Washington, DC – Americans have witnessed firsthand the devastation that Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and their congressional allies have brought to their communities through their mass deportation machine. As America’s Voice detailed in its latest memo, that machine has left American citizens arrested, detained, and killed, and families torn apart. At the same time, the ICE tax is destabilizing the economy, driving up prices, and raiding the wallets of every household. The damage is so severe that even some congressional champions of mass deportation are now trying to back away from it. But for the families and communities surviving the consequences, there is no distancing from it.
Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice, issued the following statement:
“Donald Trump and his congressional enablers of the mass deportation machine have left a trail of fear, grief, and higher bills across this country. Every day, Americans watch ICE detain U.S. citizens, tear parents from their children, and kill people in their own neighborhoods. In poll after poll, voters are rejecting this agenda. Latino communities have been demonized and racially profiled, and Latino voters are pushing back. Republicans in Congress now running from mass deportation voted to fund this lawless machine three times. No closing ad can erase that record. Whatever the results tomorrow, the verdict on mass deportation is already in. The next Congress must demand accountability for what this agenda has done to American families and deliver a path to citizenship for immigrants who have built their lives here.”
Cárdenas made the same case this weekend to NBC News, which reported that Latino early turnout has doubled nationwide compared with the 2022 midterms. “The reality is that there’s so much anger and rejection of what Trump is doing,” she said. “Latino voters are going to be a big part of the story of what happens [Tuesday].”
Five reasons mass deportation will shape Tuesday’s results:
- Voters are seeing firsthand what ICE is doing. Federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two American citizens, in Minneapolis this year. More than 500 documented cases show U.S. citizens detained by immigration agents, and Brookings estimates more than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have had a parent detained by ICE.
- Mass deportation is raising costs for American households. America’s Voice’s End the ICE Tax report found the 2025 enforcement surge cost an estimated 668,000 jobs. By 62 to 38 percent, voters say mass deportation is hurting the economy and raising their costs. A follow-up report found that with fewer immigrant workers paying into Social Security, the average retiree’s benefit could be cut by $2,152 a year starting in 2034.
- The mass deportation agenda is underwater. Fifty-six percent of Americans say Trump is going too far on deportations. Democrats now edge Republicans on trust on immigration, an issue Republicans led by double digits before 2024, according to America’s Voice’s October polling memo.
- Latino voters have moved sharply away from Republicans. Latino voters now prefer Democratic control of Congress 59 to 35 percent, double the margin at this point in 2024, according to an NBC News/Telemundo poll.
- Republicans who championed it cannot run from it now. Vulnerable Republicans spent the final weeks cutting ads and issuing statements to distance themselves from the crackdown. But their voting records tell a different story: they funded it three separate times, starting with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that multiplied ICE’s funding.
Read America’s Voice’s latest memo, “Why Mass Deportation Has Put the House Out of Reach for Republicans,” here.
