What I Cover
I write about immigrants and low-wage work in the Midwest. In this second Trump administration, I plan to pay attention to deportations, including deportations of people in the criminal justice system. I am based in Chicago.
My Background
After joining ProPublica in 2017, I led a project that examined Chicago’s punitive ticketing and debt collection system; that reporting helped prompt major reforms, including the cancellation of 55,000 driver’s license suspensions and millions of dollars in debt forgiveness. In 2018, I was part of a team of reporters who examined conditions at shelters for unaccompanied immigrant children; some of that reporting was included in a ProPublica series on the impact of President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.
I was among the first reporters to document the growing number of Central American teenagers who work in factories. Most recently, I worked with my colleague Maryam Jameel to examine conditions for immigrant workers on Wisconsin dairy farms; that reporting prompted a federal civil rights investigation and led to the creation of an $8 million fund to build housing for farmworkers. The series was a finalist for an Anthony Shadid Award for Journalism Ethics, among other recognitions. Our partners at WBUR’s “On Point” made an episode based on our reporting on how immigration was changing the small city of Whitewater, Wisconsin; that episode won a Murrow Award for best news documentary.
I previously worked for The Chicago Reporter, Catalyst Chicago, El Nuevo Herald in Miami and the Yakima Herald-Republic in Washington. I am the daughter of immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador and speak Spanish fluently.
