As federal immigration agents face growing resistance in Minnesota, legal analyst Mark Pulliam says the most powerful force behind that opposition is the national press, which he argues is distorting facts and shaping public opinion to undermine enforcement of immigration law.
Pulliam, during Tuesday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, said national media coverage of Minnesota’s resistance to federal immigration enforcement exemplifies what he described as a long-standing political bias that now openly sides with those defying federal law.
He contrasted current media behavior with earlier historical conflicts, arguing that today’s press has abandoned neutrality.
“One of the differences between the soft nullification…going on in Minnesota and the civil rights resistance in the fifties and sixties…is that now you have the national press corps lined up squarely behind these insurrectionists,” Pulliam said.
He added that the media is “trying to distort the narrative of what’s actually happening and trying to influence public opinion in their favor,” calling the biased press “one of our greatest threats to democracy.”
Pulliam argued that despite the rise of alternative and conservative outlets, most Americans are still exposed primarily to what he described as a hostile narrative toward immigration enforcement and President Donald Trump.
“The average person, what they listen to or see on TV is a narrative that is very much anti-Trump and anti-ICE,” he said.
As an example, Pulliam cited media coverage claiming that ICE “kidnapped a five-year-old boy,” a story he said collapsed once the facts emerged.
“They didn’t kidnap or arrest a five-year-old. They were going after the father, who was a criminal, illegal alien,” Pulliam said, adding that the father “abandoned his child…in freezing temperatures,” while ICE “took custody of this kid” and attempted to return him to his mother.
“It was a nothing story,” he said, but one used to argue against enforcing immigration law.
Pulliam said similar distortions continue to appear in coverage of the recent shootings in Minneapolis involving federal agents and anti-ICE activists Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
He said media commentary surrounding the shootings has largely ignored context and rushed to judgment.
“It was a total rush to judgment,” Pulliam said, arguing that commentators with no law-enforcement experience dominate the discussion while coverage remains “totally one-sided.”
According to Pulliam, the media “would never focus on the victims of illegal alien crimes,” despite what he called “many horrific victims,” and when ICE officers are attacked, such incidents are minimized or treated “as an amusing story.”
Tracing the roots of modern media activism, Pulliam said the shift accelerated during the Vietnam War. He pointed to the 1968 Tet Offensive, which he said military strategists agreed was “a major defeat for the North Vietnamese,” but was reported as “a horrible defeat for the United States.”
Pulliam argued that press coverage at that moment reshaped public opinion and emboldened journalists.
“After the Tet Offensive [they said] they will believe anything we report. So we can do what we want,” Pulliam said.
He compared that realization to judicial power after Brown v. Board of Education, saying institutions learned “they can do anything they want and people will obey.”
Pulliam said that mindset carried into Watergate and beyond, inspiring generations of activist journalists.
“Every left-wing, idealistic college student said, ‘I wanna become a reporter so I can do battle with the bad guys,’” he said.
Since then, Pulliam argued, the press has protected Democrats while aggressively targeting Republicans.
He accused the media of “fueling the Russian collusion hoax and January 6,” promoting “lawfare impeachments,” and now “demonizing ICE, trying to turn public opinion against enforcing our immigration laws.”
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “ICE Protesters” by Lorie Shaull. CC BY 4.0.
