GBONEWS: Latino Seniors Fearing ICE Raids; Immigrant Journalists at Risk; Dedicated U.S. Aging Staff DOGED; Aging in America Doc on PBS; Vietnamese Elders After 50 Years; Oh-Oh, Social Security Data; Language Barriers a Health Risk; Isolated Older Men Socializing
GENERATIONS BEAT ONLINE NEWS
E-News of the Journalists Network on Generations.
May 2, 2025 — Volume 32, Number 8
EDITOR’S NOTE: GBONews, e-news of the Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), publishes alerts for journalists, producers and authors covering generational issues. If you have difficulty getting to the full issue of GBONews with the links provided below, simply go to www.gbonews.org to read the latest or past editions. Send your news of stories or books (by you and others), fellowships, awards or pertinent kvetches to GBO News Editor Paul Kleyman. [pfkleyman@gmail.com]. To subscribe to GBONews.org at no charge, simply send a request to Paul with your name, address, phone number and editorial affiliation or note that you freelance. For each issue, we’ll email the table of contents and links to the full issue at www.gbonews.org. GBONews does not provide its list to other entities.
In This Issue: No, Mr. MAGA, you’re supposed to Give Back, Not Get back.
1. BREAKING TRUTHS
*** “Aging in Fear: ICE Raids’ Impact on Latino Seniors,” by Estefania Arellano-Bermudez, El Central Hispanic News;
*** “Amid Deportations, Immigrant Journalists Face Heightened Risks for Their Reporting,” by Peter Schurmann, American Community Media;
*** Dedicated ACL Aging Staff DOGED;
*** “Haven’t established your online Social Security account? Do it now,” by Mark Miller.
2. THE STORYBOARD
*** Aging in America: Survive or Thrive on PBS in May (A 50-Year Update on Dr. Robert Butler’s Pulitzer Winning Book);
*** “A 50-Year Shadow” of Vietnam by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Science Magazine;
*** “How language barriers among older adults increase risks in health care system,” by Ellen Eldridge, Georgia Public Broadcasting;
*** “How to get older men to socialize is a puzzle. A group called ROMEO is one answer,” by Ashley Milne-Tyte, NPR News.
3. GETTING THE DOPE ON DOGE: *** Coverage Tips From Veteran Journalists John Wasik and Trudy Lieberman.
1. BREAKING TRUTHS
*** “Aging in Fear: How I.C.E. Raids Impact the Mental Health of Latino Seniors,” by Estefania Arellano-Bermudez, El Central Hispanic News (May 1, 2025, also in Spanish: “Envejecer con miedo: cómo las redadas de ICE afectan la salud mental de los latinos.” )
The Lede: “On a Friday morning in Southwest Detroit, about 15 seniors gathered for a hot lunch at the Latin American for Social and Economic Development (LASED) – Senior Center, a welcoming space where older adults gather for social activities, and wellness programs in the heart of the Mexican community.
But in recent months, a surge in immigration deportations has unsettled that sense of safety, leaving many older Latinos living in fear. ‘I’ve seen personality changes, behavior, and complaints of no sleep,’ said Guadalupe Lara, director of LASED Senior Wellness Programs. ‘But we encourage the ones that still come. It certainly affected everybody at the center.’”
The Crux: “Lara noticed the behavioral changes after President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders immediately following his inauguration in January. This included one on Enhanced Immigration Enforcement, fulfilling his campaign promise to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across the U.S. to increase deportations in immigrant communities. . . While stories about workers being picked up made headlines, there was no reporting or public conversations that centered on senior citizens when it came to ICE raids.”
The Impact: “Dr. William Lopez is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the author of Separated: Family and Community in the Aftermath of an Immigration Raid.
He said, “ ‘Older adults in communities are often taken care of by their family members. When those family members are worried about driving or worried about showing identification at places like a pharmacy, when they’re going to fill a prescription, that also impacts the health of those older adults.’ Lopez explained, ‘ICE raids disrupt the whole family unit, often leaving seniors emotionally and financially destabilized. . . An increase in ICE activity has led many immigrants to avoid essential medical care and grocery shopping.’”
