After four years reporting from the nation’s capital, one Texas journalist is making a TV homecoming. This time, he’s returning to where his career began for a primetime slot.
El Paso native Mauricio Casillas is returning home to join KVIA ABC-7 as an evening anchor. Casillas will co-anchor the station’s weekday 5, 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts alongside Marcel Clarke beginning in late September, according to a station news release.
Casillas shared with MySA what the return home means to him in a statement.
“KVIA is the station that gave me my first opportunity on television. It’s where it all started for me,” Casillas told MySA. “The chance to return home, and to continue the legacy of a station that has meant so much to me, is an opportunity I simply couldn’t pass up. I can’t wait to go back home.”
Casillas’ return marks a full-circle moment nearly a decade after he first joined KVIA in 2016 as the station’s first morning traffic reporter. He went on to report and anchor before eventually taking a seat behind the desk as anchor and executive producer of Good Morning El Paso.
In 2022, Casillas traded El Paso for Washington, D.C., joining NBC4 Washington. During his four years in the nation’s capital, he covered breaking news, politics and public safety while also reporting in Spanish for Telemundo Washington. His work in D.C. earned him two Emmy Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award, according to KVIA.
But the homecoming is about more than returning to a familiar newsroom. Casillas and his wife, Diana, are both El Paso natives and welcomed their son, Luca, in 2025. In his announcement, Casillas said being closer to family and having his son grow up surrounded by loved ones “means the world” to him.
Casillas will sign off from NBC Washington on September 5 before heading back to the Borderland.
“El Paso, I’m coming home,” Casillas wrote. “¡Nos vemos pronto!”