René Kladzyk

René Kladzyk is a senior investigator at POGO, with more than 16 years of experience investigating U.S.-Mexico border issues. An El Paso native, René previously worked as an investigative reporter at El Paso Matters, a nonprofit news outlet covering the El Paso-Juárez border region, where she broke national news stories about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Border Patrol. Prior to becoming a journalist, she earned her master’s degree in political geography at the University of Oregon, where she researched cartel violence and cross-border mobility in El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. Her reporting has been published in Mother Jones Magazine, Rolling Stone, TIME Magazine, Kaiser Health News, Teen Vogue, the Texas Observer, the El Paso Times, i-D, the Creative Independent, and more. She has received multiple awards for her journalism, including a 2025 EPPY Award for Best Community Service Reporting, a 2025 Military Reporting and Editors (MRE) Award for Investigative Reporting, an honorable mention by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing’s 2024 Best in Business Awards, and multiple awards at the 2023 and 2022 Texas Managing Editors Awards. When she isn’t investigating wrongdoing and abuses, René is an independent musician who performs under the moniker Ziemba.