Service Solution: “As a way to address isolation, the senior center has had to pivot in its approach. Days that were once filled with Domino’s and loteria now incorporate wellness checks.”
*** “Amid Deportations, Immigrant Journalists Face Heightened Risks for Their Reporting,” by Peter Schurmann, American Community Media (formerly New America Media, April 24, 2025): The Dek — Journalists in the U.S. with temporary visas, green cards or DACA fear their reporting may compromise their status as the Trump administration intensifies its immigration and media crackdown.
The Lede: “In late March Clavel Rangel was in Toronto for a journalism conference. While there, she reported on the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, which is when she began getting texts about a proposed U.S. travel ban on Venezuelans. Rangel, a green card holder originally from Venezuela, says she feared her reporting could jeopardize her status as the Trump administration intensifies its deportation campaign.”
In a Nutshell: “’The government said many, many times that they are gang members, and we said no, they are not, we don’t have any proof that they are,’ recalls Rangel, a freelance journalist living in Miami. ‘And so, I began to wonder if I am in danger because of that.’ Rangel is among a growing number of immigrants in the US concerned about their status as the government targets even those with valid visas and documentation for deportation.”
Double Jeopardy: ‘I came here [to the United States] because I felt like this is a free space to continue doing journalism,’ she noted, describing the mounting threats she faced because of her reporting on corruption in Venezuela’s southern Amazon region. . . . America’s press freedom record has plummeted to a historic low, per Reporters Without Borders. . . Flavie Fuentes with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press says her office is fielding regular calls from outlets concerned over the increasingly treacherous legal landscape.”
A Pro’s Tip: “Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired professor of practice at Cornell Law School who worked 40 years as an immigration attorney, suggested that journalists in the U.S. on temporary visas, green cards, or DACA [who write commentaries critical of President Trump or his administration] should “carry documentation with them at all times, and consider burner phones when traveling abroad “so you are less likely to be harassed when you return.’”
Risk and Commitment: “Estafania Bermudez, a bilingual Detroit-based reporter and DACA recipient, has covered the impact of this year’s immigration crackdowns, including ICE raids targeting the city’s Latino community. ‘When the story is about ICE raids . . . editors go to the reporter who has DACA and a more rooted perspective,’ she says. ‘It’s easy to put that person out there to cover it. But it also means putting yourself at higher risk.’”
“For her part, Rangel insists she’s committed to the work despite the risks. ‘I think it’s more important to defend free expression here, because if you can guarantee free expression in the U.S., it’s possible to empower changes in other countries.’”
Editor’s Note: Clavel Rangel and Estafania Bermudez mentioned in this article have both received Journalists in Aging Fellowships from GBONews.org’s publisher, the Journalists Network on Generations and the Gerontological Society of America.
*** Dedicated ACL Aging Staff DOGED: “We were all there to find solutions to problems that ultimately cause people to end up in nursing homes. We all lived that mission every day.” These were the dismayed words of Rohmteen Mokhtari, a Public Affairs Specialist at the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL), on learning that his agency had been DOGE-dashed by Elon Musk’s minions.
He explained, in his “first-ever” LinkedIn post in mid-April that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to disband ACL, which consolidated the federal agencies on aging and disability, was to split up its programs among other agencies. He added, “A few days after that, roughly half of ACL’s staff, including my entire team, received reduction in force notices. I’ve been placed on administrative leave and my last day is June 2.”
In his post, quoted here with permission, Mokhtari conceded that there is there is “so much wrong” with the agency’s “bureaucratic and incremental” systems, however, he emphasized, “We were all there to find solutions to problems that ultimately cause people to end up in nursing homes. We all lived that mission every day.”
He added, “ACL never had the power or resources to ‘fix’ these systems.” He stressed, “the people I work with were determined to do everything they could to make things better for the communities we served. . . , whether through direct services like meals (“meals on wheels” is the thing we fund that everyone’s heard of), by helping people navigate complicated systems like Medicaid, or by speaking up to shape the policies of other agencies.”
