Journalist and fact-checker, The New Yorker
The New Yorker, April 2021. Film by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Maite Zubiaurre. On a recent Thursday afternoon, Marisela and Ely Ortiz, a middle-aged couple, went to a Costco in Temecula, California, to buy crates of bread and bottled water, a weekend’s worth of nourishment for twenty-five volunteers who would spend two days walking in extreme... Continue Reading →
Lux Magazine, No. 1. En español en Alharaca. Art by Sofía Clausse. This reporting was supported by a grant from the Fund for Constitutional Government. Beginning in the summer of 2015, millions of women filled the streets of Latin America in a series of marches united by a hashtag at once a slogan and a... Continue Reading →
Contracorriente, Univision Investigative Unit and the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP), November 2020. With Jennifer Ávila. Disponible en español. An environmental conflict marked by violence is raging in Guapinol, Honduras, where local inhabitants resist an iron oxide mine in a national park. This cross-border journalism alliance* has uncovered that the Nucor Corporation, the chief... Continue Reading →
NACLA and Taylor & Francis Online, November 2020. With Pamela Ruiz. This is an excerpt; complete copies are available at either publisher. My reporting for this piece was thanks to a grant from The Fund for Constitutional Government. In April 2020, Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele reacted to a wave of murders by ordering prison officials... Continue Reading →
Contracorriente, July 2020. With Jennifer Ávila. In English here. La pandemia cayó al mundo del fraude. La compra de los hospitales móviles y otras irregularidades en el manejo de la pandemia en Honduras pone en evidencia algo que ha sido muy común en el fraude, la evasión de impuestos y el lavado de activos: las... Continue Reading →
The Chicago Reader, February 2020. With The Invisible Institute. Officer Salvador Enrique Chavez stood ready to apprehend a colleague accused of murder. It was December 29, 2017. The 40-year-old was two months from celebrating his 18th year on the Salvadoran police force. As a member of the SWAT-style unit called the Grupo de Reaccion Policial... Continue Reading →
Equal Times, March 2020. En español, français. Photographs by Martín Cálix. On an average day, Joel Almendares is counselling Honduran middle and high school students about how to excel in school and plan their futures. But he is also fighting off worries about violent attacks on himself and his unionised colleagues. Almendares is secretary general... Continue Reading →
Contra Corriente, Oct 2019, New York. En español aquí. With Jennifer Ávila. A trial in New York reveals narco control in Honduras *This article has been amended since its original publication to reflect changing news. Tony Hernández is a former congressman from Honduras' ruling National Party and the brother of the sitting president. Since... Continue Reading →
A March 2019 presentation at the University of Notre Dame, as part of its conference, "Belonging: The Church of Romero and Gangs." The subject of the panel on which I spoke alongside anthropologist Juan José Martinez was, "Gangs in El Salvador as a transnational form of belonging." A main focus of my reporting in recent... Continue Reading →
The Intercept, November 2018. There are an estimated 60,000 gang members in El Salvador. Benjamin knew many who wanted to leave the gangs. He wanted to show them it was possible. Benjamin suspected the Salvadoran gang Barrio 18 Revolucionarios would kill him when he asked permission to leave. He was 21 years old and had... Continue Reading →
