Under the second Trump administration, immigrants and noncitizens have faced deportation and detention on an unprecedented scale, accelerating the convergence of immigration enforcement and the criminal justice system. How can lawyers and immigrant rights advocates use legal mechanisms, policy tools, and media narratives to combat these threats?

Join us for a conversation on law, advocacy, and media strategy moderated by Professor Chacón and featuring Laura Hernandez, Executive Director of Freedom for Immigrants, and Francisco Ugarte, a Deputy Public Defender in the Immigration Unit of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office. Drawing on their experiences, the panelists will describe the history of the criminal immigration system, the current shape of immigration enforcement and detention, and their strategies to defend immigrants’ rights and push for policy change.