Washington, DC — New polling and key voices – including from mayors, law enforcement, and Republicans – are highlighting the growing consensus that the mass deportation agenda is going too far and is harming, not helping, public safety and community cohesion priorities.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“A strong majority of the American public reject the violence and militarization that is an essential component of Trump and Stephen Miller’s mass deportation agenda. Anyone watching this unfold knows it has gone too far and is making us less safe. Increasingly, law enforcement, local leaders, and even some Republican voices are condemning the lawless actions of this administration.”
Among the key voices and new polling include:
- Politico ‘Our cities are no longer safe’: GOP mayors condemn Trump immigration enforcement” noting, “A number of Republican mayors are condemning the Trump administration’s hardline immigration enforcement tactics in Minnesota, as they call on the president to pull back from Minneapolis and worry their cities might be next.
“It’s roiling the country,” Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt told POLITICO. “We’re all sort of feeling the angst of our residents and the fear that our city will be next and that chaos is going to inevitably creep across the entire country.”
Fresno, California, Mayor Jerry Dyer said in an interview that “too much damage has been done” with the crackdown and “the trust in communities has been lost.”
And Burnsville, Minnesota, Mayor Elizabeth Kautz, warned that the agency’s current tactics meant “our cities are no longer safe.”
- Associated Press: “Mayors warn that Trump’s hardline immigration tactics could dent trust in law enforcement,” Leirion Gaylor Baird, mayor of Lincoln, NE said: “When trust is lost in how laws are being enforced in one city, we feel the risks to our police officers and to our residents in all cities.”
- Boston Globe, “‘We don’t do that’: Police distance themselves from US immigration agents’ conduct,” noting, “Before Mark Dion became the mayor of Portland, Maine’s largest city, he was a police officer. Over his 32-year career, including more than a decade as the sheriff of Cumberland County, he occasionally worked alongside ICE agents operating in the state … Footage from around the country shows masked federal agents — often wearing plainclothes, paramilitary gear, or vests that say “police” — deploying en masse, arresting people who appear to lack criminal records, and clashing with protesters in conspicuous shows of force. That’s a big change from how Dion remembers agents behaving, and from how he approached his own police work. “When I was a detective and I went out with an ICE agent, it was incredibly low-key, and the goal was to go in, do our work, and leave,” he said. “We didn’t wear masks.”
- America’s Voice, “Minnesota Law Enforcement Leaders: ICE Operations and Mass Deportation Crusade Are Harming Public Safety,” featuring a quote from Hennepin County, MN Sheriff Dawanna S. Witt, who said: “The trust is fragile right now, and it is an essential element to public safety. Today that trust is being damaged, broken by the questionable and sometimes unethical actions of some — some — federal agents, particularly in these last recent weeks.”
Fresh Polling: Mass Deportation and ICE Going Too Far and Making Us Less Safe
YouGov: “Overall, is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) making Americans more or less safe?”
- 52% “less safe”, 29% “more safe”, 19% either “neither” or “not sure”
Fox News poll: “Is “ICE being too aggressive in its efforts to deport illegal immigrants, not aggressive enough, or about right?”
- 59% “too aggressive,” 17% “not aggressive enough” and 24% “about right.
- The 59% majority is a jump of 10 percentage points since a July 2025 Fox poll, when the same question found 49% said “too aggressive”, 24% said “not aggressive enough” and 27% said “about right”
- The 59% majority in the new poll who said “too aggressive” included 88% of Democrats, 71% of Independents and 27% of Republicans
Politico poll: “Overall, do you think President Trump’s mass deportations campaign — including his widespread deployment of ICE agents across the U.S. — has been too aggressive, or not aggressive enough?”
- 49% “too aggressive” vs. 11% “not aggressive enough” and 30% “about right.”
- As the poll writeup noted, among the 49% plurality included “1 in 5 voters who backed the president in 2024.”
Also see additional recent polling on “too far” and “less safe” in this AV poll recap HERE
