UCSD PROFESSOR WINS CIVIL RIGHTS AWARD
ACLU gives honor to Tom Wong, who focuses on immigration policy topics
UC San Diego professor Tom Wong has received a national award recognizing his work on immigrant rights.
The American Civil Liberties Union honored Wong earlier this month with its Presidential Prize, an award given every other year to an academic for outstanding contributions to civil liberties.
Wong has published extensive statistical analyses on current immigration topics. That includes the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program, which allows undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to have work permits and protection from deportation; the Remain in Mexico program, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their immigration court cases progress in the United States; and most
recently Title 42, a pandemic policy that instructs border officials to expel asylum seekers without screening them for protection needs.
“It’s not just impact that I’m chasing,” Wong said, reflecting on his body of work so far. “It is honoring my immigrant story and my parents and their sacrifices to get me to where I am today.”
That personal connection to the topics he studies keeps him going on work weeks that can stretch to 80 hours.
In order to work as professors
and reach tenure status at universities, academics have to publish books as well as articles in peer-reviewed journals that often lag years behind what’s currently happening in policy discussions and decisions.
Wong does this as part of his work, but in order to address more immediate needs, he works what he refers to as a second job: publishing analyses on a timeline that keeps up with current events.
“I wish more academics would use our brain power and our talents to help make the world better, to change policies, to improve people’s lives, but academic incentive structures aren’t aligned with making real-world impact in the ways that they should be,” Wong said.
“I have never imagined myself as an academic who writes books and articles that only a handful of other academics read. I have always seen my job as a professor as a platform to have broader impact.”
It was that work that helped win him the ACLU award, which comes with a $10,000 stipend.
“Dr. Wong has had an enormous impact, benefiting policymakers and organizations fighting for immigrant communities,” said ACLU President Deborah Archer.
Wong’s work has been cited in a number of court
cases, including the case over the Trump administration’s attempt to end DACA that went all the way to the Supreme Court and ultimately kept the program in place.
His most recent report looked at whether there is any correlation between Title 42 expulsions and COVID-19 infection rates in the United
States — since the controversial policy that has thrust thousands of asylum seekers into dangerous situations was implemented to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Wong found that, in fact, the policy didn’t have the effect of reducing COVID-19 rates in the United States.