They’re Losing the ICE Battle

Any way you slice it, ICE—and by extension the regime—is losing America’s hearts and minds

Photos courtesy of Euronews

If politics is downstream of culture, yesterday’s cultural leaders are sending a resounding message to the regime: ICE must go.

Several artists at the Grammy Awards, including Billie Eilish and Bad Bunny, used their acceptance speeches to blast ICE and appeal to the American public to end support for its activities.

Meanwhile, even in the “manosphere,” the drumbeat continued. Popular podcaster Andrew Schulz, who once hosted and supported Trump on his program, publicly withdrew his support for ICE and spoke out forcefully.

These cultural shifts aren’t lost on Trump, who vented his frustration in a public tirade on Truth Social. But they are also not lost on our lawmakers, judges and within ICE itself.

From the Grammys to the manosphere, vocal opposition to ICE

Award shows have often been the best gauge of which way and how hard the political winds are blowing. Yesterday’s Grammys were no exception.

Song of the Year winner Billie Eilish said “Fuck ICE” in her acceptance speech, adding “No one is illegal on stolen land.”

Album of the Year winner Bad Bunny also used his time on stage to demand “ICE Out”—as the crowd cheered. “We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”

This Sunday, Bad Bunny will take center stage at the Super Bowl halftime show with a performance mostly in Spanish, and he’s reportedly going to wear a dress. Cue MAGA heads exploding…

But sure, these are left-leaning progressive artists, and they’re expected to make such statements. But this time, they aren’t alone. Cultural icons on the right have begun to speak out as well.

Joe Rogan, whom most here rarely agree with on anything, had this to say on ICE around 12 days ago:

“What ICE is doing, like fucking shooting that lady, seems kind of crazy. Grabbing people that happen to be American citizens and fucking dragging them out onto the snow and asking them for their papers. That seems kind of fucking crazy.”

Andrew Schulz of the bro-focused Flagrant podcast has also come around on the question of ICE, saying over the weekend,

“I didn’t know that this was possible to happen in the United States of America. What we’ve seen ICE doing entering homes without warrants, it’s unconstitutional. When you’re willing to shred the Constitution to preserve your ideas of what should happen, it is incredibly un-American. I just think it’s an important thing to speak out against, I think it’s horrific.”

While it’s admittedly frustrating, even maddening, that men like Rogan and Schultz are so very late to the obvious danger Trump posed (and should never have supported him to begin with), the fact that they have turned on his ICE policies is no small matter. This is especially true for the terminally online members of Trump’s cabinet, including JD Vance and Stephen Miller, who understand what this will mean for their own base of support.

Nor should these statements by artists and podcasters be dismissed as mere personal opinions. For much of the U.S. that isn’t tuned into politics, when musicians, actors, comedians and even idiotic talking heads weigh in against ICE, the cultural ground begins to shift rapidly, along with the politics built on top of it.

Donald Trump actually understands this. That’s why he lashed out at the Grammys on Truth Social, calling them “the WORST” and “virtually unwatchable.” He railed, “CBS is lucky to not have this garbage litter their airwaves any longer” and even threatened to sue host Trevor Noah for joking about Trump being on Epstein Island with Bill Clinton.

This isn’t the only cultural battle Trump knows he is losing. After artist after artist canceled appearances at The Kennedy Center, now taken over completely by Trump, he announced he was closing it for two years to undergo “renovations.” Better that than endure the constant condemnation and bad press from the nation’s most acclaimed and accomplished cultural figures.

The pushback on ICE and Trump has now reached the main stage of the Grammys, the manosphere podcasters and the country’s most prestigious cultural stage. The groundswell of condemnation and resistance from popular culture will add fuel to those battling ICE on the ground, in the courts, and in the halls of Congress. And that’s already paying dividends.

Liam Ramos and his father are home

Nationwide protests over Liam Ramos and his father, detained by ICE despite being in the U.S. legally, forced their release and return to Minneapolis. Across social media, those following the story of the little boy in the bright blue bunny hat erupted in cheers at the news, with many supporters crying tears of joy.

There are so many other children being held as Liam was, without due process and without legal basis. But as with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and heroes to the cause Renee Good and Alex Pretti, movements often require human stories and compelling images to break through the media noise, and that is precisely what happened here.

In his release order, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, blasted the government for its behavior.

“The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

On the blatant violations of the Fourth Amendment, Judge Biery schooled the DOJ. “Civics lesson to the government,“ he wrote. “Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer.”

