Less than a week before Election Day, the verdict is in on Trump’s mass deportation machine—and it keeps getting worse for the administration and every member of Congress who voted for it
No surprise here: President Donald Trump dishonestly sold mass deportation as the path to a safer, more prosperous country, as we noted during the 2024 presidential campaign. Instead, what working families have seen are higher bills, armed masked federal ICE agents stalking their neighborhoods, parents being torn from their children, and community members like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, Renee Good and Alex Pretti killed in the streets.
Trump sold struggling Americans a bill of goods – and now we’re all paying for it. Heading into Election Day, see our updated key takeaways about the immigration public opinion landscape.
MASS DEPORTATION HAS BECOME A MAJOR POLITICAL LIABILITY
We noted in September that Trump’s immigration rating – formerly perceived to be his best performing issue – is in the tank amid the fallout from his bloody and costly agenda. That trend is not relenting, with a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll finding that his approval on the issue is just 38%, a second term low and down 12 points from February 2025. Meanwhile, more than half of Americans, 56%, say the administration has gone too far in deporting immigrants, up from 48% in April 2025.
CRACKS IN HIS OWN COALITION
The public is repelled by a violent and lawless ICE, including members of Trump’s own coalition. One recent poll from Politico/PublicFirst finds that majorities in both MAGA and non-MAGA Trump voters say deportations should prioritize people convicted of serious crimes, but fewer than a quarter in either group would prioritize people with minor offenses. Support drops even further for deporting immigrants with deep roots here, including American children.
ICE OUT NOW
Americans’ support for this out-of-control mass deportation agency continues to melt. In a Pew Research Center poll this month, a majority of Americans, 56%, said they viewed ICE unfavorably, making it the least popular of the 12 federal agencies, including the IRS. Among Latino adults, ICE’s unfavorability has risen from 54% to 67%. Fear has become part of daily life for these voters: 31% say they or someone close to them now carries identification because of ICE, said an NBC News/Telemundo poll. Just days ago, masked agents tackled a U.S. citizen high school student with special needs, leaving him with serious injuries and trauma. “He thought they were going to kill him,” a mentor said. “He thought he was going to die.”
WALLETS EVERYWHERE ARE HURTING
By 62-38%, Americans say that the targeting of immigrant workers is hurting the economy and raising costs, contrary to the administration’s wicked lie that mass deporting millions of our neighbors and their families would be to the financial benefit of U.S.-born Americans. “As businesses have been forced to scale back by the loss of workers and customers, their native-born employees have also paid a price in lost jobs and income,” noted a recent economic report. “The owners of businesses have, of course, lost profits.”
LEGALIZATION, NOT DEPORTATION
No matter the cruel policies coming from the top, Americans across party lines want humane solutions, preferring legal status for long-settled immigrants over mass deportation. In September 2024, voters said it was more important to secure the border over setting up a pathway to citizenship by a 53-43% margin. The public’s priorities have now flipped, with 51% saying it’s more important to legalize their immigrant neighbors, according to an NBC News poll.
REPUBLICANS ARE LOSING LATINO VOTERS
Many Latino voters are personally feeling the severe impact of ICE abductions and have swung sharply away from Republicans, with just 27% approving of Trump and two-thirds saying his immigration enforcement agenda has just gone too far, according to a recent NBC News/Telemundo poll. “He’s doing nothing for us, to benefit us,” said an Arizona Latino who voted for him in 2024 in hopes of an improved economy and de-escalation of U.S. military actions. “And it kind of sucks because I got duped and I feel like a dummy.”
PROMISES MADE, PROMISES BROKEN
“Trump ran on a promise to make America safer and bring costs down for working families,” America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas said during a Wednesday call with leading pollsters. “Instead, he’s built a mass deportation machine that’s tearing families and communities apart, and American families are footing the bill.”
Senior citizens who are already on a fixed income stand to lose $2,152 in Social Security benefits annually starting in 2034 if current immigration policies continue, for example. Older Americans are already struggling enough from high living costs, with one AARP survey finding that nearly half who carry credit card debt are using credit cards to buy food, MPR News reported. In Nebraska, one food bank said at least half of its clients have been seniors.
THE BOTTOM LINE: STOP THE VIOLENCE, MOVE IN A NEW DIRECTION
“For 18 months, Americans have watched this campaign unfold in their own neighborhoods: masked agents raiding workplaces, U.S. citizens handcuffed at gunpoint, families separated, people killed. And they have seen enough,” Cárdenas continued. “Poll after poll across the political spectrum shows the public rejecting the Trump-Miller mass deportation agenda.”
