Omar Ornelas
GRANTEE
Omar Ornelas is a Mexican photojournalist based in Palm Springs, California. For the last 15 years, he has been reporting on and photographing farmworker labor, education, health and housing issues in the Coachella Valley, as well as border security and Mexican and Central American migratory flows at the U.S.-Mexico border, for The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY Network.
Ornelas was integral in reporting and creating the visuals for "Rigged: Forced in Debt. Worked Past Exhaustion. Left with Nothing," a USA TODAY investigative series recognized as a 2018 Pulitzer Prize finalist for the National Reporting category.
His work has appeared in USA TODAY, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Orange County Register in the U.S. and Milenio and La Jornada in Mexico.