Reporting the Immigration Beat

Cindy Carcamo is a National Correspondent for the Los Angeles Times where she covers the Southwestern United States, focusing on border and immigration issues. She was a fellow for ICFJ's 2012 "Bringing Home the World" Program, and a recipient of the French American Foundation's 2012 Immigration Journalism Award. She was also named finalist for the 2012 PEN Center USA Literary Award in Journalism and the 2011 Livingston Award. Carcamo also reported as a correspondent in Argentina and Mexico during her time as an Inter American Press Association scholar.

Michael Matza is an immigration writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has reported extensively about refugee resettlement, deportation, visa fraud, humanitarian parole, new citizenship, and America’s changing demography. A former Middle East bureau chief, he returned to the U.S. in 2006 after six years in Jerusalem. Traveling across the region, he wrote about the Iraq War, Israel’s military withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza, the intifada and diplomatic efforts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since joining the Inquirer in 1987, he has worked in the Metro, Features, National and Foreign news departments. As the paper’s New England bureau chief for three years, he covered the Oklahoma City bombing, the crash of TWA Flight 800, among other breaking stories. Working for two years on projects about the Philadelphia Police Department, he co-authored two series about police manipulation of crime statistics, and pervasive problems with the city's Rape Squad. Both were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Maria Sacchetti covers immigration for The Boston Globe. She was among the 2012 IRE finalists for the series, Justice in the Shadows, about the secrecy permeating the US immigration system. The series revealed the secret arrests of foreigners, some of whom died in jail, private court records, and the unannounced release of dangerous criminals. She covered the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, followed a Boston student to Colombia when his father was deported, and has investigated jails for immigrants. Her work has led to the release of several immigrants and the halting of deportation proceedings against others. She has also exposed the existence of a post-9/11 flight school in Massachusetts that in 2010 was teaching illegal immigrants to fly small airplanes.

She has a bachelor's in journalism and a master's degree in Latin American studies/ economics. She lived in Latin America for several years and is fluent in Spanish and proficient in computer-assisted reporting.

Bruce Shapiro is Executive Director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism encouraging innovative reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy worldwide. An award-winning reporter on human rights, criminal justice and politics, Shapiro is a contributing editor at The Nation and U.S. correspondent for Late Night Live on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National. He is Adjunct Professor and Senior Advisor for Academic Affairs at Columbia, where he teaches journalism ethics. His books include Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America and Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future. Shapiro is recipient of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Public Advocacy Award for "outstanding and fundamental contributions to the social understanding of trauma." He is a founding board member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.