Salem State Professor Collaborated on Project Visualizing Immigrant Detention

Salem State University Professor Roopika Risam worked with a team of researchers from Columbia University and University of Houston to create interactive data visualizations demonstrating the scope of immigrant detention nationwide. The researchers gathered data to create Torn Apart / Separados, a map showing the locations of ports of entry, ICE detention centers, and shelters that are part of the vast web of government enforcement of Donald Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy.

According to the website, data was compiled using ICE/CBP websites, business records, federal records, and news records, as well as the ICE Detention Facility list obtained through public records requests by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and the National Immigrant Justice Center. This data was compiled over 7 days and used to create a series of data visualizations, including a map of detention facilities and shelters holding children separated from their families at the border.  A behind-the-scenes article in WIRED Magazine documented the team’s work.

“This project was our way of helping the public understand the landscape of immigrant detention in the U.S., which is not restricted to the Mexico-United States border but is in our very own backyards. As an immigrant whose entry to the United States was marked by ease, it is especially troubling to see families who desperately need sanctuary being torn apart,” said Risam.

The Torn Apart / Separados team is working with activists and news outlets to make their data available to help families separated by the U.S. government. They are also working with new teams of researchers to study the role of local media in reporting on immigration policy and to identify the financial trails supporting ICE detention.

Risam is an assistant professor of English, faculty fellow for digital library initiatives, and coordinator of the Digital Studies Graduate Certificate Program. Her research focuses on African diaspora studies and digital humanities. She is the author of New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy (Northwestern University Press, 2018).