• Despite the administration’s promise to focus on “the worst of the worst,” news outlets and nonprofits have found that immigration agents are arresting large numbers of noncriminal migrants or those with “minor offenses.” CBS reported in June that “nearly half — or 47% — of those currently detained by ICE lack a criminal record and fewer than 30% have been convicted of crimes.” Cato found that “more than 93 percent of ICE book-ins were never convicted of any violent offenses.” The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported that as of September, “42,755 out of 59,762—or 71.5% held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction,” adding that “many of those convicted committed only minor offenses, including traffic violations.” [NBC News, 6/25/25; CBS, 6/24/25; CATO, 6/20/25; TRAC Immigration, accessed 10/21/25]
• The administration has “ramped up immigration enforcement” methods in recent months, and a former acting ICE director referred to their “aggressive tactics” as “unprecedented.” As reported by Politico, “In suburban Chicago last month, a masked ICE agent shot a pepper ball into the head of a Presbyterian pastor as he prayed outside an ICE facility. Another ICE agent fatally shot a Mexican immigrant in Illinois. Also last month, in New York City, an ICE officer was removed from duty after he was captured on video forcibly shoving a woman to the ground outside an immigration court. Meanwhile, earlier this month, ICE agents conducted a military-style raid on a South Side Chicago apartment building, detaining hundreds of residents, many of whom are U.S.-born children.” [Politico, 10/14/25]
• Amid frustration over deportation numbers “falling short,” Trump’s Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller reportedly directed ICE “to target Home Depot, where day laborers typically gather for hire, or 7-Eleven convenience stores.” A day laborer told CNN, “I’m behind on my rent because I’m scared of getting detained at the corner of Home Depot or having an encounter with ICE. … This is the most important season for us to work, and the fear is stopping us from going out.” [Wall Street Journal, 6/9/25; CNN, 7/18/25]
• A number of international students attending American universities have been arrested or had their visas revoked for pro-Palestinian activism under the pretense of a “a little-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a 1952 law.” The American Civil Liberties Union issued a statement arguing the students in question, including Rümeysa Öztürk and Mahmoud Khalil, were “targeted for their protected speech.” [New York Times, 7/22/25; ACLU, 4/14/25]

Joe Rogan

Podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump on the eve of the 2024 election, has repeatedly expressed concern and discomfort at the “insane” way that migrants have been targeted by the administration, saying he doesn’t “think anybody would have signed up for” ICE raids on Home Depots and construction sites. Rogan criticized these raids and the subsequent arrests of migrant workers, as well as the arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk, adding, “I really thought they were just going to go after the criminals.”

• Rogan said the administration’s deportation of makeup artist Andry José Hernández Romero to El Salvador was “horrific,” adding, “You gotta get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported.” Rogan continued, “Let's not innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs, and then, like, how long before that guy can get out? … Is there any plan in place to alert the authorities that they've made a horrible mistake and correct it?” [The Guardian, 8/4/25; YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 3/29/25]
• Rogan decried “fucking nuts” ICE raids on Home Depots and construction sites, saying, “I don't think anybody would have signed up for that.” Rogan: “They said, we're gonna get rid of the criminals and the gang members first, right? And now we're, we're seeing, like, Home Depots get raided. Like, that's crazy.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 6/18/25]
• Rogan called Trump's targeting of migrant workers for deportation “insane.” “There's two things that are insane,” Rogan explained, “One is the targeting of migrant workers. Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers. Just construction workers. Showing up at construction sites, raiding them. Gardeners. Like, really?” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 7/2/25]
• Rogan reportedly “pushed Trump to back off on mass deportations” at a private dinner in June. According to The Washington Post, “Rogan has discussed immigration policy with Trump and pushed him to back off deporting workers who have not committed crimes, according to a person with knowledge of their conversations.” [The Washington Post, 7/10/25]
• Rogan again criticized the administration for “this insane policy where they're going to Home Depot and rounding people up,” as well as “kicking students out that, like, write articles they don’t like.” Rogan said, “You got a bunch of people that are totally innocent. They're gonna get caught up, and they have been. … A lot of people that have green cards. A lot of people that are supposed to be over here.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 7/29/25]
• Rogan decried the policy of “pulling people out of schools and pulling people out of Home Depot,” adding that “they didn't think, great, you're gonna get rid of a landscaper.” Rogan argued, “That's what freaks people out, because what people, when people thought about ICE, they thought, great, we're going to get rid of the gang members.’” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 8/13/25]
• Rogan later said Trump separating families “shows no heart,” adding, “I really thought they were just going to go after the criminals.” Rogan suggested it was “crazy to ask lower-income and middle-income people who are, you know, kind of getting by, and then all of sudden, you're about to ship them to a country where they've never been. They haven't been since they were four. And you're going to pull up their family.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 10/9/25]

