The Lawfare Podcast: ICE, CBP and Coronavirus Response

Jen Patja, Mikhaila Fogel
Monday, April 13, 2020, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Whether it has been travel bans, family separation, or changes to asylum rules, the Trump administration has long been embroiled in controversies over its immigration and detention policy. Those controversies have come amidst surges in migrants and asylum seekers, particularly at the U.S. southern border. The Trump administration's new policies have been legally and technically complex, and that was all before COVID-19.

Mikhaila Fogel sat down with immigration reporters Hamed Aleaziz of Buzzfeed News and Dara Lind of ProPublica, as well as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer at the American Immigration Council. They discussed how Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as Customs and Border Protection, are responding to COVID-19; the changing legal landscape for those agencies before the pandemic; and the challenges faced by migrants, asylum seekers and the U.S. immigration system during coronavirus and beyond.



Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
Mikhaila Fogel was an associate editor at Lawfare and a research analyst at the Brookings Institution. She previously worked as a legislative correspondent for national security and foreign affairs issues in the Office of Sen. Susan Collins. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, where she majored in history and literature and minored in government and Arabic.
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