By America’s Voice | Editorial credit: Phil Pasquini / Shutterstock.com

Washington, DC – Support for President Trump on immigration in general and deportations in particular have continued to decline in recent months and since our April polling and political memo released at the 100 days mark. Images of masked ICE agents violently detaining U.S. citizens and longtime residents have spread; industry voices and business analysts have highlighted the economic catastrophe of mass deportation; and communities in both red and blue states have rallied in opposition to the detentions and deportations of Dreamers and other long-settled immigrants. Latino voters in particular, including some Trump voters, are viscerally opposed to watching the unsparing mass deportations in action.

Yet despite the majority opposition to the Trump and Stephen Miller vision on immigration, Democrats and other pro-immigrant policymakers and allies still have work to do to earn Americans’ trust that they can credibly deliver on immigration and border security solutions. In response, there are a growing set of approaches that aim to do exactly that, leaning in and addressing immigration and presenting an alternative vision that takes into account the political moment, the policy challenges, and where the majority of the American public is (examples:  CAP Immigration Framework and Gallego Immigration Framework and a recent Vanessa Cárdenas op-ed). 

Below are five key takeaways about the current immigration public opinion landscape (see detailed polling evidence for each of the points in the following pages):

• Trump’s immigration approval is underwater, mass deportation is unpopular and Americans are recoiling from witnessing it in action
• Latino voters in particular are hostile to mass deportations
• When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation
• Trump’s growing unpopularity on immigration doesn’t mean Democrats are trusted to handle 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
• 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 

Point 1: Trump’s immigration approval is underwater, mass deportation is unpopular and Americans are recoiling from witnessing it in action.An array of recent polls find that President Trump is “underwater” on overall immigration approval:

• Pew Research poll of more than 5,000 Americans (June 2025): 47% disapprove and 42% approve of the Trump administration’s “overall approach to immigration.”
• Quinnipiac Poll (June 2025): When asked to gauge Trump’s handling of “immigration issues,” Americans disapprove by a 57-41% margin.
• Fox News (June 2025): By a 53-46% margin, Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance on “immigration”
• AP-NORC (June 2025): By a 53-46% margin, Americans disapprove of Trump on immigration, including 62-33% disapproval among Independents.

The “why” behind the underwater immigration approval likely includes the Trump administration’s high-profile deportations without due process and related refusals to abide by court rulings (see deeper dive on Americans’ strong opposition from AV’s 100 Days political and polling memo). And Americans are increasingly witnessing the broad harm and indiscriminate scope of who is being targeted by this administration’s deportation agenda – including U.S. citizens and deeply-rooted immigrants — and the potential effect on all Americans.

In a Wall Street Journal analysis, “Trump Is Losing Political Ground on Immigration,” Molly Ball interviewed pollster Molly Murphy, who recapped: “‘People like the idea of tightening the border and cracking down on illegal immigration, but they view the administration’s conduct as capricious and unfair … Trump’s muscularity on immigration has always been a source of strength, but pulling people out of their homes and workplaces and schools seems cruel.’ In her surveys, Americans, by a 40-point margin, oppose deporting people without due process or in violation of a court order and conducting raids at churches, schools and hospitals.”

Recent polls capture that Trump’s “deportation” agenda is particularly unpopular, especially when details are included:

• Washington Post/Schar School (June 2025): Americans disapprove of “the way President Trump is handling immigration enforcement, including deportations,“ by a 52-37% margin.
• Quinnipiac Poll (June 2025): When asked to gauge Trump’s handling of “deportations,” Americans disapprove by a 59-39% margin. The same poll also found that by a 56-39% margin, voters disapprove of how the “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is doing its job.

As Aaron Blake assessed for CNN, “While Americans strongly favor the broad concept of deporting undocumented immigrants, that comes with some real caveats. People love the idea of deporting criminals and recent border-crossers. Polls suggest they do not like the idea of deporting” longstanding workers, community members, and Dreamers.

When more specifics about deportation and who this administration is targeting are included in the poll question, the numbers look worse for Trump. 

