Journalist and fact-checker, The New Yorker
Lux Magazine, Issue 15. November 2025. A Spanish conquistador is on the run through a South American rainforest. He flees execution by his compatriots — but really, he flees his entire identity. The man’s name is Antonio, and he is the protagonist of Argentine writer Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s latest novel, We are Green and Trembling, in which... Continue Reading →
The New Yorker, April 2025. An MS-13 leader knew key details of a secret deal that his gang allegedly made with the Salvadoran President—then the White House put him on a flight to El Salvador. By now, the images of Donald Trump’s March 15th flights to El Salvador are all too familiar: shackled Venezuelans being... Continue Reading →
The Dial, October 2024. ✺ On May 4, 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris stood on a podium at the Washington Conference on the Americas and took aim at the government of El Salvador, headed by President Nayib Bukele. Just three days before the conference, he — along with the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, controlled... Continue Reading →
Revista Pikara, septiembre 2024. Disponible en España. Retratos por Lizbeth Hernández. Extracto:
The Dial, May 2024. El Salvador faces the resurgence of mining activities as President Nayib Bukele’s administration considers overturning a ban on metal extraction. Environmental leaders who worry about the impact of mining on the country’s clean water sources, and who championed the ban until it passed in 2017, now confront potential threats as their... Continue Reading →
Gatopardo, mayo 2024. Vidalina Morales se dirige al público en la celebración del fallo del CIADI. Sensuntepeque, Cabañas, noviembre de 2016. Crédito: Danielle Mackey. El celular de Vidalina Morales sonó a mediados de la tarde. Era el 17 de mayo de 2023. Ella estaba en el estado rural de Cabañas, El Salvador. Escuchó la voz... Continue Reading →
The New Yorker, April 2024. On the afternoon of February 4th, as Salvadorans were voting in Presidential and legislative elections, a fifty-seven-year-old writer named Carlos Bucio Borja walked into a polling place near his home in the capital and began to read the constitution aloud. The sitting President, Nayib Bukele, was seeking a second consecutive mandate, which legal... Continue Reading →
The Dial, March 2024; The Guardian Long Read, April 2024; and The Guardian Podcast, May 2024. An extended version of this piece was published in Spanish in Gatopardo. On the afternoon of May 17, 2023, in the rural state of Cabañas, El Salvador, Vidalina Morales' cell phone rang. It was her 33-year old son, Manuel,... Continue Reading →
The New Republic, Dec 2023. Several thousand people crowded near the entrance to the national gymnasium of El Salvador at dusk on November 15, waiting to take their seats for the preliminary round of the 2023 Miss Universe pageant. From within the throng, one group screamed the name of a country in unison, prompting rivals... Continue Reading →
Foreign Policy, November 2023. As part of the OCCRP project, "The Dictators' Bank." El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, speaks during a joint news conference with the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson in San Salvador on May 26, 2020. YURI CORTEZ/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES One September morning three years ago, the U.S. Senate Committee on... Continue Reading →
Danielle Mackey 