As the partner of a formerly incarcerated and deported person, Lee Ragsdale has personal experience with the effects of incarceration and deportation on families. Lee and her husband Erick will join us to talk about deportation and reintegration in Mexico, offering a snapshot of current immigration/deportation trends as well as sharing their lived experience.
Lee Ragsdale directs the Education Justice Project's Reentry Resource Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Education Justice Project is a college-in-prison program based at a men’s state prison in central Illinois. The Reentry Resource Program, an outgrowth of the prison education program connects people with the resources they need for a healthy transition to life after prison or deportation. EJP has produced the Illinois reentry guide, Mapping Your Future: A Guide to Successful Reentry since 2015 and a deportation guide, A New Path: A Guide to the Challenges and Opportunities After Deportation since 2018. As a college student at Loyola University Chicago, Lee participated in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Illinois and later tutored in San Quentin Prison in California.
Lee has a BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and MAs in Spanish and English Linguistics from the University of Illinois. She and her husband have lived in Mexico since his deportation in 2013 where they run the nonprofit organization, Mexipets Animal Rescue.