International

Tracking Used Clothes' Journey South of the Border

By John Burnett

Published August 29, 2004 at 9:00 PM PDT

This story was published more than 20 years ago.

Workers sort used clothes from a conveyor belt at the Mextile facility in Matamoros, Mexico.

Many major U.S. charities sell thousands of tons of clothes donated in the United States to brokers who ship them to 156 different countries. Many end up being sold to consumers in poor countries such as Mexico. NPR's John Burnett reports.

International

John Burnett

John Burnett is a national correspondent based in Austin, Texas, who has been assigned a new beat for 2022—Polarized America—to explore all facets of our politically and culturally divided nation. Prior to this assignment, Burnett covered immigration, Southwest border affairs, Texas news and other national assignments. In 2018, 2019 and again in 2020, he won national Edward R. Murrow Awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association for continuing coverage of the immigration beat. In 2020, Burnett along with other NPR journalists, were finalists for a duPont-Columbia Award for their coverage of the Trump Administration's Remain in Mexico program. In December 2018, Burnett was invited to participate in a workshop on Refugees, Immigration and Border Security in Western Europe, sponsored by the RIAS Berlin Commission.