The Politics of Emigration Reporting

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A quarter of children in the united states have at least one parent who's an emigrant. "Once you know about it, you're in a better position to help other people know about it," says Cateland. Emigration coverage can get marginalized for all kinds of reasons that your listeners have heard about. It has to do with marginalized communities.

Caitlin Dickerson is a staff writer for The Atlantic covering immigration. Her latest article, on the secret history of U.S. government’s family-separation policy, is ”An American Catastrophe.”

“Interviewing separated families, I’ve found, is just on a whole other scale of pain and trauma. I’ve watched people have really intense PTSD flashbacks in front of me. I never wanted to risk asking a family to open up in that way if I didn’t know that I’d be able to use that material. The worst thing you can do is waste someone’s time in a way that causes them pain.”

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