Human Rights Violations in US Immigration Detention

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Katherine Peeler, founding director of the Peeler Immigration Lab, to discuss her longstanding empirical work on human rights and US immigration systems. Dr. Peeler is an Associate Physician in Pediatrics at the Boston Children's Hospital and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics. Dr. Peeler describes her longstanding interest in building an evidence base of health effects of human rights abuses as a means of changing policy. Her interest in this field was initially sparked by the work of Paul Farmer and Partners in Health and their mission to improve direct care to patients. She was drawn specifically to challenges facing asylum seekers in the US and shifted towards policy work with Physicians for Human Rights. She founded the Peeler Lab during the COVID pandemic out of concern for people facing the pandemic in detention. Her lab has focused on writing for a public and policy audience to improve conditions and health of immigrants. More recently, her work has focused on solitary confinement in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. She painstakingly documents the multiple human rights violations, record number of deaths in these facilities, and violations of United Nations (UN) minimal standards for treatment of detained individuals. Policies for solitary confinement or "restricted housing" meet UN criteria for torture. She outlines strategies that States and local governments can employ to improve oversight and limit expansion of these facilities. The episode wraps up with a discussion of the role of bioethicists to forge common language across opposition and help parties understand shared values and have more productive conversations.

Peeler Lab: https://peelerimmigrationlab.hsites.harvard.edu/

Publications:

"Praying for Hand Soap and Masks:" Health and Human Rights Violations in U.S. Immigration Detention during the COVID-19 Pandemic.”

“Endless Nightmare” Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention (2024)

Cruelty Campaign: Solitary Confinement in US Immigration Detention