S. immigration system. In the summer of 2018, Drs. Pamela McPherson and Scott Allen blew the whistle on the Trump administration’s child detention practices. Having been hired by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (DHS-CRCL) to serve as subject matter experts, the doctors described the substandard and dangerously lax medical care children were receiving at detention centers. As can be read in their whistleblower profile below, the doctors have written to the U.S. Congress multiple times, spoken to dozens of media outlets, and won several prestigious truth-telling awards, honors from the Ridenhour Prizes and Physicians for Human Rights.

Government Accountability Project also represents Ellen Gallagher, a former policy adviser at CRCL and current employee at DHS’ Office of the Inspector General, who has blown the whistle repeatedly on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) use of solitary confinement on mentally ill and medically vulnerable adults across the 200+ immigration detention facilities in clear violation of federal laws and detention standards.

Government Accountability Project is proud to represent immigration whistleblowers, who help hold our immigration system accountable to the public and to high standards of human rights. If you are an employee or contractor in the U.S. immigration system and are considering blowing the whistle, fill out our intake form here.

Our Related Work

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Reparations for CA forced sterilization survivors: Support AB 1007 This article features our client Dawn Wooten and was originally published here. Between 1909 and 1979, California forcibly sterilized over 20,000 people of color, people with disabilities and imprisoned people. Based on white supremacist eugenics laws and ableist conceptions of who was “unfit to reproduce,” people with disabilities and women of color suffered forced sterilization. While the state’s eugenics laws were officially repealed in 1979, advocates [...]

Women Whistleblowers in the Trump Era: A Celebration of Women Who Refused to Be Silenced (Part 2)

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Letter to the Department of Homeland Security re: ICE Detention File Revi

Alejandro Mayorkas Secretary U.S. Department of Homeland Security 3801 Nebraska Ave. NW Washington, D.C. 20016 Tae Johnson Acting Director U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 500 12th St. SW Washington, D.C. 20536 Esther Olavarria Deputy Director Domestic Policy Council 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, D.C. 20500 March 29, 2021 Dear Secretary Mayorkas, Acting Director Johnson, and Deputy Director Olavarria: The undersigned organizations write today to draw your attention to urgent, unaddressed concerns regarding the Immigration and [...]

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