Washington Post reporter Douglas MacMillan has been named this year’s winner of the Welles Prize, given to an alumnus of the Columbia University Knight-Bagehot program.
MacMillan spent 17 months reporting on President Trump’s historic expansion of immigration detention. MacMillan followed the money to executives and investors who were profiting from housing immigrants in substandard facilities. The Knight-Bagehot class of 2017 alum used leaked documents, developed connections around ICE, and found sources inside Trump’s administration to support his groundbreaking investigation.
Welles judge Leslie Wayne called MacMillan’s series “powerfully revealing.”
“The stories sparked a national conversation about conditions in ICE detention facilities and gave the nation a peek inside places that the administration wants to shroud in secrecy,” said Wayne. “Even more, the reporting led to changes.”
The Post was the first to publish details about ICE’s plan to retrofit industrial warehouses into immigrant detention centers, which led to local communities pushing back and successfully getting ICE to reverse course in more than a dozen cities. MacMillan’s report on ICE’s expansion of GPS ankle monitors also led to a class-action lawsuit arguing for the release of thousands impacted.
“This is an example of what dedicated and fearless reporting can do,” added Wayne.
The Welles Prize is named after Chris Welles, longtime business journalist and former head of the Knight-Bagehot program.
