Where Do Voters Stand On Donald Trump’s Immigration Enforcement?

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0:23In 2024, many voters were frustrated with the state of the southern U.S. border. A growing share of the electorate thought the Biden administration was being too lax on illegal immigration. And Pew Research says in 2024, roughly one in 10 Democrats were in favor of a national deportation effort. Enter President Trump. Americans have watched their communities destroyed by this sudden suffocating inundation of illegal aliens. I said, if you let them in, it's going to be hell. They are vicious, violent criminals. These are stone cold killers. They'll walk into your kitchen. They'll cut your throat.

1:03These people are roaming our country. They could go into a restaurant. They can do whatever they want. And they will kill you because they are wired that way. Now, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science published a multi-year study of crime statistics. It found that undocumented immigrants are about half as likely to be arrested for property or violent crimes than people born in the U.S. They also found no evidence of increased criminality among undocumented immigrants in recent years. But over the past 14 months, President Trump's Department of Homeland Security has launched a strict and oftentimes violent crackdown on illegal immigration.

1:39While popular at first, especially among the MAGA base, immigration and customs enforcement officials have also detained legal residents and others with protected status as part of their extensive deportation plans. Earlier this year, immigration officials shot and killed three U.S. citizens, Renee Macklin-Good and Alex Preddy in Minnesota, as well as 23-year-old Ruben Ray Rodriguez in Texas. And now polls suggest most U.S. adults think the deployment of federal immigration agents into U.S. cities has gone too far. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast. Today we ask, what do we know about where voters stand on Trump's immigration enforcement, and how are Republicans and Independents specifically responding to the administration's tactics?

2:23We'll be back with more after this short break. Stay with us.

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3:07We'll tell you what's great, what's interesting, and break it all down with debates that'll have you yelling at your speakers, but in a good way. Listen to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour by finding us wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. Let's jump into our conversation and meet our panel. Joining us now is William A. Galston. He's a senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at Brookings Institution. He also writes the weekly Politics and Ideas column in the Wall Street Journal. Bill, welcome to 1A. Thanks for having me on, Jen. Also with us from New York is Jeremy Robbins.

3:41He's the executive director of the American Immigration Council. Jeremy, thanks for joining us. Glad to be here, Jen. So let's start with the polls. In an AP Nork poll, this is from February, just under two-thirds of U.S. adults surveyed say the deployment of federal immigration agents into U.S. cities has gone too far. More than half say Trump's efforts to deport all immigrants living in the United States illegally have gone too far. And six in 10 U.S. adults surveyed say they view ICE unfavorably. Now, That's up from 2018, when just 37 percent of people said the same. So this poll suggests opposition to the president's immigration agenda is growing.

4:17But, Bill, how does that break down along party lines? Well, Democrats have been opposed since the start. But President Trump, in his 2024 campaign, put together a broad coalition. His MAGA base, regular Republicans, plus independents, young adults, and Hispanics who flocked to his side mainly because of the economy, but also substantially because of the perceived failures of the Biden administration on immigration policy and the management of the southern border. the Trump administration's efforts really break down into two categories first of all border enforcement which in has enjoyed considerable success and still enjoys strong popular support it's the interior enforcement and particularly the deportation effort that has become controversial.

5:23The MAGA base is still in favor strongly. As a matter of fact, there is a mass deportation council that is releasing a report urging the president to go even farther than he already has. But the polls show that regular Republicans, independents, Hispanics, and young adults have turned their back on the president's policies, in particular his enforcement measures. Why? Three reasons. Number one, as your opening clips from the president showed, he emphasized the worst of the worst, violent criminal aliens. But the dragnet for deportation has included many people who by no stretch of the imagination fall into that category.

6:17And people have noticed that immigrants they regard as their friends and neighbors have been swept up in this dragnet. Number two, the tactics. You discussed some of them in your opening statement, but people really do feel that in pursuing the president's agenda, ICE has gone much too far. We could go through all of the different categories where they think they've gone too far. Number three, people are seeing the president's emphasis on immigration as a diversion from what they expected him to spend most of his time on, which is the economy. And so those are the three major factors that have led to declines among Republicans, independents, Hispanics and young adults.

6:59Well, let's get into the economic impacts of President Trump's deportation agenda. Jeremy, what do we know about how the economy is being affected? Well, thanks, Jen. And I think what we know is that it's not just about the immigrants who are being targeted, right? So there's more than a million immigrant workers have left the workforce. And that in itself has real economic impact. But it's the ripple effect and it's the fear that have come with that. So if you look at California's Central Valley after the ice raids from last year, the whole workforce fell by about 3%. And the labor force participation among non-citizens dropped by more than 7%.