Mokhtari added, “I am hopeful that our programs will continue, but what I fear will be lost is the strength that came from those connections as well as that seat at the federal decision making table which was used to make sure they lived experiences of people with disabilities and older adults were not forgotten. The weird thing about federal service is that so much of the work we do will never be seen by, or known to, those who benefit from it. I suppose that is what makes it so easy for federal programs and workers to be demonized. But . . . what we built here over the last 13 years was really special.”
*** “Haven’t established your online Social Security account? Do it now,” by Mark Miller, Retirement Revised (Feb. 19, 2025): The Dek – “With DOGE at the SSA, it’s a good time to download your data.” Miller, also the New York Times’leading Sunday Business “Retiring” columnist on Social Security and Medicare, warns, “I’ve been advising readers for years to set up a free account on the Social Security Administration (SSA) website. Your account provides 24/7 access to a statement that projects your future benefits, and claiming it helps guard against identity theft—scammers can pose as you and claim your benefits.
Oh-Oh: “The SSA stopped mailing out benefit statements about a decade ago, except for individuals age 60 or older who haven’t set up an online account. For most people, the only way to access the statement is online. Now, I have another reason to recommend an online SSA account. Elon Musk’s DOGE staff is probing into SSA data. . . . Is your data at risk? I’d like to think it is not, but this seems like a good time to play it safe.”
Also: See Miller’s Feb. 26 analysis, “Here’s what GOP Medicaid cuts would mean for older adults.”
2. THE STORYBOARD
*** Aging in America: Survive or Thrive on PBS in May: The Dek – Unlike many media glosses of issues in aging, this hourlong documentary, arriving just in time for Older Americans Month, smoothly—and at times touchingly—provides viewers with an thoughtful overview of many prime public policy challenges concerning the rapid aging of America.
Award-winning veteran documentary producers, Neil Steinberg and Mark Jonathan Harris (with three documentary Oscars), brought in Martin Sheen to narrate the program. Most essentially, the program is a fitting tribute to the late Robert N. Butler, MD, the first director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), and whose book Why Survive? Being Old in America, won a 1976 Pulitzer Prize. Interview clips of Butler, who coined the term “ageism,” highlight the film.
Aging in America deftly alternates the voices of well-chosen elders and caregivers, with such experts as UCLA’s Fernando Torres-Gil, Ph.D., the first U.S, Assistant Secretary of Aging (1993-1997), and a recent commentator for GBONews; former AARP CEO, Jo Ann Jenkins; and NIA Director Richard Hodes, MD. Appearing as a consulting producer on the doc is Age Wave’s Ken Dychtwald, PhD.
Sections also introduce viewers to established models for change, which offer solutions to looming problems, such as the PACE programs for integrated eldercare, that will only worsen without significant public policy investment. Such programs not only preserve the dignity of older adults, but they have proved to save billions of dollars. To read more about the documentary, see Rich Eisenberg’s review on the PBS Next Avenue website (May 1, 2025).
The production is airing on PBS and many of its local affiliate stations throughout May. Here’s a link to the schedule of national and individual station showings around the county. Details about the program are in this Press Kit. Gen Beat reporters interested in seeing a screener and possibly interviewing Neil Steinberg may send requests via the website contact form.
*** “A 50-YEAR SHADOW,” by Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Science Magazine (April 24, 2025): The Dek – “To understand the lasting effects of conflict, researchers look to those who lived through the Vietnam War as teens.”
The Lede: “Nguyen Minh lived through war for the first 18 years of his life. Growing up in the Quẚng Bình province of North Vietnam, a region that experienced some of the most intense bombing and artillery attacks during the Vietnam War, Nguyen recalls times when he and his siblings fled their village to escape the explosions—once to the forest, another time to a canyon in the mountains. . . ‘I can still recall the heartbreaking moments when some of my classmates were killed in those air raids,’ Nguyen says.”
