Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, September 29, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
Will the GOP lose control of the House, and possibly even the Senate, because of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies?
Legacy media is out to convince Americans of just that, insisting that voters hate deportations and that will be the defining issue in this year’s midterms.
Anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis. / Video Image
The Federalist’s Chris Bray noted in a Sept. 28 analysis that legacy news outlets frame immigration enforcement and ICE actions as widely unpopular among Americans.
“If you believe the legacy media, which you should never do, Americans are very angry that their warm and wonderful ‘undocumented’ neighbors are being cruelly thrown out of the country,” Bray wrote. “Republicans are about to lose their majorities in the House and Senate because everyone hates ICE for being so mean and aggressive.”
Bray cited a Sept. 27 piece in Politico which stated: “ICE operations are making it hard for vulnerable Republicans fighting for their political survival.”
The story frames deportation as a deeply unpopular measure. The political environment has calmed since the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but “ICE’s recent record-high arrest rate is still landing hard in some communities.”
Bray noted that some vulnerable Republicans have drunk the Kool-Aid and reacted to this coverage by pivoting away from enforcement messaging.
The Politico article, Bray noted, includes “a quote from professional cuckold John Cornyn, who warns against going too far.”
Cornyn is quoted as saying: “There’s already been some blowback associated with what people feel is a little bit of a heavy hand when it comes to immigration enforcement.”
Some observers said Florida Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar has imbibed far too much of the lefty media’s Kool-Aid:
The idea that Americans hate mass deportations in 2026 when it was a top issue that ushered Trump back to the White House in a 2024 landslide is where the media’s narrative falls apart, Bray noted.
“After four years with a wide-open border, voters rejected uncontrolled mass migration and human trafficking, handing over the keys to Republicans. So American voters hated seeing mass illegal immigration, voted against it, then reacted with horror when a new administration began working to reverse the thing that everybody hated and voted against. Everyone wanted cheeseburgers, so they got cheeseburgers, which made them furious because they hate cheeseburgers. Popular things are deeply unpopular. The logic doesn’t work.”
WorldTribune.com, in a June 14 report that was re-posted on Truth Social by President Trump, cited a Harvard-Harris poll of 1,725 registered voters which found that 56% of Americans support the mass deportation of illegal aliens.
That does not indicate the American electorate has suddenly turned hard against illegal immigration.
Republicans, Bray contends, “have to make an argument to get people to buy the argument. Instead we get John Cornyn and María Elvira Salazar.
“If Republicans face serious losses in November, we’re going to play the ‘blame my pet cause’ game in the aftermath. This will be the fake takeaway: See, the voters want unlimited illegal immigration without deportation. Giving up the fight and choosing weakness will validate an argument that the country hated in 2024, turning a winning issue into a losing issue because Republicans flinch before the punch lands. Defeat is a choice.”