Tim Dillon

Podcaster Tim Dillon hosted Vice President J.D. Vance just prior to the 2024 election, offering him a platform to advertise the administration’s mass deportation plans. A few months later, he described former Vice President Kamala Harris as a person “without any discernible intellect,” praising Trump as “someone who possesses an incredible amount of political talent and skill.”

Though the podcaster has said that certain people “need to be deported,” he has also described ICE as a “paramilitary deportation force” and characterized their enforcement actions as “barbaric” and “inhumane.” In an October episode of The Tim Dillon Show, he explained, “You don't need to have masked people that are, you know, that are just kind of terrorizing communities and showing up and grabbing people. People leave their house and they're never seen again.”

• Dillon told CNN he was frustrated with the administration “deporting people that have been critical of Israel.” [CNN, 4/19/25]
• Dillon slammed recent deportations and ICE operations as “inhumane and barbaric” while making an argument that “the country has gotten addicted to having a group of people here that they do not have to pay, that cannot be unionized, that don’t have power.” Dillon explained, “And that's not to say that the people that came here done anything wrong, or that they should be willy-nilly thrown in the back of vans. I don't believe that. I think it's inhumane and barbaric.” [YouTube, The Tim Dillon Show, 6/14/25]
• Dillon decried Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention center, saying, “Locking people in a cage in the middle of an alligator moat seems to be not the way as a first world country.” He added, “Do we need special detention centers where nobody has any rights, and the Constitution doesn't apply, and it's in the middle of an alligator pit? It just seems to me that it's a recipe for something very bad and very dark, especially when people start piping up.” [YouTube, The Tim Dillon Show, 7/5/25]
• Dillon called ICE a “paramilitary deportation force” and joked that “the only thing that you're qualified to do is storm houses, rip people out, and send them back to other countries.” Dillon continued, “I remember when Elian Gonzalez, he's this kid he was deported to Cuba. There was, like, a military, a guy with a gun, like, pointed at Elian Gonzalez, this little Cuban kid, we were sending him back to Cuba, it was something like. And everyone was horrified by that photo. … Now people are cheering this.” [YouTube, The Tim Dillon Show, 8/16/25; CBS, 4/23/25]
• Dillon asked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) if there was a “more humane way to conduct” ICE raids while still noting that people “need to be deported.” While interviewing Greene, Dillon said, “I think Trump's losing support amongst — they did a poll recently about Latinos. Is there a better way, a more humane way to conduct some of these raids? Because I think there are a lot of people that go, we want a border, we need a country, and that certain people also … need to be deported.” [YouTube, The Tim Dillon Show, 10/11/25]
• Dillon called ICE raids “inhumane” and said agents are “terrorizing communities.” Though Dillon again said “some people do need to get deported,” he added, “You don't need to have masked people that are, you know, that are just kind of terrorizing communities and showing up and grabbing people, and people leave their house and they're never seen again.” [YouTube, The Tim Dillon Show, 10/18/25]

Theo Von

Podcaster Theo Von hosted Trump in the lead up to the 2024 election in a friendly interview “brokered by the UFC’s Dana White.” At Trump’s victory party, White thanked Von personally. Von was invited to attend Trump’s inauguration, which he called “inspiring,” and even performed a comedy routine prefacing a Trump speech at a U.S. base in Qatar.

While remaining moderately supportive of deporting “nefarious people,” Von has expressed discomfort with “people… being ripped out of places” by ICE. In September, Von asked Trump’s Department of Homeland Security to take down a video advertising deportations which featured a clip from Von, writing that his “thoughts and heart” on immigration “are alot more nuanced” than the video suggested.

