Andrea Castillo joins Washington Bureau to cover federal immigration policy

The following message was sent on behalf of Washington Bureau Chief Kimbriell Kelly:

Veteran immigration reporter Andrea Castillo has joined the Washington office to cover federal immigration policy and the ways the current system serves and fails to serve our nation.

An award-winning reporter with a decade of experience covering immigration, Castillo has worked at The Times since 2017 producing ground-breaking work, including accountability stories on the poor conditions of immigrants in private Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers and the impact of the coronavirus on farmworkers, meatpackers and detainees. She has traveled extensively for The Times, documenting the condition of stateless children in Colombia, the aftermath of the 2017 Mexico City earthquake and the migrant caravans at the borders of Venezuela and Colombia, as well as San Diego and Tijuana.

Some of Castillo’s most notable work includes a 2020 investigation in which she found that assaults against immigrants within ICE private immigrant detention centers in California were rarely prosecuted. She co-authored a four-part series in 2018 on the life of immigrants under the Trump administration and won the 2021 California Newspaper Publishers Assn. award for in-depth reporting and 2017 Best of the West award for project reporting.

A founding member of The Times’ Latino Caucus, Castillo is also a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors. Prior to joining The Times, Castillo worked at the Fresno Bee and the Oregonian.

Castillo has been serving in this role on a temporary basis since August and began officially Dec. 26.