The Marshall Project, the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom covering the U.S. criminal justice and immigration systems, and El País, the world’s leading Spanish-language newspaper, have agreed to a new strategic editorial partnership to produce, translate and copublish high-impact investigations in Spanish. As a result of this collaboration, El País will become the main Spanish-language distribution partner for The Marshall Project’s journalism.
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, The Marshall Project has stepped up its coverage of federal immigration policy, mass deportation and detention. Their investigations into U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and its network of immigrant camps have been key to exposing human rights abuses, lack of medical care and opacity in government contracts. Recent projects have focused on the prolonged detention of immigrants, especially minors.
At a time of intense political and social debate over immigration policy in the United States, this partnership will connect the deeply reported journalism of The Marshall Project directly with Spanish-speaking communities, impacted families and their legal advocates.
“This partnership will make The Marshall Project’s groundbreaking investigations more accessible to millions of Spanish speakers who are directly affected by the criminal justice and immigration systems,” said Jennifer Peter, editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project. “As we’ve expanded our coverage of immigration enforcement and detention, we’re thrilled to join forces with the world’s preeminent Spanish-language news organization to bring that work to the communities most affected, who deserve accountability journalism they can trust, in their own language. Together, we can shine an even brighter light on the inequities and abuses that have been our central focus since our founding.”
For his part, Jan Martínez Ahrens, editor-in-chief of El País, highlighted the value of the agreement. “El País’s growth in the United States responds to the pressing need to offer rigorous journalism that reflects the complex realities of the Hispanic community, including the direct impact of the justice system and immigration policies on their lives,” said Martínez Ahrens. “Joining forces with The Marshall Project allows us to deepen our analysis of these matters of public interest with the level of expertise, data and rigor that characterizes this publication.”
This strategic collaboration reflects both newsrooms’ ambition to cover the U.S. criminal justice system more forcefully. El País U.S. has established a presence in key cities such as Miami, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., to serve more than 60 million Hispanics in the country. Meanwhile, The Marshall Project continues to expand its coverage with local teams in Cleveland, St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi, and projects focused on the communities most affected by the prison and policing systems. Through this agreement, the two organizations will also look for opportunities to develop joint investigations.
The agreement with The Marshall Project reflects the push to strengthen the U.S. edition that El País launched in September, as part of its growth in the Americas over the past decade. The project is in a period of strategic expansion for PRISA, the company that publishes El País, and draws on the newspaper’s global network of more than 400 journalists.
The Marshall Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice and immigration systems. The newsroom has an impact on these systems through impartial, rigorous, data-driven investigative journalism, rendering them more fair, effective, transparent and humane.