Carrie Kahn
Carrie Kahn is NPR's International Correspondent based in Mexico City, Mexico. She covers Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Kahn's reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning news programs including All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and on NPR.org.
Since arriving in Mexico in the summer of 2012, on the eve of the election of President Enrique Peña Nieto and the PRI party's return to power, Kahn has reported on everything from the rise in violence throughout the country to its powerful drug cartels, and the arrest, escape and re-arrest of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. She has reported on the Trump Administration's immigration policies and their effects on Mexico and Central America, the increasing international migration through the hemisphere, gang violence in Central America and the historic détente between the Obama Administration and Cuba.
Kahn has brought moving, personal stories to the forefront of NPR's coverage of the region. Some of her most notable coverage includes the stories of a Mexican man who was kidnapped and forced to dig a cross-border tunnel from Tijuana into San Diego, a Guatemalan family torn apart by President Trump's family separation policies and a Haitian family's situation immediately following the 2010 earthquake and on the ten-year anniversary of the disaster.
Prior to her post in Mexico, Kahn was a National Correspondent based in Los Angeles. She was the first NPR reporter into Haiti after the devastating earthquake in early 2010, and returned to the country on numerous occasions to continue NPR's coverage of the Caribbean nation. In 2005, Kahn was part of NPR's extensive coverage of Hurricane Katrina, where she investigated claims of euthanasia in New Orleans hospitals, recovery efforts along the Gulf Coast and resettlement of city residents in Houston, Texas.
She has covered hurricanes, the controversial life and death of pop icon Michael Jackson and firestorms and mudslides in Southern California,. In 2008, as China hosted the world's athletes, Kahn recorded a remembrance of her Jewish grandfather and his decision to compete in Hitler's 1936 Olympics.
Before coming to NPR in 2003, Kahn worked for NPR Member stations KQED and KPBS in California, with reporting focused on immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border.
Kahn is a recipient of the 2020 Cabot Prize from Columbia Journalism School, which honors distinguished reporting on Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2010 she was awarded the Headliner Award for Best in Show and Best Investigative Story for her work covering U.S. informants involved in the Mexican Drug War. Kahn's work has been cited for fairness and balance by the Poynter Institute of Media Studies. She was awarded and completed a Pew Fellowship in International Journalism at Johns Hopkins University.
Kahn received a bachelor's degree in biology from UC Santa Cruz. For several years, she was a human genetics researcher in California and in Costa Rica. She has traveled extensively throughout Mexico, Central America, Europe and the Middle East, where she worked on an English/Hebrew/Arabic magazine.
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Breast-feeding rates in Mexico are among the lowest in Latin America. But a campaign to encourage the practice featured topless actresses, drawing sharp criticism from some women's groups. -
One of the world's most powerful drug lords has been captured. Mexican authorities say Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was taken into custody after a months-long investigation. -
In the battle against the bulge, lawmakers in Mexico are taking aim at consumers' pocketbooks. They're proposing a series of new taxes on high-calorie food and sodas. Health advocates say the higher prices will get Mexicans to change bad habits, but the beverage industry and small businesses are fighting back. -
President Enrique Pena Nieto gave an upbeat assessment of his nine-month-old administration on Monday in his first State of the Union address. Despite his positive review of Mexico's condition, the new president is dealing with chaotic teacher protests in the capital, intractable levels of violence and a less favorable economic outlook than predicted. -
More than 60,000 people have died in Mexico's war on drugs over the past six years. But that statistic tells only part of the story. Human-rights groups say thousands more, as many as 25,000 people, have vanished — many at the hands of Mexico's security forces. -
It's Inauguration Day in Mexico. New President Enrique Pena Nieto inherits a country with a mixed record. Most of Mexico is embroiled in a deadly drug war, but also boasts an economy that is doing surprisingly well — thanks to the outgoing head of state, many say. -
President Obama may have lost popularity among the community, but Hispanic voters looking for alternatives find problems with the Republican presidential slate as well — primarily with the rhetoric on immigration. GOP activists want to focus instead on the nation's struggling economy.