7:40That's a larger shrinking since the Great Recession. And it impacts the whole community. So schools saw a 22 % decline in attendance because families were keeping children home. and it has a huge economic impact if you think about, say, take the construction industry. If roofers don't show up, you can't build houses. If you can't build houses, that impacts the ability to buy the products and for people to move in and to furnish the houses. It impacts all sorts of economies through it. So whether you're talking about construction, you're talking about agriculture, you're talking about hospitality, or you're talking about immigrants as consumers.

8:16So there's a real strong ripple effect. So the Heineken CEO, as an example, at his October investor event, was talking about why the company's sales had been struggling. And one of the things he pointed to was what's happening with immigration. And because of the ICE raids, that there are fewer people going out and buying things. And you're seeing that over and over. I'll give one more example. So if you look at Chicago after there were ICE raids in Little Village, the business owners were reporting 50 % to 60 % drops in sales. in LA as a study found that 82 % of businesses said that they were impacted.

8:52So that's not just a few isolated people. That's the whole local economy. Well, and Jeremy, are there particular segments of the economy that are being impacted more severely? Absolutely. I mean, certainly agriculture, construction. One of the things that's happened, if you talk about the raids and the tactics, and Bill got to the tactics well, is that they're showing up at a bunch of different work sites. And some of that has been made a little bit easier by the Supreme Court's shadow docket decision, which lets you stop people if they look like they might be an immigrant. So they're speaking another language and they're in a place where undocumented immigrants might be likely to work.

9:32And so you're seeing huge impacts, but it really is across the economy, right? I mean, you're seeing it with home health aides and people who are trying to care for their elderly parents. You're seeing it over and over. And I will mostly just coming back to your first point about where I think the country is, I think it's relevant to all of this is, as Bill said, the promise was order and the promise was safety and the promise was controlling the chaos. But if you look at what's happening in Minnesota, that's not orderly and it's not safe. And it doesn't seem like control. It kind of seems like the opposite.

10:04And what people are seeing in very stark relief is that the number of people who are not the violent criminals coming here to murder you, but are people trying to go to their job to show up at the grocery store who are getting arrested has gone up astronomically. So since the start of the president's term, the number of people who are being detained, who have no contact whatsoever, either a charge or a conviction, no contact at all with the criminal justice system, that number has skyrocketed 2 ,450 % in just one year. Well, some background data there. In December, the White House announced that DHS has deported more than 605 ,000 people since January 2025.

10:48DHS also says that more than 1.9 million people have voluntarily self-deported since January 2025. Now, the accuracy of those figures has been disputed. The Center for Immigration Studies of New York says the high deportation and self-deportation figures are likely the result of a flawed analysis of Census Bureau survey data. But as of February, and this is the most recent month for which data is available, more than 68 ,000 people were being held in ICE detention facilities around the country. Most of them do not have criminal convictions. That's according to data from Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

11:23Are we seeing any shifts, Bill, in Americans' or lawmakers' stances on immigration, especially in states like Minnesota, where there was a massive, high-profile immigration operation, and two U.S. citizens there were killed by federal immigration agents? Well, most of the evidence on public opinion from the states is anecdotal. But we do have national survey data indicating over the first 14 months of the Trump administration that the issue has gone from a strong positive, indeed, President Trump's strongest issue when he took office, to a negative now. It's still his standing on immigration is still stronger than on every other issue.

12:17But he's now firmly into negative territory on what was supposed to be his strongest issue heading into his second term. So I don't think there's any question about the fact that public support nationally, and I'm sure this is especially true in big cities like the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Chicago, L.A., and elsewhere. There's no question about the fact that public distress about enforcement tactics in those big cities has skyrocketed. I don't need a public opinion survey to tell me that. And the fundamental question now facing the administration is whether it can readjust and reach a new point of equilibrium.

13:03And it's clear that the president himself felt that things had gone too far. The reemergence of Tom Homan as a major figure in the enforcement effort, the firing of Kristi Noem, all of that suggests to me that there is an effort on the part of the administration to pull back on some of the most extreme, optically unpleasant and unpopular policies. How that's going to work out, I don't know, but it's clear that the administration itself concluded that they had gone too far and that things had gotten out of control in the eyes of the American people. And we should mention here that Mark Wayne Mullen, the Republican senator from Oklahoma, was recently confirmed by the Senate to head up DHS.

