On a recent episode of Everyday Injustice, host David Greenwald sat down with Francisco Ugarte, immigration attorney with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, to discuss the chilling escalation of immigration enforcement under the renewed Trump administration—and why Ugarte sees hope and resistance rising in response.
Ugarte described how mass deportation rhetoric, arrest quotas, and threats to send migrants to places like Guantánamo are being used as deliberate distractions from deeper political agendas. “It’s about getting the country to fight each other so [those in power] can get away with what they’re trying to get away with,” Ugarte said.
While not much has changed legally yet, fear and panic have surged. Ugarte emphasized that immigrants still have rights—especially due process rights—and that power lies in organizing, challenging unlawful actions in court, and telling the real human stories behind these policies. “We’re being gaslit by the national media,” he said, urging people to look beyond Trump’s provocations and see the strength of local resistance, such as San Francisco’s robust sanctuary protections.
The conversation also examined the intersection of immigration and criminal justice. Ugarte explained that immigrants—including green card holders—can face deportation for minor offenses. He discussed how public defenders like himself are fighting back, drawing on California law that allows representation for those unjustly persecuted even in civil matters like immigration.
Perhaps most powerful was Ugarte’s insistence on optimism. Reflecting on his own family’s history of migration from Ireland and Spain, he reminded listeners that the U.S. has always been a nation of immigrants—and that resistance has worked before. “Trump tried to end DACA. We fought back, and we won,” he said.
The podcast ended with a call to action: to resist fear, fight misinformation, and build bridges between immigrants and working-class citizens. “We have to transform how we think about this,” Ugarte said. “We can step up—we’ve done it before, and we can do it again.”
