Trump's mass deportation is backfiring
The administration and its allies have gleefully played up standoffs between federal immigration agents and protesters, such as the one Thursday during a raid at a legal marijuana farm in Ventura County, California.
And as congressional Republicans were passing a very unpopular Trump agenda bill last month, Vice President JD Vance argued that its historic expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and new immigration enforcement provisions were so important that 'everything else' was 'immaterial.'
But this appears to be an increasingly bad bet for Trump and Co.
It's looking more and more like Trump has botched an issue that, by all rights, should have been a great one for him. And ICE's actions appear to be a big part of that.
The most recent polling on this comes from Gallup, where the findings are worse than those of any poll in Trump's second term.
The nearly monthlong survey conducted in June found Americans disapproved of Trump's handling of immigration by a wide margin: 62% to 35%. And more than twice as many Americans strongly disapproved (45%) as strongly approved (21%).
It also found nearly 7 in 10 independents disapproved.
These are Trump's worst numbers on immigration yet. But the trend has clearly been downward – especially in high-quality polling like Gallup's.
An NPR-PBS News-Marist College poll conducted late last month, for instance, showed 59% of independents disapproved of Trump on immigration. And a Quinnipiac University poll showed 66% of independents disapproved.
Trump has managed to become this unpopular on immigration despite historic lows in border crossings. And the data suggest that's largely tied to deportations and ICE.
To wit:
59% overall and 66% of independents disapproved of Trump's handling of deportations, according to the Quinnipiac poll.
56% overall and 64% of independents disapproved of the way ICE was doing its job, according to Quinnipiac.
54% overall and 59% of independents said ICE has 'gone too far' in enforcing immigration law, per the Marist poll. (Even 1 in 5 Republicans agreed.)
Americans disapproved 54-45% of ICE conducting more raids to find undocumented immigrants at workplaces, according to a Pew Research Center poll last month.
Americans also appear to disagree with some of the more heavy-handed aspects of the deportation program:
They disapproved 55-43% of significantly increasing the number of facilities to hold immigrants being processed for deportation, per Pew – even as the Trump administration celebrates Florida's controversial new 'Alligator Alcatraz.'
They said by a nearly 2-to-1 margin that it's 'unacceptable' to deport an immigrant to a country other than their own, per Pew – another key part of the administration's efforts.
They also disapproved, 61-37%, of deporting undocumented immigrants to a prison in El Salvador – the place where the administration sent hundreds without due process, in some cases in error (such as with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who has since been returned).
There's a real question in all of this whether people care that much. They might disapprove of some of the more controversial aspects of Trump's deportations, but maybe it's not that important to them – and they might even like the ultimate results.
That's the bet Trump seems to be making: that he can push forward on something his base really wants and possibly even tempt his political opponents to overreach by appearing to defend people who are in the country illegally.
But at some point, the White House has got to look at these numbers and start worrying that its tactics are backfiring.
Gallup shows the percentage of Americans who favor deporting all undocumented immigrants dropping from 47% last year during the 2024 campaign down to 38% now that it's a reality Trump is pursuing.
And all told, Trump's second term has actually led to the most sympathy for migrants on record in the 21st century, per Gallup. Fully 79% of Americans now say immigration is a 'good thing,' compared with 64% last year.
The writing has been on the wall that Americans' support for mass deportation was subject to all kinds of caveats and provisos. But the administration appears to have ignored all that and run headlong into problems of its own creation.
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