Latino voters played a key role in helping President Donald Trump get reelected last November as the Republican managed to make historic inroads with the voting bloc. Months later, even as many Latinos are being targeted by the Trump administration's immigration policies, the group appears to largely remain supportive of the president and his policies.
The recent trend comes from a Latino Trump voters who participated in a focus group observed by NBC News as part of the 2025 Deciders series, produced by Syracuse University and the research firms Engagious and Sago.
Overall, group members agreed that they mostly support Trump's broad actions as a president, including his handling of unlawful immigration. Most of the participants (all but four), said they voted for Trump in 2020, and that their support for him has not wavered.
"He's keeping his promises and he's doing what he said he was going to do," David L., a 60-year-old Georgia voter who grew up in Mexico, said of Trump.
The group's unison began to crack when the topic of conversation switched to mass deportations, even as they broadly supported Trump's views on immigration. Three of them disapproved of his handling of illegal immigration broadly, while 10 approved.
NBC News noted that the observation may not reflect Latino Trump voters' broad views, because, unlike a poll, which uses statistical methods to demonstrate how a larger population feels, focus groups dig deeper into how individual panelists view key questions facing the country.
"Most of these swing-state, Hispanic American Trump voters firmly endorse the president's focus on illegal immigration, though they want more thoughtful prioritization regarding who gets deported sooner versus later," said Rich Thau, president of Engagious, who moderated the sessions.
That is the case of Mariana L., a 27-year-old North Carolina resident who was born in Venezuela and was one of the participants who did not approve of Trump's handling of undocumented immigration, pointing to his move to revoke certain legal protections for immigrants from her country.
"There's not a direct path," she said about becoming a citizen after being an undocumented immigrant. "Changing those statuses is kind of unfair for the people that built their lives here." Instead, Mariana said, the administration should prioritize deporting undocumented immigrants who committed crimes.
Others, however, agreed with the Trump administration's tactics, regardless of whether undocumented migrants actually committed crimes or not.
"Well, what do you expect? If you came here illegally, you've done something illegal. Expect the consequences," said Justin O. 38, of Nevada, who was born in the U.S. and is of Mexican descent.
"If we're not going to enforce laws, why bother having them?" said Zachary N., 40, of Michigan, who is also of Mexican descent.
But regardless of approval, Trump's immigration policies have seemingly instilled fears in the participants' communities, some noted.
"They're afraid to go out and [they say], 'Don't go out if you're a citizen, don't go out without your citizenship certificate or whatever because you never know,'" Ruby of Georgia, said. "So they're creating that source of fear around the area."
Latinos were a key voting bloc that helped Trump get elected in 2024. According to exit polls, the now-president received 42% of the group's support, a historic and decisive increase for Republicans, despite former Vice President Kamala Harris continuing the Democratic trend of winning the vote by 56%.
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