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Christian Leonard @xianleonard.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

new from @kolyncheang.bsky.social and @stjbs.bsky.social: ICE hasn't paid its detainees' health care providers for nearly a year. The agency denied a cancer patient potentially lifesaving care while it tried to deport him from the country. www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

sfchronicle.com

ICE hasn’t paid for detainee medical care since October. Advocates call it the ‘death policy’

ICE owes millions in unpaid bills to hospitals and, in some cases, detainees themselves have been directly billed for care, records show.

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Reposted by Christian Leonard

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Important investigation into failures with ICE medial care that have likely caused multiple deaths. I'll note that these failures are common in the criminal justice system, and are just as deadly there, which is one reason why a solution is to heavily restrict the use of immigration detention.

The pain started soon after immigration agents seized the bespectacled 39-year-old man, who had lived in the United States since he was 5, at the Orange County car wash where he worked last August.
They took him to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, where he developed an abscess under the skin on his left buttock. It filled with pus and bacteria, rotting muscle and fat as it pushed into his pelvis and abdomen, threatening to flood his bloodstream with toxins.
Ayala-Uribe complained to medical staff about rectal pain, rating it “10 out of 10,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show, but documents do not indicate he was ever physically examined by staff members at Adelanto. On Sept. 18, a nurse gave him over-the-counter painkillers and fiber supplements used to relieve digestion problems, then sent him back to his cell.
Three days later, sweating and trembling, Ayala-Uribe was finally taken to a hospital. While waiting for treatment, he suffered septic shock caused by the abscess, according to a coroner’s report, and his heart stopped.
“This case is just absolute medical malpractice,” said Dr. Barbara Ogur, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who reviewed his treatment records at the Chronicle’s request.

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Reposted by Christian Leonard

Ko Lyn Cheang @kolyncheang.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

My colleague @stjbs.bsky.social and I spent months working on this new @sfchronicle.com investigation into each of the 48 deaths in ICE custody since the start of 2025. Powerful work as well by our data viz colleague Nami Sumida and @santiagomejia.bsky.social www.sfchronicle.com/projects/202...

sfchronicle.com

Client Challenge

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Reposted by Christian Leonard

Jer Thorp @jerthorp.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

It took me about three months to get here but... Here's a 🪶 for (nearly) every species of bird, with colors extracted from wikipedia descriptions. 10,151 species. #dataviz #birds #data

A wheel-like visualization of bird feathers colored from wikipedia descriptions

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Christian Leonard @xianleonard.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

CA Senate Bill 79, which would allow tenser/denser housing projects to be built near major transit hubs, squeezed through the state Senate last night, getting the exact number of votes it needed to pass. It now heads to the Assembly. www.sfchronicle.com/politics/art...

sfchronicle.com

California bill allowing more housing near transit stops narrowly passes Senate

The bill, which was authored by S.F. state Sen. Scott Wiener, overcame strenuous opposition from smaller cities to get the exact number of votes needed to pass.

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Christian Leonard @xianleonard.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

I wrote about that housing paper that argued places where it's easier to build more housing don't (at least when accounting for change in demand). Its findings (and methods) sparked a pretty big debate among housing wonks. Here I try my best to explain: www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

sfchronicle.com

Does building homes lead to lower housing costs? New research is roiling the debate

The new paper argues other factors besides development restrictions are behind rising home prices.

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Christian Leonard @xianleonard.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

New from @sfchronicle.com 's Sarah Ravani and me: The Oakland mayoral election is in just a few weeks, and more than a million bucks is flowing through the race. Here's how much the frontrunners have raised and who's supporting them. www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/arti...

A line chart titled, "Total money raised for 2025 Oakland mayoral campaigns" and subtitled "Including donations to candidates' personal or supporter-organized groups, through March 24". An orange line labeled "Loren Taylor" increases from 0 at November 2024 to $100,000 at January 2025 to nearly $500,000 in March 2025. A teal line labeled "Barbara Lee" increases from less than $200,000 in January to nearly $700,000 in March.

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Christian Leonard @xianleonard.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

New from me: California Senate Bill 9 was marketed as "ending single-family zoning." But in three years, SF has received only 32 housing apps under the law. Oakland has gotten 5. Now, State Sen. Scott Wiener is introducing legislation to bring those numbers up. www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

sfchronicle.com

This California law was supposed to end single-family zoning. Three years later, it’s ‘just symbolic’

State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced a bill to strengthen Senate Bill 9 by removing some of California's restrictions on lot splits and duplexes.

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