Judge Biery also took direct aim at those in charge of the entire program, including presumably Stephen Miller. “[F]or some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency,” he wrote.

Pushback from within DHS and DOJ

Despite leadership rot, many career civil servants within DHS and DOJ have taken issue with the handling of the Good and Pretti murders, including the refusal to release the names of the agents who first fired upon Alex Pretti before eight more bullets were put into him, resulting in a murder in cold blood on the streets of Minneapolis.

As a telling indication of this internal dissent, someone with access to the files and investigation leaked to ProPublica the agents’ names who fired those first shots in Alex Pretti from behind. Their names are Jesus Ochoa and Raymundo Gutierrez and they are Latino, which may help explain why many agents committing abuses hide their identities.

Two thoughts here.

First, anyone who has suffered under the boot of fascism knows that the worst people are often those who collaborate with oppressors against their own communities. The visceral hatred toward these betrayers is understandably more intense. After all, they sold their own souls to join the monsters devouring their own people.

Second, the leak from within the federal government should be a warning to all DHS agents that no amount of facial masking and badge hiding will prevent their identities from being known. They should begin worrying about who within their ranks will turn them over to face accountability. And they should never assume they can act with impunity because of total anonymity.

The receipts are there. When political power changes hands, we must demand all the information and pursue justice against all violators of the law and our Constitution.

Stealing the spines of Congress

The twin murders in the Twin Cities area, coupled with a nationwide outpouring of rage and protest, changed the calculus for many elected leaders on both sides of the aisle. The House had already approved funds for DHS as part of a “mini-bus” appropriation bill for the remaining half of the government yet to be funded, with seven center-right Democrats voting for the bill.

Outcry following the vote dogged these Congress members. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) was so beset by angry constituents that he apologized for his vote.

Sensing a seismic shift in public opinion, the Senate blocked DHS funding and demanded negotiations over it, with new limits on ICE. The White House, unexpectedly, agreed to strip DHS funding out of the appropriations bill, and as things stand DHS remains unfunded and subject to demands for basic reforms and guardrails. We’ll have to see what Democrats can wring out of this, but it is far better already than what we were faced with in the House version.

To put an exclamation point on the week, in Texas, Latinos and independents revolted in a special election, flipping a state senate the GOP’s held since 1991. The needle moved 32 points bluer, which may force the GOP to completely recalibrate its strategy of gerrymandering to hold on to power in the House. No amount of map drawing can withstand a Bluenami of that size.

The Texas victory will cause Democrats to take notice as well and lean into anti-ICE sentiment across the country. Meanwhile, the Trump regime has yet to learn its lesson. It is reportedly planning to surge ICE enforcement in Ohio, where there are competitive races for governor and senate and where the GOP was hoping its gerrymander-light would pay House dividends.

A national consensus is growing, but the White House is stuck

There are few things Americans still agree on these days, but the artists and influencers who are speaking out have hit upon a few.

One is that you shouldn’t murder U.S. citizens who are peacefully observing officials, then lie about what happened in the face of compelling video evidence.

Another is that you shouldn’t break into people’s homes without a judicial warrant, nor should you demonize victims for having a licensed firearm on their person at the time you shoot them in the back.

A third is that you shouldn’t arrest and detain 5-year-olds who are here with their parents legally.

The fact that the regime was unwilling to concede any of these things is telling. Even now, Trump appears to be stuck in his thinking and unwilling to accept reality. As The New Republic reported,

Donald Trump appears in deep denial about how widely hated his ICE raids have become. He let out a strange, rambling tirade to reporters about how the “silent majority” is still behind what ICE is doing, bizarrely citing approval of the raids among his own White House employees to make the case. In another rant, he lied uncontrollably about the protesters, about crime in Minneapolis, and more. Interestingly, this comes as a poll from none other than Fox News finds Trump deeply underwater on immigration. It also finds that very large majorities of independents think ICE is being too aggressive. Incredibly, even majorities of rural whites and non-college whites—loyal base voter groups—think the same.

Even if the White House wanted to change course, that might not be so straightforward. As JD Vance recently conceded in a different context about the poor state of the economy, “You don’t just turn around the Titanic overnight.” (That vessel, many have ironically noted, also famously sunk because of ice.)

The cruelty, lawlessness and violence of ICE and CBP are now fully baked into the department’s DNA, thanks to their recruitment of the worst of the worst and the tens of billions thrown DHS’s way. That means the Trump regime will own—and the American people must continue to endure and resist—their horrors for months if not years to come.