Seth Freed Wessler is a reporter with ProPublica’s South unit who focuses on immigration, the justice system and inequality.

He has reported on the U.S. Coast Guard and the crisis of unaccompanied minors at sea, threats to African American historic sites by developers and for-profit archaeology companies and the impossibly high bar for federal courts to correct alleged miscarriages of justice in state convictions.

Wessler has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, This American Life, Reveal/The Center for Investigative Reporting, the Smithsonian Magazine, Mother Jones and other publications. He was previously a fellow at Type Media Center, an enterprise reporter at NBC, a Soros Media Fellow and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Wessler’s first documentary film, an account of life inside a federal immigration facility, was broadcast on MSNBC and was shortlisted for an Oscar in 2022. His investigation into the U.S. Marshals Service’s detention system was a finalist for a 2020 National Magazine Award in reporting and won the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Magazine Investigative Reporting and the Deadline Club Award for Investigative Audio Reporting. He shared a Peabody Award in 2019 for an investigation into public spending on Confederate memorials and heritage groups across the South. His work has also been honored with the Hillman Prize, the John Bartlow Martin Award, an award from the National Association of Black Journalists, the John Jay/H.F. Guggenheim Award for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting and numerous other awards.