Reporter Sara Carter honored for immigration stories

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3920056

Article Launched: 6/10/2006 12:00 AM


Reporter Sara Carter honored for immigration stories

Staff report
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sara Carter of the Daily Bulletin was honored Friday for her work covering immigration in the past year.
At a panel luncheon ceremony near Capitol Hill, Carter was presented with the Eugene Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration, presented annually by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank.

CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian praised Carter for her willingness to pursue stories in border regions few reporters have visited, and noted her reporting had attracted the attention of readers all over the country, including members of Congress.

Krikorian noted that Carter's reporting affected Washington legislation this week, as the House of Representatives on Wednesday passed an amendment preventing taxpayer money from going to provide "a foreign government information relating to the activities of an organized civilian volunteer group."

Last month, Carter first reported in the Daily Bulletin that officials in the Department of Homeland Security, specifically the Border Patrol, were informing the Mexican government about the whereabouts of the Minutemen, a group of civilian border watchdogs.

Previous stories first published in the Daily Bulletin under Carter's byline include reports of Mexican military incursions into the U.S., Border Patrol agents and their families being targeted for assassination by Mexican drug cartels, and an examination of the close ties between the Bush administration and the Mexican government.

Carter joined the Daily Bulletin in 2003, and worked as a city hall and general assignment reporter before becoming the newspaper's immigration and ethnic affairs reporter in fall 2005. Her stories have won regional, state and national recognition, and she has made more than 20 national television and radio appearances in the past six months as a commentator on immigration issues.

She also was a member of the Beyond Borders special project team that published four three-part series about immigration in the Daily Bulletin in 2005.

The Katz award, presented since 1997 by the Center for Immigration Studies, is intended to promote informed and fair reporting about immigration. Previous winners of the award include Jerry Seper of the Washington Times, Lou Dobbs of CNN, and Marcus Stern of the Copley News Service.