Research conducted by UCLA Luskin Master of Public Policy students in 2023 has helped inform new California legislation aimed at protecting people held in immigrant detention facilities. The students’ Applied Policy Project, One Dollar a Day: Labor Conditions Within California Immigrant Detention Centers, conducted in partnership with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, was cited in support of Senate Bill 941, which limits commissary markups at private detention facilities. Three years later, alumnus Kamal Cheema MPP ’23 reflects on the lasting impact of the research, the lessons he took from UCLA Luskin and his career in public policy.
What inspired this research, and how did it feel to see it contribute to legislation?
As the child of immigrants and a first-generation college graduate, I wanted to use my education to support people whose experiences are often overlooked in policymaking. This project gave me a chance to do that.
Our team worked with the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice to understand the conditions driving labor strikes inside California’s immigrant detention centers. Hearing people describe working for a dollar a day while struggling to afford basic necessities made the stakes of our research very real.
People trusted us with difficult experiences, and we felt a responsibility to represent them carefully. Seeing our findings cited in support of SB 941 three years later was meaningful because those experiences helped inform an actual policy change. I’m proud we could contribute to the work detained people and advocates had been pushing forward.
How did UCLA Luskin shape your approach to research and problem-solving?
Luskin taught me to slow down and understand a problem before jumping to a solution. I learned to ask better questions, work with different kinds of evidence, and think through whether a recommendation could actually work in practice.
Our APP brought all of that together. It also taught me how much you miss if you don’t listen to the people directly affected by a policy. The experiences detainees described helped us understand what the numbers alone couldn’t tell us. That’s something I continue to carry into my work.
What do you do now, and what advice would you share with current MPP students?
I’m a senior public policy and communications analyst at Impact Capital Managers, where I work on policy engagement for a network of impact investors. A lot of my work involves helping people understand research and policy developments and why they matter.
It’s reinforced for me that doing good research is only part of the job. You also have to make it understandable and get it to people who can use it.
My advice to current MPP students is to stay in touch with your APP group and your cohort in general. You never know when you’ll need each other’s advice or end up working on similar issues.