• Von called on Trump’s DHS to remove a video which used him to promote mass deportations: “please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are alot more nuanced than this video allows.” Later on his podcast, Von explained, “My father immigrated here from Nicaragua, right? Like, one of my prized possessions is, I have his immigration papers when he came here. … And so I have tons of thoughts about it, but this was just fucked up, right? It was fucked up.” [Twitter/X, 9/24/25; YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, 10/2/25]
• Von expressed concern over people “being ripped out of places” in “crazy” ICE raids despite expressing some support for deportations. Von complained that “they let so many people into the country,” but argued against migrants “being ripped out of places” and having to “live in fear.” [YouTube, This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, 10/14/25]

Flagrant hosts Akaash Singh and Andrew Schulz

The Flagrant podcast, co-hosted by comedians Akaash Singh and Andrew Schulz, was another important venue for Trump prior to the 2024 election. As Trump pushed his narrative about migrant crime, Schulz told him that “you have support on this.” Schulz included himself and the other hosts in a group of people who “support” the DOGE cuts.

As the administration has progressed, the hosts have become vocally critical of its immigration priorities. Singh criticized their supposed deportation strategy, noting that “there's a lot of people with green cards getting sent back” instead, and even mocked them for deporting “green card holders who are saying things about the government of Israel that you don't like.” In an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Schulz told Rogan, “I don’t like the ICE stuff at all,” and called for Trump to open a pathway to citizenship for migrant workers who he described as “good people.”

• Singh said, “I don't even know if criminals are getting sent back. I know there's a lot of people with green cards getting sent back. There's people who aren't criminals getting sent back.” He continued, “I don't know if you're sending back the criminals first. You're definitely not doing it first. I don't know if you're sending them back at all.” [YouTube, Flagrant, 7/10/25]
• Singh later mocked the administration's deportations during an ad read. “Two hundred milligrams of caffeine to get you through your day and be America first. You wanna deport a couple of illegals? Maybe some green card holders who are saying things about the government of Israel that you don't like?” [YouTube, Flagrant, 8/20/25]
• On The Joe Rogan Experience, Schulz said, “I don't like the ICE stuff at all.” Schulz added, “One of the things I actually talked to Trump about is, like, how can we not do this? Like, what can we do? How do we have these people who've been living here for fucking 10 years, and they're paying taxes, like, why don't we give them a pathway to citizenship? And I specifically was like, yo, you own hotels. You've employed these people. You know they're good people.” [YouTube, The Joe Rogan Experience, 10/18/25]

Other right-leaning media figures

• PBD Podcast panelist Tom Ellsworth: “You said, hey, we're going to go get the criminals … then you’re going into farm country.” While criticizing an ICE raid on a farm, Ellsworth argued, “This is happening in areas where it's a really bad visual, where you said, hey, we're going to go get the criminals … and then you're going into farm country and it just is a — I personally thought it was a bad look to be, you know, shooting tear gas in an open field where you had migrant workers.” [YouTube, PBD Podcast, 7/17/25]
• All-In Podcast host Jason Calacanis criticized the use of the military to arrest “handymen” instead of felons. Calacanis critiqued “this amount of paramilitary, military, literal military coming in, the dragging of, you know, handymen from Home Depot, as opposed to the strategic way this started, which was, hey, we're gonna go after the felons.” [YouTube, The All-In Podcast, 6/13/25]
• Calacanis later said Americans “don't like” Trump's ICE agents “beating powerless, hard-working immigrants.” He predicted, “The Democrats are gonna shellac the Republicans in the midterms if this continues. Nobody wants this type of violence.” [YouTube, The All-In Podcast, 10/10/25]
• Podcaster Russell Brand said he was “uneasy” about the administration’s treatment of Mahmoud Khalil. Discussing the crackdown on pro-Palestinian individuals, Brand stated, “We had a principle around free speech and censorship. How do we feel if measures that are against our principles happen to benefit us personally? That means they're not principles.” Brand asked his audience, “Has that caused a bit of a rupture in your alliances? It certainly makes me a little uneasy, I've got to tell you.” [Rumble, Stay Free with Russell Brand, 3/11/25]
• Podcaster Shawn Ryan on Trump's mass deportation plans: “The economy is going to face some consequences. I think it already probably is.” Ryan continued, “I'm constructing a new studio, that's been delayed. You know, a lot of I mean, you know, restaurants are hurting. Construction's hurting … But you know what pisses me off is, like, I do think that we need these people in this country.” [YouTube, The Shawn Ryan Show, 7/14/25]
• Ryan also said that by sending in the National Guard to Los Angeles after the protests over Trump’s immigration policies, “We're skirting the line of martial law here.” Ryan continued, “We're treading a thin line here between martial law and states' rights. … They're testing boundaries. How far is this gonna go? Where else are they gonna go? And I personally think it's a real concern.” [YouTube, The Shawn Ryan Show, 7/14/25]

