Dear readers,
In the weeks leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections, Journalist’s Resource will be homing in on controversial issues that both divide and engage the American electorate. In today’s newsletter we’re focusing on immigration. (It’s worth nothing that last June, the Pew Research Center surveyed 2,002 adults — including 1,608 registered voters — about the upcoming midterm elections. Among Democrats and Republicans, immigration topped the list of issues that respondents most wanted to hear their candidates discuss this fall.)
Please check out Chloe Reichel’s interview with Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa, who offers tips on covering the Latino immigrant community. One recommendation: more stories about how the current political climate affects the mental health of that community. We also share tips on covering immigration from Global Nation senior editor Angilee Shah, who offers advice for avoiding common missteps in immigration reporting, along with an indispensable list of more than 70 immigration data sources.
Meanwhile, Denise-Marie Ordway highlights a standout study entitled “Vanished Classmates: The Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement on Student Enrollment.” The study shows that Hispanic student enrollment fell considerably in counties where local law enforcement agencies partnered with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. The researchers “find that drops in enrollment were concentrated among elementary school students, many of whom are American citizens with at least one parent living in the U.S. illegally,” she writes.
You’ll find more details below. But first: a quick reminder that Journalist’s Resource publishes its content under a Creative Commons license. That means you’re free to publish it on your own site, provided you include the appropriate byline and a link back to the original piece. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about that.
Yours in knowledge,
Carmen Nobel, program director of Journalist’s Resource