‘State Propaganda’: Anger Erupts Inside Univision Over Airing of Trump Ad

The network wasn’t the only one to run the controversial spots urging deportations. But unlike Telemundo, officials there were already on edge.

(Composite /photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

EMPLOYEES AT THE SPANISH-LANGUAGE cable mainstay Univision were left distraught earlier this month after the network’s brass decided to run Department of Homeland Security ads warning immigrants that the government will find and deport them.

The ads, which are part of a new $200 million campaign Homeland Security unveiled in February, have rankled immigrant-rights groups, who view them as a blunt attempt at fearmongering on the taxpayer dime.

Univision itself has covered the ads critically on air. “‘If you don’t leave, we’ll find you and deport you,’—that’s how radical the ad from the DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is,” anchor Andrea Linares said in a February 18 segment.

Yet Univision has joined English-language networks in choosing to run the ads on its airwaves. That decision has left journalists inside the network frustrated. It has also increased internal tensions over how Univision has chosen to cover Trump, according to current and former employees.

One Univision newsroom leader, who was so upset about the ad airing that they had to be calmed down by a former colleague, argued that the network has changed under the ownership of Televisa, the Mexican telecommunications and broadcasting company. The leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, recalled that Televisa executives—along with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner—had a hand in organizing the November 2023 interview of Trump by veteran journalist Enrique Acevedo, who was widely criticized for the gentleness and deference he seemed to offer his divisive subject.

“We previously didn’t care what Televisa said, but the Trump interview with Acevedo was coordinated by Televisa, there were Televisa corporate people at that interview,” the Univision source said. “I’ve only known journalism in the States, I haven’t done journalism in Mexico—they take care of whoever is in political power in Mexico—so I just feel that is trickling down in the States.”

(After their $4.8 billion merger went through in 2022, the company became TelevisaUnivision, though the network Hispanics have known for decades remains known as Univision.)

Acevedo himself works for Televisa, not Univision, which made his selection to conduct the interview more conspicuous to Univision employees. Later in the campaign, as the network moved to soothe ruffled feathers, Acevedo also interviewed President Biden.

Local Univision staffers were notified ahead of Trump’s joint speech to Congress on March 4 that the network would be airing the DHS ads that night. Later, some learned the ads had begun airing the day before. Media buyers in touch with Univision told The Bulwark that the DHS ad orders were for English copy with Spanish subtitles and that they are only slated to run through March, at this point. The ads have aired in major TV media markets including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami, Phoenix, Austin, Houston, and Dallas, as well as on radio and digital streaming platforms.

A former Univision executive in contact with network employees said Univision was not obligated to air the ad but chose to do so after seeing the way Trump has sued ABC News and CBS News, and after watching the Associated Press be excluded from the Oval Office over coverage the White House disagreed with.

“They don’t want to be in the crosshairs,” the former executive said. “We’ve reached a point in America where the state is dictating the terms for news media.”

Joaquin Blaya, who helped found the Univision network, served as its president, and hired its most famous anchor, Jorge Ramos, likened the DHS ad campaign to the sort of propaganda official government newspapers would have run in the Soviet Union and other authoritarian states.

“I told my wife, this is Pravda, ‘dear leader’ type of stuff,” Blaya told The Bulwark. “I know these are different times, I know they are trying to be more accommodating. But suffice to say, under our leadership, the ad would not have run,” he said. “This is not about being a network to promote breaking laws and regulations—that’s not the point. It’s a network to let Hispanics know their rights within the legal structure of the United States. It’s about knowing your rights and standing up for them.”

Univision was not the only Spanish-language network to air the DHS ad. Telemundo did as well. But the reaction at that network was somewhat more muted.

That may be because, internally, Telemundo’s coverage of the Trump administration has been perceived in the Spanish-language community as tough but fair, and the network has also traditionally been viewed as an advocate for the Latino community. On February 23, Noticias Telemundo aired a one-hour news special featuring legal, law-enforcement, and immigration experts discussing the changes in federal immigration policy and answering audience questions.

Local Telemundo stations have also held town halls, news specials, and phone bank hotlines to help immigrants better know their rights. During a ninety-minute Telemundo62 phonebank last week, callers were able to ask questions of attorneys and immigration experts live. The landing page for the network’s Telemundo Te Ayuda—Telemundo Helps You—features immigration resources, and Telemundo maintains a fact-checking platform where viewers can send requests.