• War Room host Steve Bannon called Joe Rogan a “huge amnesty guy. All those guys now are huge amnesty guys. All the billionaires, huge amnesty guys.” He responded, “Can’t happen. Mass deportations now, amnesty never. You have to get your country back.” [Real America’s Voice, War Room, 7/10/25]
• Right-wing streamer Jeremy Hambly, also known as The Quartering, accused Rogan of “letting his liberal elite show” and said he “had his, but who will clean your toilets, Donald Trump? moment.” He continued, “This is one of the most insane leftoid narratives about the deportations imaginable.” [YouTube, The Quartering, 8/15/25]
• Influencer Mike Cernovich has continually attacked Rogan for his commentary, once asking him to “sign away all of his personal wealth,” saying, “If he’s not willing to do this, why should we give away our entire country?” Cernovich additionally suggested Rogan “fled California to run from the policies he supported for decades, for Texas, and endorsed Trump the day before the election, when it had become safe to do so.” [Twitter/X, 10/9/25, 7/10/25]
• Right-wing host Steven Crowder said Rogan, Theo Von, and Andrew Schulz have “kind of a teenager’s point of view” on politics, decrying them as “people who decided to kind of get in on a trend that was worth quite a few clicks during the election.” Crowder suggested they “don’t really know how these things work” and argued, “What’s the alternative? … You would still have antifa and you would still have mass illegal immigrants causing chaos in these sanctuary cities.” [Rumble, Louder with Crowder, 10/7/25]
• On Timcast IRL, panelist Tate Brown complained that Rogan, Tim Dillon, and Von “soured” on deportations as videos came out, arguing, “How else is ICE supposed to conduct these operations?” [Rumble, Timcast IRL, 10/7/25]
• Commentator Stefan Molyneux: “I forget, how many foreigners does Joe Rogan have living in his house?” [Twitter/X, 10/10/25]
• Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, also known as Asmongold, suggested that Von and Rogan are being “manipulated” and said, “I don’t think their criticism of Trump is authentic.” [YouTube, AsmongoldTV, 10/11/25; Twitter/X, 10/7/25]
• Tim Pool criticized Rogan for telling the administration to “have a heart,” saying, “I see Joe's commentary over the past couple of weeks, and it seems very much, ‘Hey, whoa, I'm actually on the left, guys.'” Pool noted he tries to “give grace” to Rogan, but added, “There have been a lot of critiques over him having on a lot of personalities that are either pro-left, leaning left, or not commenting in the space and not having anyone on to counter that narrative.” [Rumble, Timcast IRL, 10/13/25, 10/13/25]
• Fox News contributor and podcaster Brett Cooper attacked Rogan's criticism of mass deportation, saying it's “toxic empathy speaking.” She explained, “He obviously is smarter than this. … What did you think mass deportations was? This was something that was spoken about every single day. Everybody was in favor of, you know, basically securing our border and cleaning out our country.” [YouTube, The Brett Cooper Show, 10/14/25]

Media Matters is maintaining a database of online shows with a right-leaning or left-leaning ideological bent, including those that self-categorize in nonpolitical categories such as comedy, sports, and culture but which we determined regularly cover news and politics. This report draws upon that ongoing research in categorizing the online shows mentioned.