Two Immigration-Related Pulitzer Prizes

Sheriff Joe provides fodder for a Pulitzer 

There has been a lot of advocacy over the past several weeks focused on holding the Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, accountable.  The Sheriff’s misdeeds have come to light in part thanks to the investigative reporting of two reporters from the East Valley Tribune (Mesa, AZ)—Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin.  These two reporters shared the Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the Sheriff’s office and its “focus on immigration enforcement and how it endangered investigation of violent crime and other aspects of public safety.”  You can read the series of articles, Reasonable Doubt, here.

Photographer documents disaster in Haiti 

Another issue on which there has been a lot of advocacy over the past several weeks is Temporary Protected Status for nationals of Haiti.  The Pulitzers touched this issue as well.  Miami Herald photographer Patrick Farrell won the Pulitzer Prize in the category of breaking news photography “for his provocative, impeccably composed images of despair after Hurricane Ike and other lethal storms caused a humanitarian disaster in Haiti.” 

See his photographs here.

The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center put out a Press Release about the prize, noting that Farrell’s photographs powerfully make the case that Haitians should not be sent back to Haiti at this time.

Recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Haiti, and told reporters that the administration is considering granting TPS to Haitians in the U.S., so that they can continue to send money home to help that nation recover from the storms of last year.