Professional Affiliation

Journalist and Author

Expert Bio

Molly O'Toole is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, working on "The Route," a nonfiction book on global migration through the Americas, for Crown Publishing, a Penguin Random House imprint (2025). She most recently was an immigration and security reporter for The Los Angeles Times, as well as a fellow at George Washington University and Cornell University. From Latin America to South Asia, O’Toole has written for outlets such as Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the Associated Press. She was awarded the first-ever Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting in 2020 with This American Life. Her work has also been recognized by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, Livingston Awards and the National Press Club, among others. She lives in Washington, D.C. but will always be a Californian.

Expertise

• Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding
• Democracy
• Gender
• Global Governance
• Governance
• Human Rights
• Migration
• Population
• Security and Defense
• U.S. Politics

Wilson Center Project

THE ROUTE How American policy, a billion-dollar black market, and indomitable resilience are bringing the world’s refugees to the U.S. border

Major Publications

• The Out Crowd - Reports from the frontlines of the Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" asylum policy. Nov. 15, 2019 Collaboration of Los Angeles Times with This American Life https://www.thisamericanlife.org/688/the-out-crowd
• ‘Sitting ducks for organized crime’: How Biden border policy fuels migrant kidnapping, extortion April 28, 2021 The Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-04-28/biden-title-42-policy-fueling-kidnappings-of-migrant-families-at-border-and-extortion-of-u-s-relatives
• John F. Kelly says his tenure as Trump’s chief of staff is best measured by what the president did not do Dec. 30, 2018 The Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-john-kelly-exit-interview-20181230-story.htm