Washington, DC — With renewed focus on how immigration tensions are roiling Republicans and how Democrats are repositioning themselves on immigration for the Trump era, a new America’s Voice memo, available in full online here, examines the American public’s updated views on immigration.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice,
“The American public increasingly rejects the mass deportation assault by the Trump Administration. At the same time, it is also clear that despite this Administration’s extreme and cruel overreach, pro-immigrant policymakers and allies still have work to do to earn Americans’ trust. They need to show not just what they are against but also what they are for and credibly articulate a vision on immigration and border security solutions. Most Americans, including Latino voters, are telling us what they want: they reject the mass deportation agenda and favor a balanced approach pairing border security with a path to legal status.”
As detailed in the new America’s Voice memo, available in full online here, a deep-dive on recent immigration polling reveals five key lessons on immigration (each explored in detail and with numerous public polls and analysis to substantiate in full memo):
- Trump’s immigration approval is underwater, mass deportation is unpopular and Americans are recoiling from witnessing it in action. While Trump’s overall immigration approval is now underwater in polling, his administration’s deportation agenda is particularly unpopular. For example, June 2025 polling from the Washington Post/Schar School found that Americans disapprove of “the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations,“ by a 52-37% margin. And a Gallup poll shows that the majority of voters – some 62% – disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration.
- Latino voters in particular are hostile to mass deportations. For example, an Equis/Data for Progress poll of more than 2,500 registered Hispanic voters found that by “a wide 66-29 margin they believe Trump’s ‘actions are going too far and targeting the types of immigrants who strengthen our nation.’”
- When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation. For example, Quinnipiac University from late June 2025 found that by a 64-31% margin, Americans prefer giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status vs. “deporting most undocumented immigrants in the United States.” In a December 2024 Quinnipiac poll, the margin was 55-36% – a 14-percentage point change in favor of legalization in recent months.
- Trump’s growing unpopularity on immigration doesn’t mean Democrats are trusted on immigration. Those opposed to the Trump and Miller immigration vision must re-establish credibility on the issue by defining real solutions and connecting with Americans’ broader immigration sentiments. For example, Third Way national/battleground district polling (released May 2025) found, “Democrats started with a 30-point deficit when voters were asked which party they trusted to handle immigration, which grew to a whopping 41 points when it came to border security specifically.”
- The American public – including Latino voters – prefer a balanced immigration approach, pairing border security and a path to legal status, rather than Trump/Miller’s enforcement-only and mass deportation vision. For example, just released Navigator national polling (conducted by GSG/GBAO) found that in a split-sample question testing descriptions of a balanced approach to immigration against a description of the enforcement-only and mass deportation option, Americans preferred the balanced approach by a 66-25% margin (including 44-14% among those who feel “strongly”) and a 59-33% margin (including 39-22% among those who feel “strongly”) respectively.
Read the full America’s Voice July polling memo, “Americans Increasingly Reject Mass Deportation, Support Legal Status and Balanced Solutions”
