How Univision Betrayed Their Immigrant Audience
From Jorge Ramos’s confrontations to $200 million deportation ads — the watchdog is gone.
WASHINGTON — Jorge Ramos once stood at the White House podium and asked Donald Trump the questions no one else would. He got dragged out of the room for it, but in that moment, he became what Univision was supposed to be: the immigrant’s watchdog. Fierce. Unapologetic. A champion.
Fast forward to today and that watchdog has been put down. Ramos has been sidelined, and in his place: a Televisa anchor who lobbed softballs at Trump while Televisa’s executives sat in the room, smiling. Ramos later called the interview “an open mic for falsehoods.” That’s exactly what it was — a once-proud newsroom selling out its own people in prime time.
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This didn’t happen overnight. It started when private equity vultures — Searchlight Capital and ForgeLight — bought Univision in 2020. Then came the Televisa merger in 2021. Together they stripped out the DNA that made Univision a fighter and replaced it with Televisa’s “business-first, don’t-rock-the-boat” ethos.
And look at who was helping to steer Searchlight at the time: Ajit Pai, Trump’s FCC chairman. Pai made his name as a regulator dismantling consumer protections for telecom giants — then cashed in by joining Searchlight to oversee its digital investments. From there, he helped position Univision for its merger with Televisa. Today, he’s running CTIA, the wireless industry’s top lobby. The man who once bragged about his immigrant parents’ journey helped flip a network that sells out immigrants for ad dollars.
Meanwhile, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and self-styled media fixer, greased the political wheels. He leaned on his friendship with Televisa CEO Bernardo Gómez, the same man who hosted Kushner and Mexico’s president at his home and helped land Kushner Mexico’s highest honor for foreigners. So when Trump wanted back in on Univision airwaves, the door swung wide open.
And when Biden spoke to the nation about Israel and Ukraine? Univision cut away mid-speech.
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The nadir came this spring. In March 2025, Univision agreed to run the Department of Homeland Security’s $200 million deportation ad blitz. The ads promised to “hunt down” undocumented immigrants. They aired on the network immigrants trust most.
Inside Univision, staff compared the ads to “Pravda, ‘Dear Leader’ type stuff.” One veteran said the network didn’t have to run them — but chose to. Why? Money. Image. Access. Pick your poison.
Univision’s official line was that the ads “met standards.” Whose standards? Not the standards of a community staring down ICE raids and mass deportations. Not the standards of a newsroom that once put truth to power above corporate profits.
The Betrayal
Univision was built by immigrants and for immigrants. It was the network that told our families what rights we had when ICE came knocking. It was the place we turned when no other newsroom cared.
Now it’s cashing government checks to scare its own audience. Now it’s cutting away from presidents, soft-pedaling dictators-in-waiting, and hanging Jorge Ramos — the symbol of accountability — out to dry.
That’s not just media strategy. That’s betrayal.
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