Dr. Scott Allen and Dr. Pam McPherson

In July 2018, Government Accountability Project clients Dr. Scott Allen and Dr. Pamela McPherson, medical and mental health subject matter experts for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (DHS/CRCL), made the brave decision to blow the whistle on the government’s child detention practices. Through their disclosures, they sought to prevent the ongoing risk of harm to children and families posed by the Trump administration’s implementation of its “zero-tolerance” immigration policy at the U.S. southern border.

After conducting 10 investigations of family detention centers over the course of four years, Drs. Allen and McPherson made disclosures to the DHS Inspector General, the Director of CRCL, the Senate Whistleblower Caucus leadership, and other members of Congress. They revealed evidence of gross mismanagement and failures to comply with legal standards governing family detention facilities that resulted in direct harm to children. They described cases in which children experienced severe weight loss, accidental vaccinations with adult doses, and dangerously slow medical attention. A week after Dr. McPherson and Dr. Allen presented their findings to U.S. Senators Grassley and Wyden, 14 medical and mental health provider organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Pediatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, and the American Psychological Association sent a letter in solidarity with the doctors to Senate and House leadership. Government Accountability Project worked with the doctors to develop testimony for Senate hearings and brief members of Congress on the doctors’ disclosures.

In November 2018, Drs. Allen and McPherson spoke to the American public directly for the first time in an interview with 60 Minutes, sharing their experience as DHS whistleblowers and condemning threats to children’s health and safety under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. Heightened press promoted an invitation to participate in a congressional delegation (codel) in December 2018 to the border led by Senators Merkley, Hirono and Smith and Representative Chu. The codel tragically coincided with the news that seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin died in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody; we helped Drs. Allen and McPherson publish an Op-Ed in the Washington Post, titled “We warned DHS that a migrant child could die in custody. Now one has.” At least four additional migrant children in border custody died during the Trump administration. 

Significantly, Drs. Allen’s and McPhersons disclosures were leveraged by immigration justice groups: their disclosures were referenced to successfully seek the release of infants under one from family detention centers, and used as support for more than 90 written comments opposing DHS’s effort to overturn the Flores settlement agreement (they submitted their own written comments as well). 

Drs. Allen’s and McPhersons warnings as DHS’s own medical experts about harms from to children from immigrant detention settings were vital additions to calls to end the practice. In late 2021, the Biden administration largely ended the practice. When news broke in March 2023 that the Biden administration was reconsidering family detention, the doctors again spoke up, writing a letter to the Biden Administration cautioning against the re-implementation of the practice.

Drs. Allen and McPherson sought legal advice and support from Government Accountability Project before escalating their concerns about harms to children, creating a path to insulate them from retaliation as they exercised their whistleblower rights in raising concerns to their managers, to DHS OIG, Congress and the press. Not only did they not suffer reprisal for their moral courage, they have been recognized by both Physicians for Human Rights and the prestigious Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling as heroes for their whistleblowing. They along with their counsel, Government Accountability Project’s Dana Gold, published an article in 2022, “The Physician’s Role in Confronting Humanitarian Challenges: A Guide for Action,” about their experience as whistleblowers with advice for other physicians about speaking up in the face of threats of medical harm.