The Research: “More than 50 years later, Nguyen is studying the physical and emotional legacy of experiences like his. A sociologist who retired in 2023 from the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute for Family and Gender Studies, he has been helping University of Utah sociologist Kim Korinek understand how experiencing the war early in life, as he did, has influenced the health and well-being of older people in Vietnam today. Launched in 2018, the Vietnam Health and Aging Study (VHAS) has already yielded new insights into the complicated health impacts of war.”
Some Findings: “The researchers have found, for instance, that serving in the military is linked to greater resilience in later life, and that people’s age when they lived through war can shape its later impacts. The study is also a corrective. ‘This was a war that was seen through the lens of Americans, Korinek says. Yet estimates suggest some 60 Vietnamese died for every one U.S. soldier, she says.”
What’s Different: “Most studies of the aftermath of war have surveyed refugees, U.S. veterans, or survivors in Europe, says Patrick Heuveline, a social demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles who studies the impacts of conflict in Cambodia. The Global South has been largely overlooked. ‘It’s important to diversify the experiences we study,’ he says.”
Women: “Gender also seemed to determine how people processed the war. Few women in the study had served in the military, but they did everything from guiding their families through forced evacuations to caring for the wounded to restocking arms and food at the frontlines. Women ‘really had a proximity to the death and pain that we don’t appreciate,’ Korinek says.”
*** “How language barriers among older adults increase risks in health care system,” by Ellen Eldridge, Georgia Public Broadcasting (April 17, 2025, article, plus 4-minute audio): The Dek — “Language barriers are putting older adults at risk in the health care system. Without an advocate, Georgians who cannot speak or understand English well are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect.”
The Lede: “Luz Ospina spent 38 days in a long-term acute care facility last year. She was only supposed to be there long enough to wean off a ventilator after an Atlanta hospital discharged her. The 73-year-old was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease, after a trip to the emergency room a few days after Christmas 2023. ‘That led to respiratory failure,’ said Ospina’s daughter, Linda Perez. . . Her mother wasn’t improving in the long-term care facility, and she couldn’t explain why because of a language barrier. ‘Me sentí bastante abandonar,’ Ospina said. ‘I felt abandoned,’ Perez translated.”
The Dilemma: “Despite laws requiring trained interpreters, doctors there spoke only in English. ‘There was one person maybe that made a small effort to try to communicate with her, but the norm was no communication in Spanish,’ Perez says. Ospina was left with little more than body language, and her mental health declined.”
Unsafe: “Perez insisted the facility provide interpretation services, ‘and they brought a phone with a cable that was so short that you couldn’t even get the phone close to the patient.’ Then, Ospina’s chart didn’t match what Perez was seeing. ‘When I read the reports it’s like, “Patient is fine. She’s fine. She’s fine,” and he didn’t even use the translation line,’ she said. Then, her mother was [wrongly] prescribed anti-anxiety medication. . . ‘She could have died. . . ‘There should be safeguards,” she said.’”
The Wider Issue: “Almost 1.5 million Georgia residents speak a language other than English at home, according to Census data, and under Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act, health care facilities must provide interpretation services. Plus, studies show that older adults with language barriers are at increased risk of hospital readmission.
Translation: “Sung Yeon Choimorrow, with the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, said translation services aren’t as common as they should be, and while it’s tough enough to find Spanish translation services, her parents speak Korean. . . More than 100 different languages are spoken within the United States by descendants from the Asian continent.
*** “How to get older men to socialize is a puzzle. A group called ROMEO is one answer,” by Ashley Milne-Tyte, NPR News (April 24, 2025, article with 4-minute audio):
The Lede: “Self-reliance is a cherished American trait, and men in particular embrace it. Many have been raised to be strong, in the old-fashioned sense — not to show emotion and not to lean on others. But that can make it difficult to offer older men help when they need it.”
