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Sarah Betancourt on Muck Rack

Sarah Betancourt

Verified
(She/Her)
Boston, Massachusetts
As seen in: GBH News (Boston, MA), Medium, MSN, MSN Canada, The Guardian, The Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, Yahoo Canada, Yahoo News, Aol and
Covers:  immigration, criminal justice, labor, health, politics, investigative, breaking news
Doesn't Cover: sports, vitamins, fashion, bio tech
Latina covering MA since 2007. 🇵🇷 reporter @gbhnews. ✍🏼 🎤usually immigration. freelances. 2018 @IRE_NICAR award @propublica.

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Sarah Betancourt’s Biography

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Sarah Betancourt is a longtime Latina reporter working in Massachusetts. She's a reporter at WGBH News and also freelances. Her work has been published in The Boston Globe, Commonwealth Magazine, the New York Law Journal, DigBoston, WBUR, NBC News, Law360, NPR’s Latino USA, In These Times, the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, Gotham Gazette, the Washington Post, National Geographic, and other publications.

She is part of the 2018 NPR-ProPublica collaboration that won the IRE Award for…

Sarah Betancourt’s Journalist Portfolio

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They Got Hurt At Work - Then They Got Deported

They Got Hurt At Work - Then They Got Deported

Contributed research to this investigative project published by NPR and ProPublica. At age 31, Nixon Arias cu…

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Vaping policies evolving with rising use

Vaping policies evolving with rising use

Central Massachusetts Health Across Central Massachusetts, teenagers are "Juuling." Juul electronic cigarette…

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The Immigration Case That Stymies Trump's Border Crackdown

The Immigration Case That Stymies Trump's Border Crackdown

As the debate on family separation flares along the southern border, President Donald Trump's signature issue…

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Thousands protest policy separating immigrant families

Thousands protest policy separating immigrant families

BOSTON (AP) - Brazilian immigrant Sirley Silveira Paixao sobbed openly onstage in Boston as she described bei…

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A Puerto Rican family goes to great lengths for their sick baby - The Boston Globe

A Puerto Rican family goes to great lengths for their sick baby - The Boston Globe

BROOKLINE - Amaia Isabel Garcia Andino lay tranquilly in the arms of her father, occasionally reaching her ti…

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Puertorriqueños esperan por la reciprocidad en Massachusetts

Puertorriqueños esperan por la reciprocidad en Massachusetts

Cuando el huracán María devastó su área en Isabela, Puerto Rico, Brenda Trujillo, de 52 años, viajó a Holyoke…

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Articles

As feds extend work permit date for Haitians, some Mass. employers preemptively cut workers

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By Sarah Betancourt Verified
| GBH News (Boston, MA) Verified
July 10, 2026 The federal government is giving employers two weeks notice about the termination of temporary protected status for Haitians following a Supreme Court ruling last month. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says that employment authorization for Haitians with the status is valid until Friday, July 24 amid much employer confusion. That date supersedes other dates listed on work permits.
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ICE detentions rise in Massachusetts amid World Cup festivities

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By Sarah Betancourt Verified
| GBH News (Boston, MA) Verified
July 07, 2026 The past month in Massachusetts has been synonymous with World Cup fan festivals, cheering crowds and tourists from Scotland crowning statues with traffic cones. Amid concerns that the Trump administrations would ramp up immigration enforcement during the tournament, international soccer fans have posted on social media that they’ve felt welcome in the United States.
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Brighton mom from Honduras forced to self-deport with US citizen daughter

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By Sarah Betancourt Verified
| GBH News (Boston, MA) Verified
June 30, 2026 Katherin Melgar was clutching an avocado stuffie and large bear. The 10-year-old walked through Logan Airport as her older sister, 20-year-old Damary Melgar, carried her backpack. Damary, a local college student, doesn’t know when she’ll see her family again. Katherin is leaving for Honduras with their mother, Margarita Melgar. Damary is staying in Boston.
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Interview

What was your first job as a journalist?

I worked for Patch, and had a radio show on WERS.

How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?

Email.

Awards

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Horgan Prize Winner

2016 - Investigative Journalism, Columbia Journalism School

2016 Horgan Prize Award Winner for skeptical and insightful reporting on issues of science

Investigative Reporters and Editors Award

2018 - RADIO/AUDIO- LARGE

For "They Got Hurt at Work, Then They Got Deported," NPR and ProPublica, Howard Berkes (NPR), Michael Grabell (ProPublica), Meg Anderson (NPR), Nicole Beemsterboer (NPR), Sarah Betancourt (ProPublica), Graham Bishai (NPR) This series exposed the outrageous hypocrisy of Florida employers who are happy using labor from undocumented workers -- until those same people try to claim workers compensation benefits they’re entitled to legally. The reporters revealed how insurance companies targeted these injured workers for denial of benefits, fraud prosecutions and even deportations. They dove into 14 years worth of public records that no one was paying attention to and revealed an obscure loophole in a law that came as a surprise even to legislators.

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New England Newspaper and Press Association

2021 - Health Reporting

3rd place award for story on the COVID-19 testing bottleneck.

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New England Newspaper and Press Association

2021 - Business and Economic Reporting

3rd place award for a story about how pandemic closures were impacting Black and Brown businesses.

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