Still, one person with Telemundo’s news division explained that the problem with airing an ad campaign like this is that, fairly or unfairly, it casts a shadow over the work of journalists across the networks.

“It makes me think of the origin and the birth of these stations,” the person said. “These were the moments the Univisions and Telemundos of the world were supposed to differentiate themselves from mainstream media. This is when they’re supposed to protect the community and when they’re supposed to stand up to these governments.”

More Afraid of Trump than Journalists or Activists

UNIVISION KNEW RUNNING THE DHS AD would be controversial, and the TelevisaUnivision communications team made it clear to staff that they were bracing for criticism. The team asked staff to flag outreach from journalists, and offered to identify the appropriate response to a possible campaign from activists, while noting that the network’s security team was aware and ready, according to internal communications shared with The Bulwark.

But when asked for an on-the-record comment, a TelevisaUnivision spokesperson offered a simple and terse response: “The ad is in compliance with our standards and guidelines.”

NBCUniversal, which coordinates advertisements for its Telemundo stations, said the DHS ads first began airing on February 27. The company also noted that it receives ad buys from a number of private- and public-sector entities, including government agencies. The company said it reviews all ads in accordance with its guidelines, and that the DHS ads met its threshold to air.

A senior official at Univision, who was not involved in decision making about the ad buy, told The Bulwark they couldn’t recall a campaign that was so hostile towards the network’s audience. But that official noted that the network has in the past worked with Democratic administrations on campaigns that had a political valence, including one that encouraged viewers to sign up for Obamacare during Obama’s presidency.

“I don’t think it’s unprecedented, but what makes it different this time is it’s so hostile,” the official said. As for why the network chose to run it, they added: “I don’t think Univision is in a place where they can deny to run these ads.”

The airing of the ads and the reaction they engendered inside the network provides yet another illustration of how the political orientation of the Latino community is evolving—and how Hispanic media is struggling to evolve at pace.

More Latinos voted for Trump and in favor of stricter immigration enforcement in 2024 than in past election cycles. But immigrants have also reacted viscerally to Trump’s draconian deportation efforts. People with mixed-status families and people in the country legally who might be mistaken for being undocumented have felt particularly shaken.

“Most of our audience still dislikes Trump,” a local Univision reporter said, “but when they see a fucking ad in English with subtitles on our network, they’re in fear.”

Some leaders within local Univision markets have considered whether and how to balance the public impression left by airing the ads with increased coverage and reporting on immigration policy. In at least two markets, leaders decided to host more phone banks to let immigrants know their rights and to run more stories on the current state of Trump’s immigrant crackdown.

The controversy over the decision to run the DHS ads comes at a difficult time for Spanish-language media companies, which, like their English-language counterparts, have suffered from mass layoffs and a contracting industry—all while facing a retribution-minded Trump administration.

There is concern within the networks that Trump could soon go after them more aggressively. The Telemundo news division source worried that the president’s executive order designating English as the country’s official language could lead to Spanish-language networks being targeted for fines, restrictions, or worse if they continue to broadcast in the preferred language of their audience, particularly as Trump uses the FEC as sword and shield against media companies.

When the White House held the traditional off-the-record meeting with journalists before Trump’s joint speech to Congress last week, members from both Spanish-language networks were excluded, sparking additional concerns. The exclusion was a break from past years, when those sessions were opened to anchors and White House correspondents from Telemundo and Univision.

“He’s degraded the Spanish language,” the Telemundo news division source said. “What does it mean to not be part of an official language in this country? How far can they go? Who are we to say we won’t wake up one day to a pronouncement from the administration that these Spanish-language stations are catering to DEI? Where does he draw the line?”

One Last Thing

Hey, you know what other critical industry depends on the work of immigrants? The caregiving industry.

That’s the message of this USA Today story, which ran with the title, “The caregiving industry relies on immigrants. These workers fear deportation under Trump.” It offers a look at how the already-high costs of caring for seniors, children, and people with disabilities could soar if immigrants—here legally or illegally—are removed from the labor pool.

The New York Times recently tackled the same subject.

“It takes more than five million people to care for the American elderly population and the vast majority of them were not born in the United States,” New York Times national immigration correspondent Miriam Jordan said in a video posted to Instagram. “Senior care relies on immigrants with both legal and undocumented status to perform this vital, low-paid work.”