13:53Now, most Republican strategists say the Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement will harm Republicans in the midterms. That's according to a poll released on Monday from Punchbowl News. But Bill, very briefly, if President Trump ran on an aggressive immigration enforcement platform, why would this be a problem for Republicans this fall? Here is my diagnosis for what it's worth. If you dig into the internals of surveys, you will find that immigration is very high on the list of concerns of the MAGA base. that the president enjoys. And they are strongly in back of him. The MAGA base is two-thirds of the Republican Party.

14:40Republicans who don't identify with MAGA make up the other third. So the base of the party is standing solidly with the president, but there's weakness every place else. But the base of the party very much shapes the kinds of people that are being nominated to run for Congress, governor, etc. And the president is really in no position to abandon his base at this point. So he and I think the strategists around him have concluded that they have no choice but to stand strong, even though that that may cost them in other parts of the coalition that brought him back to power in 2024. So I want to bring in Jeremy here, because Jeremy, one of the things I'm wondering about is how lawmakers at the state level on the right are addressing some of the realities in their state, especially as immigrant labor is connected to those state economies?

15:45As you said, mass deportations are affecting agriculture, construction, healthcare. How are they squaring that circle in their own states? Yeah, it's a great question, Jen. I mean, look, this is an imperative for a lot of industries, right? If you are in agriculture, you're in construction. You're seeing it in the newest data, the newest census data, or hiring is slowed. The economy is slowing down. We need the economy move. You want businesses to hire people. You want people to buy products, and that is going to generate more jobs. And when that slows down, hiring slows too. So you're hearing it from employers and you're starting to hear it from members of the legislatures in the states too.

16:24What they're looking for, and I think this gets into what Bill was saying and where the president's looking for, is they're looking for a safe place to be. The president today decided for the first time ever to go to a Supreme Court argument to hear the birthright citizenship case. He has no sway over the decision, but he wants to be there because this feels like it's the right stand. And what I assume he's looking for is how does he gin up that two-thirds of the Republican base that is MAGA that Bill is talking about without alienating everyone else? And that's what everyone's looking for. Because if you look at those same polls that you started with, it's true that 60, 70 % of people, approaching 70 % of people think ICE has gone too far, but it's also true in those polls that about half the country still supports mass deportation.

17:10Because people want safety. They want order. They just don't want it to be this terrible. And so what I think both on the Republican side are looking for is how do we offer safety with an actual generous path forward? We're saying, look, immigration is great for our country. Most immigrants are coming here to work. We do need to keep communities safe and we need to focus on safety. But what would a system look like? Because right now our system in some sense really is black or white. We're going to rip you away from the place you've been for 30 years. You might have never had any contact with the law.

17:42And you might have U.S. citizen kids. You're working. You're an active part of your community. And the choice is to deport you to a place you maybe don't even know at all. Well, let's pause here. We have to take a quick break. Still to come, more on President Trump's immigration policies and what they mean for the U.S. economy.

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18:38We need immigrants in our workforce. I've been a registered Republican since I was 18. I am now 90 and disgusted. Now, President Trump's enforcement strategy has led to a steep drop in immigration. Brookings estimates that in 2025, net migration, or the difference between the number of people moving to the U.S. and the number of people leaving was negative for the first time in at least half a century. Bill, is it clear whether this change is due to stricter immigration policies, an uptick in enforcement and deportation operation, or some combination? That's a combination of those two factors, plus the fact I think that the economy was not growing as robustly in 2025 as a lot of people expected it to be, and immigration flows are to some extent a reaction to the needs of the economy.

19:31Which brings me to what I think is a key point in this debate, and that is there is a fundamental mismatch between our immigration laws on the one hand and the needs of the economy on the other. And immigration reformers have been trying to square that circle now for decades. they failed to do so because the two political parties have found it hard to reach agreement on what would replace the current system and as a result we have a situation in which farmers ranchers people in the construction business people in the hospitality business are all forced to rely on people who are not here legally president trump and others have said well if we shut off the immigration flows, then Americans will step up to fill those places.

20:25Employers report something quite different, that immigrants are doing jobs that for the most part Americans do not want to do. And so we really need to fix our immigration laws sometime. Well, we got this from Christine, who's listening on WUNC in North Carolina. I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican. Biden's open border policy was irresponsible. However, Trump's sweeping arrests, detentions and deportations are cruel and harmful to our economy and to our American values. I want to see immigration reforms, DACA approval, expansion of immigration courts and speedy legal applications. The Republican Party's attitude toward immigrants and various other social issues has pushed me further left.

