Washington Post announces immigration and border security team

Washington Post national editor Mike Semel, deputy national editor Amy Fiscus, senior editor for national news and strategy Rachel Van Dongen sent out the following:

As previously announced, Jenna Johnson will lead the team. She is joined by Christine Armario, who is on a detail as the team’s deputy from her role as a deputy editor on the America team. The reporters are: Jose A. Del Real, Silvia Foster-Frau, Arelis R. Hernandez, Marianne LeVine, David Nakamura and Maria Sacchetti.

Christine is a versatile editor with a sharp news sense who is known for diplomatically orchestrating large projects and gracefully elevating narratives. On the America desk, she edited stories on overwhelmed deputies in Eagle Pass, Texas; the far-reaching implications of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s election police unit; division in Butler County, Pa., after the Trump assassination attempt there; and Jair Bolsonaro’s cameo as a Florida man. She spearheaded investigations in collaboration with the visual forensics team, including an examination of the flawed medical response to the Uvalde school shooting. More recently she led a joint investigation with Lighthouse Reports and Mexico’s El Universal into migrant drownings in Texas. Before joining The Post as a general assignment editor in 2021, Christine spent more than a decade at the AP, reporting from eight countries in the Americas.

Maria, a longtime immigration reporter at The Post, is one of the nation’s leading experts in the intricacies of the complex U.S. immigration system and is deeply sourced on the topic, producing multiple scoops in recent weeks.

Arelis, who is based in Texas, will continue to document how policy changes in Washington play out on the southern border with Mexico and can quickly shift the trajectory of the lives of migrants fleeing violence, poverty and destruction in their home countries. Arelis was one of the lead reporters in the “American Icon” series, which won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize and WHCA’s Katharine Graham Courage and Accountability award.

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Silvia, a national investigative reporter, previously covered communities suffering from toxic drinking water. Before that she was also one of the lead reporters on the “American Icon” series. As the Post’s multiculturalism reporter, she reported on demographic changes throughout the country, including a piece that won the NAHJ Elaine Rivera Civil Rights and Social Justice award. She joined The Post in 2021 from the San Antonio Express-News and has also reported for Hearst’s Connecticut newspapers. She is president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists – DC Chapter.

Marianne joins the team after covering the Trump campaign during the 2024 presidential election, where she wrote about Trump’s search for a vice presidential running mate, his efforts to appeal to female voters, his obsession with mentioning Hannibal Lecter and the time he swayed to music for 39 minutes at a town hall with Kristi L. Noem, now the homeland security secretary. Previously, Marianne covered the U.S. Senate for more than four years at Politico. Her first beat was covering labor policy.

David joins the team after covering civil rights at the Justice Department, chronicling issues including police reform, rising hate crimes and challenges to voting rights. He previously wrote extensively about immigration while covering the Obama and Trump White Houses — and was once scolded by President Obama in the Rose Garden for yelling out a question about a spike in unaccompanied minors at the southern border.

Jose, a narrative features writer for The Post, writes in-depth stories about everyday people as they navigate national trends within their families and communities. In 2016, he covered Trump’s first campaign and the rise of the MAGA movement for The Post. Later, as a national correspondent based in Los Angeles for The New York Times, he often wrote about the opioid epidemic, bicultural life in the southwest, and the way public policy fails farmworkers. Jose was recognized with the Livingston Award for National Reporting in 2022.