Caitlin Dickerson, a winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, discussed her work reporting on immigration and the state of the free press in an event held by Kennedy Political Union in honor of National Immigrants Day on Oct. 28.
The event, moderated by the Director of American University’s Center for Latin America and Latino Studies Ernesto Castañeda, was held in partnership with American Civil Liberties Union DC AU, Amnesty International AU and Latinos en Acción. Castañeda spoke with Dickerson about her experiences reporting on immigration in the U.S. as well as on displaced people around the world.
Dickerson said she first became interested in immigration and its dynamics while growing up in Merced, California, a city where more than 58 percent of the population is Hispanic and many individuals are recent immigrants to the U.S. Initially, Dickerson pursued law at California State University Long Beach, but she said she became enthralled with the idea of storytelling and specifically how that pertained to immigration.
“I was really amazed by how journalists got me to care about things that were not always personal to me,” Dickerson said.
After college, Dickerson secured an internship at NPR, where her interest and knowledge in immigration set her apart from the rest of the internship class. She later became a producer and eventually landed a spot on the investigations team. Since then, Dickerson has worked at CNN, The New York Times and is now a staff writer for The Atlantic.
When Dickerson started in the newsroom, immigration was seen as a relatively niche topic, but now it has become a centerpiece of national debate. As deportations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement become commonplace in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago and as anti-immigrant rhetoric by the Trump administration rises, the public has been forced to take a harder look at the American immigration system.
“A lot of people don’t realize that immigration laws were established in the United States in the pursuit of racial control, they were established countrywide,” Dickerson said. “It wasn’t law and order, it was to keep people from utilizing public benefits.”
Dickerson cited a recent Supreme Court ruling, Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, that allows federal officers to detain and deport individuals based on their race. Assuming individuals are immigrants purely based on race is one of the misconceptions Dickerson said many people have when it comes to immigration. She said others also assume that if someone is deported or detained they are a criminal, but in fact, a report by TRAC Immigration Center shows over 70 percent of those currently detained have no criminal record.
These misconceptions have also led to increased disillusionment with the immigration system, according to Dickerson. From former President Barack Obama’s expansion of detention centers to President Donald Trump’s current crackdowns, Dickerson said U.S. presidents will often blame systemic societal problems on migrants without concrete evidence.
“I have a real opportunity right now to address these misconceptions, because people are so interested in immigration,” Dickerson said.
For Dickerson, this opportunity also comes at a time when journalism is under attack in the U.S. According to PBS, Trump’s moves to silence broadcasters who speak out against him, consistent defamation of the media and cuts to media programs like NPR and Voice of America reflect actions of multiple authoritarian leaders who have sought to curb press freedoms.
Trump’s threats towards the press and crackdown on immigration have continued to overlap, including in the case of Mario Guevara, a journalist based in Atlanta, Georgia. Guevara was deported to El Salvador in early October after being detained while reporting at a No Kings protest.
“Democracy doesn’t work without a free and fair press, and we can’t trust institutions to give democracy to us,” Dickerson said.
Dickerson said during this time, she returns back to the fundamentals of journalism she first learned such as unbiased reporting, a technique she encourages young journalists to follow as they build their careers. She also said she reminds herself of the mission of each of her stories: to represent those who are underrepresented.
For Dickerson, winning the Pulitzer, George Foster Peabody and Edward R. Murrow awards has given her further encouragement to continue reporting on sometimes difficult stories. These awards also signified a public recognition of stories, such as migrant family separations, that are often ignored.
Dickerson’s work also helped inspire student attendees. Alyssa Guevara, a senior in the School of Public Affairs and a member of ACLU at AU, said that she hadn’t heard of Dickerson before attending the talk, but was glad that she came.
“I love that she focuses on immigration, if I do end up doing journalism I want to do something similar,” Guevara said.
Moving forward, Dickerson hopes that the next generation’s interest in immigration will help to reform a broken system that affects most Americans and increasingly affects election results.
“People are realizing how much we’re all implicated in this story,” Dickerson said.
This article was edited by Payton Anderson, Abigail Hatting and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting, Emma Brown, Avery Grossman and Audrey Smith. Fact-checking done by Aidan Crowe.
campuslife@theeagleonline.com
