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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13096 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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THE OUTCOME OF THE BATTLE OF STANCILGRAD STARTS TO BECOME APPARENT

Jumping back to the pre-war CW topics. There was a lot of debate during Operation Metro Surge about the wisdom of the tactics and choices being made in Minneapolis. We won't be able to really assess the results for years if not decades, but we're getting some early returns. After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Greg Bovino was removed from Minneapolis and there was debate over whether this represented a pullback by ICE, or just a shuffling of personnel. Politico reports a decline in immigration cases.

As the Trump administration has scaled back its most aggressive immigration enforcement efforts, the torrent of emergency lawsuits mounted by ICE detainees has also begun to slow. Courts have been flooded for months with petitions for habeas corpus — requests by ICE detainees to be released from custody or at least to have a chance to plead their cases. Habeas petitions are still arriving at astonishing levels, but have noticeably declined since the administration pulled back from its mega-enforcement operation in Minnesota.

A POLITICO analysis found that immigration habeas petitions peaked at about 300 to 400 per day from Jan. 16 to Feb. 17, at the height of Operation Metro Surge. It was in this timeframe — which includes the Jan. 24 shooting death of demonstrator Alex Pretti — when public opinion began to sour on the Trump administration’s mass deportation tactics. Habeas petitions peaked at more than 400 on Feb. 6 but have since steadily declined, dipping below 300 per day late last month and approaching 200 per day by early March. The decline in habeas cases tracks with a similar decline in immigration arrests reported by The New York Times, citing internal DHS data...Meanwhile, habeas cases in Minnesota have dropped sharply since the administration last month announced a drawdown of federal agents. Crackdowns in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland led to similar surges in habeas cases late last year and into 2026, but they have also abated.

So we're seeing a drop in cases, related to a shift in administration priorities. I noticed less ICE in the news, and local activist networks were talking about ICE less, but they still seemed to be around and there was no declaration that things were cooling off. Trump has periodically made noises about laying off of workers in certain industries, but that’s never been really confirmed as official policy. Statistics and reporting now seem to be confirming a pullback after the deaths in Minneapolis. Obviously, some are not such big fans of this. Elsewhere in Washington

Top allies of President Donald Trump are furious at the White House’s new rhetorical emphasis on deporting violent criminals over all unauthorized immigrants — and they’re launching a lobbying effort to reverse that reversal. A group of longtime Trump allies, immigration restrictionist groups and hawkish policy experts have formed the Mass Deportation Coalition to lobby the Trump administration to refocus its efforts on deporting all eligible migrants. The group has commissioned new polling from one of Trump’s top pollsters to back its thesis that doing so will ensure GOP wins this November, and plans to share that data with White House officials, agency heads and every member of Congress.

“Overwhelmingly, Trump voters expect this from the administration. They don’t just support it, they expect it,” said Chris Chmielenski, president of the Immigration Accountability Project, which advocates for conservative immigration policy. “This is a good way to re-energize the base as we move into the midterms, the same way that Trump was able to do so in the lead up to the 2024 general election.”

The new coalition includes Mark Morgan, the former acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection under Trump; Erik Prince, a Trump ally and former Blackwater CEO; as well as a number of conservative think-tanks and lobbying groups close to the Trump administration including the Heritage Foundation, Federation for American Immigration Reform, American Moment, and the Claremont Institute.

((Prince, notably, had this to say about the recent Iran war:

"Look, Steve, I'm not happy about the whole thing," Prince said on Bannon's War Room podcast. "I don't think this was in America's interests. It's going to uncork a significant can of worms and chaos and destruction in Iran now."..."Who takes over?" Prince asked on the podcast. He added: "I don't see how this is in keeping with the president's MAGA commitment. I'm disappointed."))

The campaign comes as other Republican strategists and lawmakers warn Trump’s mass deportation agenda is becoming increasingly unpopular following ICE operations in Minnesota that killed two U.S. citizens, and could hurt the party’s chances of retaining control of Congress. Since then, the administration has pivoted its message on immigration enforcement while overhauling its leadership at DHS. Border czar Tom Homan replaced CBP chief Greg Bovino in Minneapolis and drew down the immigration enforcement presence there; the president ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem last week and tapped Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to replace her; and even Trump, in his State of the Union address, focused mostly on border security and deporting violent criminals.

It remains to be seen what Mar’Kwayne and his homeboys will do when they are put in charge of DHS. Possibly, given that we are now on a war footing with the largest state sponsor of terrorism, he will have other priorities altogether. I suspect the confirmation hearings will be an opportunity for Democrats to put Mar’Kwayne on tape about ICE policies, and to force Republicans to vote on the record before the midterms.

But if we see a sustained pullback in ICE raids along the lines of Metro Surge, and a net reduction in deportations, we have to call this a victory on the part of the protestors. Renee Good and Alex Pretti will have been successfully, if not exactly willingly, martyred for the cause. The whistles, the Telegram chats, the aggressive policy of confrontation with authorities, will have at least temporarily forced the administration to change course. A sufficiently determined and brave protest movement was not defeated. Love them or hate them, they appear to have succeeded, and others interested in changing American policy should take note. If enough people are willing to put themselves in the gunsights, the government will not be willing to slaughter Americans wholesale.

Does this reflect a fundamentally bad plan in Metro Surge? What adjustments can be made to neutralize this kind of aggressive protest against ICE? Does this reflect an underlying shift in public opinion?

My theory remains as ever that the plurality of Americans would broadly like to see immigration normalized, with illegal immigrants removed or otherwise punished, but that they are unwilling to accept the steps necessary to get there. So we're trapped in a permanent state of exception.

but that they are unwilling to accept the steps necessary to get there. So we're trapped in a permanent state of exception.

Are they even, or are they insufficiently critical of media reporting yet?

That's it. That's everything. In a parallel universe, crimes committed by illegal immigrants or other left-sympathetic figures would move from local news to a national roundtable discussion. But it consistently fails to be escalated to such. It stays local (and even there is massaged, see affiliate reporting on BART crimes, purely locally). Unlike Ferguson, Missouri, a local crime that made the big time.

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