Ricardo Sandoval Palos, a researcher in the US Program at Human Rights Watch, investigates abuses in the US immigration system. He is a veteran investigative journalist whose writings about immigration, crime in Latin America, and business in California have won numerous awards.

Previously, as an editor with the Center for Public Integrity, Sandoval Palos  supervised investigations into an overlooked health epidemic among farmworkers in Central America, a black market in strategic minerals in South America, and the tobacco industry’s lobbying push in developing nations.

As a correspondent in Latin America, his investigation into the fate of millions of dollars withheld from paychecks of World War II-era Mexican braceros—guest workers in the United States—fueled a movement to win reimbursement by the Mexican government. And his examination of profiteering in the remittance business between the US and Mexico won prestigious awards from the Overseas Press Club and the Inter-American Press Association.

Sandoval Palos is also co-author of the biography, The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement, published by Harcourt.