This Old Maine: “Jess Maurer knows this well. She’s the executive director of the Maine Council on Aging. Maine is the country’s oldest state, with 23% of its population over age 65. ‘We kind of, as a stereotype, have this idea that men are OK, and we don’t need to do programming or specific outreach to them,’ she says. ‘That’s a stereotype that’s wrong.’”
Suicide Prevention: “Men over 75 have the highest suicide rates in the U.S. There are many reasons for this, says Mary Gagnon, director of suicide prevention at NAMI Maine, a mental health nonprofit. Among them are loss, sickness and the perception of being a burden to others. Access to weapons also plays a part. . . . But Gagnon says there is hope on that score. ‘The enemy of suicide is connection,’ she says.”
The Connection: “Harpswell Aging at Home volunteer . . . Tom Mahoney did some research on isolation and loneliness, and convened a group of local men to help him come up with a plan. . . . He and others landed on a monthly lunch named ROMEO – Retired Older Men Eating Out. He got the idea from other grassroots ROMEO groups around the country. . . . Attendance has grown from 10 to 12 men to around 55 . . . The free lunches include a different speaker each time, talking about everything from avoiding scams, to how to take good photos with your phone, to fishing.”
3. GETTING THE DOPE ON DOGE
*** Coverage Tips From Veteran Journalists John Wasik and Trudy Lieberman:
GBONews’ editor supposes that any member of the International Association of Amusement Parks who’s looked at financial market charts in the past month would reject any though of modeling a roller coaster after them as too dangerous.
Back at the drawing board, our panel of generational-reporting veterans offers a few well-grounded, back-to-basics suggestions that we pass along here. In particular, retirement finance writer John F. Wasik (New York Times, Reuters, Forbes) counsels, “Focus on people, not numbers.”
And highly regarded health policy journalists Trudy Lieberman(Consumer Reports, Harpers, Columbia Journalism Review) urged, “We need to be looking at costs in more depth,” especially the poor cost:benefit ratio in the United States compared with far better outcomes in other countries.
Wasik, author of about 20 books, observed, “It’s one thing to say your community is going to lose so many dollars; it’s another to put a face on the losses. Who’s going to lose something? What will it mean to them and their community? Who will suffer the most?”
Wasik added, “I know that loss of dollars will devastate the budget and array of services offered by our county health department and social service nonprofits, but I also know people will die and families will be torn apart.You have to ask why: They won’t get addiction counseling, housing aid or other support services.”
Based in Chicagoland, he, noted, “Pushing the half-century mark as professional journalist, I focus mostly on aging and the environment these days. Further, he quipped, “I’m also an odd duck. In addition to being a practicing journalist, I’m also an elected official (county commissioner in Lake County, IL), so I’m literally fighting for federal dollars promised to my community.”
Stressing the ripple effect of arbitrary DOGE cuts, becoming so starkly evident now, Wasik added that “federal dollars flow through to other partner agencies, such as Catholic Charities. In every community, there is a network of services that funded with federal programs — everything from single-mother healthcare to domestic violence shelters. Talk to these people.”
Commenting, “All politics is still local,” Wasik prompted reporters, “Bring home the story. Make it hyperlocal. Put faces on numbers. Get them to tell their stories. Don’t try to do battle with the MAGA ideology. This is about human suffering. Illuminate the narrative where you live.”
Remind Readers of High US Cost, Poorer Outcomes
Trudy Lieberman lamented, “We’ve forgotten about costs; our health care is extremely expensive compared with the rest of the world, and we don’t get a lot for it. Other countries have national health care, and it works quite well.” (One example is Taiwan, featured (April 14, 2025) on the Commonwealth Fund’s “International Insights” series – “How Taiwan Gave Every Resident Health Care While Containing Costs.”)
Lieberman, a columnist for Health Care Un-Covered, continued, “If you understand that, you think, ‘If we don’t have the best health care in the world, what can we do to make people understand that we don’t have it.’” A past president of the Association of Health Care Journalists, she suggested several sources and strategies to help reporters news-hook substantive angles out of the political flood zone, even for journalists with limited resources.
