Sergio R. Bustos
Vice President for NewsHe joined WLRN as VP for News in January 2023 to lead the NPR affiliate's award-winning news team.
Bustos was a reporter for two decades at newspapers large and small, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, before becoming an editor at the Miami Herald in 2005, and since has served as editor of POLITICO Florida and deputy opinion editor for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Most recently, Bustos was Enterprise/Politics Editor for the USA Today Network-Florida’s 18 newsrooms.
Bustos also worked as regional manager with the local-journalism nonprofit Report for America will jumpstart efforts to secure resources for WLRN News’ ambitious plans. He was South regional manager for RFA, a non-profit that seeks to fill “news deserts” caused by the nationwide crisis in journalism.
Born in Santiago, Chile, and raised in Annandale, Va., Bustos began his journalism career at The Washington Post — delivering the newspaper as a teenager in suburban northern Virginia.
After graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University, Bustos went to work as a reporter for newspapers in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley — the News-Virginian in Waynesboro and Daily News-Leader in Staunton — before becoming a general assignment reporter at the Wilmington, Del., News-Journal.
He later joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as a reporter after his News-Journal editor recruited him to the big-city newspaper.
At The Inquirer, he won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award in 1992 for a series of stories that revealed how courts and police routinely violated rights of Spanish-speaking farmworkers in southeastern Pennsylvania.
He also was among the lead reporters who exposed a scandal involving thousands of fraudulent absentee ballots that prompted a federal judge to nullify the election of a Democratic state senator. The Inquirer was later named as a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for the stories.
He was one of 10 journalists nationwide to be awarded a John and Catherine MacArthur Foundation grant to study at the University of Southern California’s Center for International Journalists, where he traveled and wrote extensively about Mexico and Cuba in 1992-1993.
Bustos spent more than six years as a Washington correspondent for the former Gannett News Service. He covered the contentious national debate over immigration and border security following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, for Gannett’s southwestern newspapers, including The Arizona Republic.
He joined the Miami Herald as a first-time editor in 2005. He ran the teams covering police and courts, as well as Broward County, and he served as state and politics editor. He also was Sunday editor. In 2012, he supervised an award-winning investigation into a local congressman’s involvement in a campaign finance scandal, and oversaw coverage of several governor races and presidential elections. He co-authored a book, Miami's Criminal Past Uncovered, chronicling the city’s most notorious crimes, with Herald reporter Luisa Yanez in 2007.
Bustos returned to reporting in 2015 when he joined The Associated Press as a national political correspondent to cover the 2016 presidential campaign, assigned to cover candidates Sen. Marco Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
He was later named editor of POLITICO Florida, where he edited a series of stories that led to the resignation of one of Florida’s most powerful state senators amid sexual harassment allegations from six women who were on the lawmaker’s staff or had lobbied him. He oversaw coverage of the Florida Legislature.
Before joining WLRN, he was Enterprise/Politics Editor for the USA Today Network-Florida’s 18 newsrooms. He coordinated coverage of the 2022 governor and U.S. Senate elections and worked with other newsrooms to cover Gov. Ron DeSantis’ controversial migrant relocation program and the devastating impact of Hurricane Ian.
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During his speech, Trump declared that his administration is actively pursuing a "fundamental change" in Havana, revealing that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is deeply involved in diplomatic talks with the Cuban government. -
Federal immigration authorities tell WLRN the Pompano Beach mother was ordered deported 20 years ago because she is a convicted criminal. Her supporters say Sirena Prosper is a lawful permanent U.S. resident. -
HRW researchers said they visited Cap-Haïtien in the last week of August and interviewed 44 Haitian deportees who had arrived on the first two deportation flights following the end of TPS. -
Salazar says Trump 'receptive' to her warning his immigration strategy is pushing away Latino votersIn an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation with host Margaret Brennan, the Cuban-American lawmaker said she warned the president that his immigration enforcement tactics risk alienating Hispanic voters who helped propel his 2024 victory. -
In its first official visit to Venezuela in 18 years, Human Rights Watch said its representatives met with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, foreign diplomats, human rights organizations, journalists, and families of those currently incarcerated. -
Press freedom organizations have urged U.S. immigration authorities to immediately release Luis Manuel Chavarría-Galeano and immediately review his pending asylum application, saying he would face persecution if returned to Nicaragua. -
“I’m very strong on the borders — and she isn't,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after being asked about Salazar's campaign ad video condemning and torching his deportation agenda. -
In a joint letter addressed to top state and federal officials overseeing "Alligator Alcatraz," the lawmakers called them out for subjecting immigrant detainees to extreme conditions and misleading lawmakers. -
The Ocasio-Cortez endorsement comes after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the nation's most influential liberal and progressive voice, announced his support of Nixon. -
Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Tom Homan was pressed by anchor Dana Bash regarding recent Department of Homeland Security flights carrying deportees back to Haiti, including individuals who previously resided in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. -
Rafael José Quero Silva — a known human rights violator who participated in the detention and torture of political dissidents under the Nicolás Maduro regime — was returned to Venezuela on Aug. 18 following a Department of Justice immigration judge’s removal order., U.S. officials said. -
Republican gubernatorial nominee Byron Donalds talked about his plans to make Florida more affordable and defended President Donald Trump's economic and foreign policy during an appearance Friday on NBC’s Meet the Press NOW.
