Tim Padgett
Americas EditorTim Padgett is the Americas Editor for WLRN, covering Latin America, the Caribbean and their key relationship with South Florida.
Padgett has reported on Latin America for more than 35 years — including for Newsweek as its Mexico City bureau chief and for Time as its Latin America and Miami bureau chief — and he has interviewed more than 20 heads of state, from Mexico to Brazil.
In 2005, Padgett received Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for his body of work in Latin America. In 2016 he won a national Edward R. Murrow award for the radio series "The Migration Maze," about the brutal causes of — and potential solutions to — Central American migration.
Padgett is an Indiana native and a graduate of Wabash College. He received a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School and studied in Caracas, Venezuela, at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello. He has been an adult literacy volunteer and is a member of the Catholic poverty aid organization St. Vincent de Paul.
Contact Tim at tpadgett@wlrnnews.org
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COMMENTARY Cape Verde's stunning draw with Spain in the World Cup is a reminder of how the country stood firm five years ago in the extradition of alleged Venezuelan corruption mastermind Alex Saab. -
Will President Trump order a U.S. military strike on Cuba to force democratic and capitalist reforms? Could it deliver bread instead of bombs? The only thing that's clear: his Cuba objective so far isn't. -
COMMENTARY The World Cup should dedicate Haiti's opening game to a Port-au-Prince boy who embraced soccer — the game, not the greed — as sanctuary from the gangs that killed him last month. -
An undocumented Guatemalan woman widely considered a pillar of her Palm Beach County community has been ordered to be deported while her U.S. citizen children face an agonizing decision. -
COMMENTARY Colombia should have shed its violent, centuries-old polarization when its civil war ended, but its political pendulum still swings far right and far left — especially in this presidential election. -
Right-wing Colombian presidential candidate Abelardo De la Espriella was the attorney for Venezuela's alleged corruption mastermind, Colombian-born Alex Saab, when UM prof Bruce Bagley was recruited into Saab's money-laundering schemes. Did De la Espriella help facilitate the relationship? -
Right-wing populist Abelardo De la Espriella surged to the front of the Colombian presidential election's first round on Sunday — capturing 90% of the South Florida expat vote with his iron fist-against-crime campaign — and is the front-runner for the June 21 runoff against left-wing rival, Senator Iván Cepeda. -
COMMENTARY Prediction markets are betting President Trump will order military action in Cuba, but not regime change — as they know his priority is to make countries ripe for deportation, not democracy. -
Roberto Deniz — the Venezuelan reporter who uncovered the epic corruption allegedly masterminded by Alex Saab for ex-dictator Nicolás Maduro — foresees more discovery now that Saab's been extradited again to the U.S. But he still can't return from exile. -
COMMENTARY The fact that Cuban leader Raúl Castro likely deserves his U.S. indictment for killing exiles in 1996 is exactly why President Trump will likely have big trouble removing him in 2026. -
After winning the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for 'Cuba: An American History,' exile scholar Ada Ferrer takes a more intimate dive into the Cuban experience with 'Keeper of My Kin', a poignant memoir — and a triumph of immigrant research. -
If the U.S. indicts Cuba's de facto, 94-year-old leader for ordering the fatal 1996 downing of unarmed Cuban exile planes, does it signal a U.S. military mission like the one that captured Venezuela's indicted dictator this year?