21:07I'm now voting about 90 percent with Democrats to send a message. Jeremy, I just want to first start with this idea that President Biden had an open border policy. That's been part of the rhetoric that we heard in the lead up to the presidential election. Just quickly remind us how Biden's administration approached immigration policy. Yeah, the Biden administration approached it from a couple of different directions, right? And I think where they ended up is very different than when they started. Where they ended up was adopting a lot of policies that actually looked fairly similar to what Trump had done in the first administration, doing things like bans for people who hadn't asked for asylum on other countries on their way, using effectively trying to shut down the border.

21:50But the numbers are right. I mean, there were millions of immigrants who came in during the Biden administration that was caused by sort of COVID, sort of people pushed out of Latin America, which hit hardest in the world by COVID and many other factors. And the truth is two things can be true. It can be true that immigrants are amazing and amazingly important for the revitalization of communities and bringing hard, talented people who want to work is great. And also if a lot of people come really quickly, that cities can be overwhelmed. And so you did see that in cities across the country where hundreds of thousands of people were coming and the federal government wasn't helping cities accept people and integrate them.

22:29What's clear, and I think the point that was made by this caller is 100 % right. I think she represents the majority of Americans who think that immigration is good, but also it's got to be in control. And we have to keep communities safe and that the balance that's being struck right now is simply too cruel. And so what would another system look like? Okay, Jeremy, we're having a little trouble with your line. We're going to have you reconnect so we can stabilize that line. We're hearing from Janice in Chicago who emails, I find it mind-boggling that the Trump administration is pushing for the passage of the SAVE Act, while at the same time trying to issue an executive order banning birthright citizenship.

23:03One of the provisions of the SAVE Act is in order to register to vote, one must provide proof of citizenship. But if the Trump administration gets its way in banning birthright citizenship, a birth certificate will no longer be proof of citizenship. I want to mention here that we did a breakdown of the case being heard before the Supreme Court right now on birthright citizenship. You can find that conversation at the 1A.org. And we also heard from Ed, who says, I was a registered Republican for more than 40 years until Trump's second term. I have since changed my voting registration to independent.

23:36I disagree with him on a long list of issues, but immigration is near the top of the list. This is not what he promised during the campaign. He's impacting the lives of so many people who may have come here illegally originally, but have become contributing members of society. And another of you in North Carolina emails, Trump softening on ISIS only for votes in the midterms. Otherwise, nothing would change. Now, Bill, we look at other data. And we know that a record number of U.S. adults now identify as independent. And I'm curious how that plays into this conversation about what could happen in the midterms and who President Trump needs to pull into this coalition to really lock down the votes the GOP needs to hold on to the House and the Senate.

24:16The Trump administration's theory of the case, I don't have any inside sources, but this is what I infer from what I read and see and hear, is that the most important thing for Republicans to do in the midterms is to mobilize their base, get them out to vote. They think that's a problem that needs to be solved because things haven't gone as well for the administration as they hoped. The economy has not performed the way they hoped. A lot of people are still feeling the pinch of high prices. The MAGA base heard the promise of lower prices just the way everybody else did. So they need to gin up their base.

25:05After they do that, they will then try to persuade others to show up as well. But I've seen no sign that they are really fundamentally changing their political strategy to persuade the unpersuaded as opposed to mobilizing the persuaded. And there's a problem with that, and that is a mobilization strategy works in a low turnout election. But this is not going to be a low turnout election in my judgment. Democrats are really mad. They are really eager to get out there and vote. And so I think the president is going to need a broader coalition than his base in order to hold not only the House, but the Senate, which is not as securely in Republican hands as people thought it was six months ago.

26:04So, Jeremy, I'm curious to hear from you as well on this question of the role independence will play in November and whether immigration is maybe one of the factors that's driving more people to identify as independent rather than Democratic or Republican. I think that's right. I think people feel lost from both parties. But there are 50 million immigrants in this country. That's one out of seven people. They are in our communities. People know them. What they're seeing with their eyes on TV is not the reality that they were promised on that campaign. The economic impact of immigrants is tremendous.

26:41Collectively, they have$1.7 trillion in spending power. They pay more than$650 billion in taxes. And what people are seeing is an attack on people who are fundamentally important, not just economically but also culturally in their community. And I think what they're looking for is someone who says, look, we want to be a welcoming country. We also need control. and they're looking for Democrats and Republicans to get together and put forward that solution. And I do think that is something that both parties need to come to the table behind. I want to circle back to what we were discussing a little earlier, Jeremy, which was about the Biden administration's approach to immigration enforcement.