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 30 years — including for Newsweek as its Mexico City bureau chief and for Time as its Latin America and Miami bureau chief — from the end of Central America's civil wars to the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations. He has interviewed more than 20 heads of state.
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 The deadly accident involving an undocumented trucker and three Floridians should prompt mature bipartisan immigration reform — instead of juvenile bipartisan fingerpointing. -
COMMENTARY President Trump is reviving a longstanding U.S. urge to have the military fight the hemisphere's drug cartels — but history suggests sending troops to take down traffickers usually ends badly. -
Although a federal judge in Miami ordered their case be moved to another Florida district, the ACLU and other plaintiffs suing the controversial migrant detention facility over access to attorneys insist they'll win the litigation - and that they have already been handed "an important victory." -
More migrants are thought to be "self-deporting" amid President Trump's sweeping arrests campaign — and for many a big reason is the "xenophobia and hatred" they say the U.S. has surrendered to. "We came to the conclusion that we’re no longer welcome here and no longer being treated fairly here," said an Argentine business owner with 25 years in South Florida. -
COMMENTARY The U.S. has indicted Haitian gang ruler Jimmy "Barbecue" Chérizier — but he and his Viv Ansanm confederation hold the cards in Port-au-Prince as long as they don't face real force. -
Miguel Uribe, 39, was shot three times while giving a campaign speech in Bogota and had been in intensive care since the attack. His family confirmed his death on Monday. -
The Trump administration insists this week that scrapping presidential term limits in El Salvador doesn't make authoritarian President Nayib Bukele a dictator. But critics say Bukele's move is straight from Latin America's autocrat playbook. -
COMMENTARY Donald Trump admires Argentine President Javier Milei — so why is Trump pushing economic policies so divorced from the commonsense approach of what's being called the Milei Miracle? -
Jamaican-born author and filmmaker Max-Arthur Mantle hopes a screen version of his gay coming-of-age novel — controversially titled "Batty Bwoy!" — will help make his homophobic home island LGBTQ-legal. -
Citing police sources, Haitian media report one of Haiti’s violent and powerful gangs was responsible for abducting nine people from the Sainte-Hélène orphanage outside Port-au-Prince. A day earlier, police arrested former Haitian Sen. Nenel Cassy for allegedly sponsoring gangs, which now control almost all of Port-au-Prince. -
COMMENTARY The historic conviction of ex-Colombian President Alvaro Uribe offers his countrymen — including the South Florida diaspora — an opportunity to share blame for their national conflict. -
Detainees at an ICE facility in the Florida Everglades referred to Alligator Alcatraz allege harsh punishments from guards.
