Trump's Mass Deportation Tactics Grow Unpopular Among Voters and Lawmakers As ICE Raids Escalate: Report

The Trump administration has recently focused on its immigration tactics, pushing for mass deportations and raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But, after voters recently took to the streets to show their anger over the controversial immigration policies, it seems that the president is losing political ground on immigration.

The recent trend, originally reported by The Wall Street Journal, follows days of unrest in Los Angeles after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest ICE workplace raids in the area. Those demonstrations, which resulted in dozens of arrests, later inspired thousands of protests nationwide in a historic series of marches titled "No Kings."

As a result, Republican members of Congress from California, Texas and Florida have publicly urged the White House to give priority to deportations of criminals rather than migrants who have resided in the U.S. for long periods and have otherwise obeyed the law.

For instance, the chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, Rep. Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.), called the farm raids "just wrong." The co-founder of Latinas for Trump, Florida state Sen. Ileana Garcia, wrote on X that the administration's actions were "unacceptable and inhumane" and "not what we voted for."

But members of Congress are not the only ones seemingly abandoning Trump's views and tactics on handling unlawful immigration. In fact, a Quinnipiac poll earlier this month found that just 43% approved of Trump's performance on immigration, while 54% disapproved. On deportations, 40% approved while 56% disapproved.

Notably, on Thursday, Trump blasted a Fox News poll showing that 53% of voters disapproved of his handling of immigration, posting on his social-media platform: "they are always wrong and negative. It's why MAGA HATES Fox News."

Likewise, in a polling average maintained by the analyst Nate Silver, Trump's immigration policies were popular on a net basis until earlier this month— but are now more unpopular than popular by a 3-point margin. Trump, however, is still viewed more positively on immigration than on the economy and trade.

Democratic pollster Molly Murphy says the recent trend comes because voters have now gotten the chance to see how Trump's policies play out in real life, and they do not like what they see.

"A majority support the policies, a majority oppose the enforcement," she said. People like the idea of tightening the border and cracking down on unlawful immigration, but they view the administration's conduct as capricious and unfair, she said.

"Trump's muscularity on immigration has always been a source of strength, but pulling people out of their homes and workplaces and schools seems cruel," she said.

Other experts say the recent increase in ICE raids and immigration enforcement are unprecedented, and while voters do not approve of border chaos, extreme interior enforcement is even less popular.

"We are witnessing a level of interior immigration enforcement the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression," Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, who opposes the administration's policies, told The Wall Street Journal. "Nobody likes border chaos, and that was a big reason voters supported Donald Trump in 2024. But interior enforcement is much less popular than border enforcement because it's socially and economically disruptive."