President Donald Trump was elected to enforce immigration law and deport criminal illegal immigrants admitted under the Biden administration. Now, a year later, polls claim Americans oppose that effort.
Don’t take those numbers at face value.
If public opinion is shifting at all, it says less about the policy and more about the information environment shaping it.
MEDIA COVER TRUMP 92% NEGATIVELY YET HAVE LITTLE IMPACT. HERE’S WHY
Trump ran on the most aggressive immigration enforcement agenda in modern U.S. history. Voters understood the stakes. Nothing about the policy is new. Nothing about the media’s hostility is new. What’s new is the scale and the volume.
The Media Research Center recently analyzed coverage of ICE operations in Minnesota across ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and PBS NewsHour.
The results were not subtle.
PBS NewsHour coverage was 85% negative, with anti-ICE voices outnumbering supportive ones by more than 9 to 1. The broadcast networks were even more lopsided, delivering 93% negative coverage, often omitting the crimes that triggered enforcement actions or leaving out key facts altogether.
Yes, fewer Americans rely on television news, as trust declines and audiences fragment, but the narratives endure because of the shift into new distribution channels.
Tens of millions now receive news through Apple News, Google News, MSN, and Yahoo News. These platforms function as the country’s front page, deciding what users see before they even search.
MRC found the same pattern inside those apps. Coverage of ICE was 86% negative or missing critical context.
The tone was consistent. Headlines leaned heavily on fear-driven language, portraying enforcement as chaos rather than law enforcement. Terms such as “fear” and “unrest” dominated. Context was often absent.
A particularly outrageous example came from Yahoo News, which amplified a Salon attack piece titled: “How Kristi Noem turned ICE into the Proud Boys.” Google News promoted headlines such as The Daily Beast’s “Trump Goon Waffles When Cornered on Smear Against Minneapolis Victim” and “ICE Now So Hated Even Their Own Agents Are Terrified.”
In one case, 44 separate headlines covered the shooting of anti-ICE activist Renee Good. Not one mentioned a key fact: she struck an ICE agent with her vehicle before he fired.
Instead, coverage accused the administration of embracing “conspiracy theories” or offering an “unhinged” explanation for Good’s death.
Headlines seen across the aggregators used apocalyptic language to paint ICE as a looming threat.
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The Minnesota Star Tribune: “How Twin Cities restaurants are changing amid ICE surge: ‘We are pretty much back to COVID.’”
NBC News: “‘It feels like an invasion’: Minnesotans stunned as federal officers flood their state.”
CNN: “‘Sloppy’: Journalist who went through ICE’s hiring process details experience to CNN.”
Salon: “‘It’s going to happen again’: Residents say ICE is treating Minneapolis as a ‘war zone.’”
Even the unrest itself was softened. “Riots” became “protests.” Violence became “tension.” Language choices shape perception.
The bias is not just in tone. It is in selection.
Right-leaning outlets are routinely excluded from top placement, even when producing widely read coverage. Over time, that exclusion narrows the range of viewpoints users ever encounter.
The result is predictable.
If millions of Americans are exposed to a steady stream of negative framing, stripped of context and alternative perspectives, it should not be surprising when polling begins to reflect that environment.
That raises a more serious question.
If these platforms present themselves as neutral aggregators while consistently curating one-sided coverage, are they misleading users? And if so, does that fall under the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices?
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson has already put Apple on notice after MRC documented its exclusion of right-leaning outlets. Additional evidence has been submitted. That scrutiny should not stop with Apple.
Google, MSN, and Yahoo operate the same model at similar scale. The same questions apply.
MEDIA MIND CONTROL: NEWS OUTLETS HIJACK NARRATIVES THROUGH DISHONEST LABELS
The stakes are not abstract.
If narrative shaping continues at this level, the political consequences will arrive before the public ever sees the full picture.
David Bozell is the president of the Media Research Center.
