Valeria Fernández brings more than a decade of experience as bilingual documentary producer covering Arizona’s immigrant community and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her award-winning, independent reporting has taken her throughout the world, and has focused on topics ranging from migrant kidnappings to racial profiling. Fernández also contributes to CNN Spanish and Al Jazeera English, and has been published by newsrooms such as The Associated Press. In 2012, she produced the documentary “Two Americans,” which contrasts Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and a 9-year-old U.S. citizen trying to stop her parents’ deportation. In 2014, she helped produce the international web documentary, “Connected Walls,” about life along the Arizona borderlands.
Three days after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials claimed in court filings that there were no longer any active or suspected COVID-19 cases in an Arizona immigration detention facility, four more detainees there tested positive for the virus.