She especially called on reporters to dig more deeply into hospitals and the insurance markets. One fecund source of information and possible story angles, she said, is Bob Herman, STAT’s prime reporter on the health care business, as their website states, “with a goal of explaining and shining light on the massive amount of money flowing through the system.” Lieberman cautions, “Unfortunately, a lot of that is under a paywall, but at least you can get the gist of what they are doing, and they do really good work.”
STAT+ articles do open with the opening paragraph or two. For instance, the header on Herman’s piece on April 8, 2025, is “Republicans are proud of creating Medicare Advantage. Now some are urging reform amid runaway costs.”
The lede tells readers that “Republicans in Congress . . . are increasingly calling for reforms amid widespread evidence that health insurers are abusing the system to collect billions of dollars in unwarranted payments. The rising discontent with Medicare Advantage is especially prevalent within the GOP’s Doctors Caucus . . . . Some have sharply criticized insurers’ efforts to make older patients appear as sick as possible to extract more money from Medicare, a practice known as upcoding.”
Also, check out his May 1, 2025 story, “CVS Health’s Aetna to abandon Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces, again.”
Contending that coverage of hospital system monetary flow has fallen off in recent years, Lieberman urged that now is an especially fertile moment to rekindle those stories. Another source “I always look at online,” she said, is Becker’s Hospital Review. GBONews’ editor was easily able to sign in for a gratis subscription. One example of the daily stories: “Pharma tariffs would raise drug costs by $51B: Report,” by Alexandra Murphy (April 28, 2025), “according to an analysis by Ernst & Young reviewed by Reuters, [in an] April 22 analysis, commissioned by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.”
Learn the Hospital & Insurance Systems
To really understand the hospital and insurance financial and services circulatory system, though, Lieberman pressed reporters “to sit down with people in the industry and find out how it works.”
She allowed, “That’s certainly how I learned the business; I would go to people up at Hartford Insurance and say, ‘Tell me all you know about X, Y and Z. I found people in the industry.’” These days, she conceded, “I know reporters hate to go to the industry, unless they want to play “gotcha” or get something they don’t reveal. But in a way they can really teach you a lot. Certainly they taught me a lot, an d I was prepared to go out and cover their industries.”
Regrettably, Lieberman added, “I think that is what is lacking today, among reporters. They don’t want to take that step, or they don’t have the time to take that step. But there are ways to do it and there are people to help you. I never, ever had trouble finding people to help me, and to tutor me in how the insurance industry works. They did a lot to further my career, because I actually learned how the business works from them.”
Reporters “just need to sit down and see if they can get people to talk to them about basics, and how the business works. You’re not trying to get the gotcha; you just want to understand how X, Y, Z works . . . . Don’t to be afraid to talk to any of these people. Some them will never talk to you, and that’s fine; there’s always another way to get the story, right.”
What’s more, Lieberman said, reporters “should have fun doing it and not look at it as a chore. It’s really fun, it’s really interesting. And you’re going to be helping a lot of people, if you can explain something that they need to know. That’s how I always approach something. Early in her distinguished career, she said, “I didn’t know anything on healthcare when I first went to the Detroit Free Press. . . I learned and that’s what they have to do.” Today, she noted, “ And there are a lot more publications available to then we had in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and that’s really helpful.”
Long a mentor to other reporters on health coverage, Lieberman encouraged them to contact her or other health care veterans to ask for their thoughts on approaches, sources or and current news angles yet to be explored. To hone your questions, she said, “read, read, read.”
She concluded, “Many, many people helped me, and I’m always willing to give back when I can.
I’m sure that many good reporters will do that as well.” Reporters can brainstorm with Trudy Lieberman at trudy.lieberman@gmail.com; (212) 228-5725.
The Journalists Network on Generations (JNG), founded in 1993, publishes Generations Beat Online News (GBONews.org). JNG provides information and networking opportunities for journalists covering generational issues, but not those representing services, products or lobbying agendas. Copyright 2025 Paul Kleyman. For more information contact GBO Editor Paul Kleyman.
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