While masked abductions and festering detention camps may thrill Stephen Miller, the rest of us are recoiling
Americans are watching the chaos and cruelty of Donald Trump’s bloody mass deportation agenda – and they are hating it. Just look at a slew of recent polling numbers from this month alone on what’s supposed to be the administration’s strongest issue. Every single one shows disapproval when it comes to its handling – or rather, mangling – of immigration policy.
Think of the masked kidnapping of college student Rümeysa Öztürk over a college paper op-ed that the administration simply didn’t like. Think of the violent arrest of Narciso Barranco, the dad of three U.S. Marines, while he was gardening outside an IHOP. While he’s now been released from custody, one of his sons says he’s been traumatized by the experience. Think of the new Everglades detention camp in Florida, where visiting lawmakers say they saw “wall-to-wall humans.”
So while masked abductions of landscapers and festering immigration detention camps may grotesquely thrill mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller (remember he said he’d been dreaming of a piece of legislation like the big, ugly budget bill “my entire life”), everyday Americans are recoiling.
CBS/YouGov’s poll finds 56-44% disapproval of Trump on immigration. It was evenly divided, 50-50%, just the previous month:
Reuters/Ipsos’ poll finds 51-41% disapproval of Trump on immigration. In May, Reuters/Ipsos found 47-45% approval of Trump on immigration:
Trump’s mangling of immigration gets even more unpopular when key details of his mass deportation agenda are included.
CNN’s poll finds that nearly 60% of Americans oppose “arresting and detaining undocumented immigrants who have resided in the United States for years with no criminal record.” Narciso Barranco, the dad who was brutally arrested while working a landscaping job outside a local IHOP last month, has called the U.S. his home for three decades. “My dad worked seven days a week so we could have a better life,” said his son Alejandro, who testified to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee this week. “He taught us to respect this country. He cried when I enlisted.”
The polling numbers echo “a theme seen in much immigration polling this year — support for immigration enforcement tends to erode when pollsters specify that people without criminal records or longtime residents will be among those affected,” CNN said.
Quinnipiac’s poll finds disapproving numbers for both Trump and the masked, out-of-control agency carrying out his cruel agenda. Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of deportations by a 59-38% margin, while Americans disapprove of “the way U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is enforcing immigration laws” by a 57-39% margin (it was a 56-39% “disapprove” margin in June). CBS’ poll finds that Americans disapprove of the way the administration is using detention facilities by a 58-42% margin. Expect that gap to grow even wider, now that private prisons are poised to massively profit under the big, ugly budget’s mass detention funding.
Meanwhile, just like it did during the first Trump term, when public sentiment shifted in a decidedly pro-immigrant direction, we’re again seeing the backlash but on an even larger scale. Recent Gallup polling finds that 79% of respondents – including a majority of Republicans – recognize that immigration is a “good thing” for the country, a record-high in its polling. “The same poll finds many more Americans disapproving than approving of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration.”
This all matters because mainstream media has “largely covered Trump as carrying out a popular immigration agenda, and that framing is useful to the White House in defending its agenda,” as data journalist G. Elliott Morris wrote in April. “The reality, though, is that what Trump is doing is not popular, once you dive into the specifics.” One example is Trump’s obsession with Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego García. “Trump’s immigration approval fell after a spike in Garcia headlines,” Morris noted in June.
New polls show Americans don't want mass deportations. www.gelliottmorris.com/p/americans-…
— G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris.com) 2025-07-21T12:30:47.412Z
As America’s Voice Research Associate Yuna Oh and Joe Sudbay noted last year, mass deportation is a kitchen table issue that is worth talking about. When you’re abducting farmworkers and food prices go up, mass deportation is a kitchen table issue (good luck with that Medicaid recipient back-up plan). When you’re abducting construction workers and making the housing market even more unreachable for working families, mass deportation is a kitchen table issue. When you’re ripping breadwinners from their American children, mass deportation is a kitchen table issue.
A strong majority of the public, including Latino voters, are consistent in what they want: order at the border, enforcement targeted at actual public safety threats, legal channels for hardworking individuals and a process for Dreamers and long-settled immigrants to become U.S. citizens
— Vanessa Cardenas (@vcardenas.bsky.social) 2025-07-22T19:10:06.787Z
“The more Americans witness the Trump/Miller mass deportation agenda to purge America of immigrants, the more they reject it,” responds America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. “A strong majority of the public, including Latino voters, are consistent in what they want: order at the border, enforcement targeted at actual public safety threats, legal channels for hardworking individuals and a process for Dreamers and long-settled immigrants to become U.S. citizens – not targets for detention or deportation.”
