Using R to defend immigrant's rights at the ACLU By Brooke Watson Abstract: The ACLU uses litigation and advocacy to protect and expand the civil rights of immigrants. Often, this involves extracting, cleaning, and analyzing data from federal agencies to fact-check government statements, detect patterns of civil rights abuse, and ensure that immigration agencies are following the law. Through the lens of 3 immigration cases, this talk will walk through 10 functions that enable R users to extract, validate, and visualize patterns and anomalies in data. Bio: Brooke Watson is a senior data scientist at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she uses statistics to advance civil rights through advocacy, legislative support, and data-informed litigation. Before joining the ACLU, she studied zoonotic viruses as a research scientist at the EcoHealth Alliance. She is an organizer for R-Ladies NYC and holds a Master's Degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Twitter: @brooklynevery1 Presented at the 2019 New York R Conference (May 11th, 2019)