• Marquette Law poll (May 2025): Marquette Law found a 48-percentage point swing in Americans’ support for deportation when details were included in the poll question about the scope of enforcement. The poll asked a split-sample question that gauged support for deporting “immigrants who are living in the United States illegally” vs. a second split sample adding the phrase,  “even if they have lived here for a number of years, have jobs and no criminal record?” In the May 2025 version of the poll, Americans opposed mass deportations by 58-42% when fuller details were included, while the other half of the split sample found 66-34% support for deporting those here illegally.

• Wall Street Journal (April 2025) asked a split sample question that captures the core dynamic – narrow support for Trump’s deportation efforts plummet to near 2:1 opposition when details of targeting long residing immigrants are included: The WSJ found 53-45% support among the sample asked about the Trump administration effort to “detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.” Yet the WSJ also found 63-33% opposition among the sample asked about the effort to “detain and deport undocumented immigrants if they have lived in the U.S. for 10 or more years, pay taxes on earnings, and have no criminal record.”
• Pew Research (March 2025) found broad and overwhelming opposition to deporting immigrants who are parents and spouses of U.S. citizens, Dreamers, and undocumented immigrant workers. Pew found while 97% support deporting those who have committed violent crimes and there is 68-30% support for deporting those who have committed nonviolent crimes, 56% oppose deporting those who have a job (41% support), 60% oppose deporting those who are parents of children born in the U.S.  (37% support), 68% oppose deporting those who came to the U.S. as a child (30% support) and 78% oppose deporting the spouse of a U.S. citizen (20% support).

Point 2: Latino voters in particular are hostile to mass deportations

• Equis/Data for Progress poll of more than 2,500 registered Hispanic voters (May 2025): “On immigration, Latinos are still security-conscious, but believe Trump has gone too far on deportations … 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”, ahead of believing his actions are “good and fair… If some people who are not criminals suffer because of it, it’s the price to pay to ensure our safety.” Even 36% of Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 say he “has gone too far.”

• Bipartisan polling from BSP Research and Shaw & Co (April 2025) released by UnidosUS, UnidosUS, Voces Unidas, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and Climate Power en Acción in late April, found that, as UnidosUS noted: “78% of Latino voters believe it is important to deport dangerous criminals, but that President Trump and congressional Republicans should not target long-residing undocumented immigrants without criminal records.”
• Latino Community Foundation and Voto Latino poll of Latino voters (April 2025): per USA Today found, “around 63% of Latino voters surveyed believe the Trump administration has ‘gone too far’ in trying to stop illegal immigration and deporting undocumented migrants. Also, about 45% of those polled are worried that someone close to them will be deported.”

Point 3: When gauged head-to-head, legal status for undocumented immigrants is decidedly more popular than mass deportation. Americans consistently prefer a path to legal status instead of mass deportation – and are measurably swinging in favor of legal status in recent months.

• Navigator national polling (conducted by GSG/GBAO, July 2025): By a 63-27% margin, Americans prefer, “Having a process by which undocumented immigrants who can pass a background check and have lived in the U.S. since at least 2020 can earn permanent legal status,” over the option of “Mass deportation targeting all illegal immigrants, with the goal of deporting millions of people each year.”
• Quinnipiac University (June 2025): 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.
• Pew Research (June 2025): By a 65-34% margin, Americans say there “should be a way for immigrants who are currently living in the country illegally to stay legally if certain requirements are met” instead of “undocumented immigrants should not be allowed to stay in the country legally.”
  • Among the two-thirds supporting legal status, a plurality of 36% support a path to U.S. citizenship while 29% support “permanent residency, but not U.S. citizenship.”

Point 4: Trump’s growing unpopularity on immigration doesn’t mean Democrats are trusted to handle 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  

• 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. Those numbers clocked in as the lowest trust level on any issue we tested, three times as big as the trust gap on inflation and four times as big as the gap on the economy.” See prior section for tested “balanced” messaging that offered a way forward to start repairing the trust deficit.
• Way to Win and the Valiente Action Fund polling of likely 2026 voters in key Congressional districts (May 2025) offered a deep dive on immigration sentiment that is worth reading in full. Among the takeaways include the finding that Democrats in Congress remain deeply untrusted on immigration, specifically:
  • Congressional Democrats are a net-58 point negative among key district voters when asked to gauge how they’re handling immigration: 19% positive and 77% negative. By comparison, congressional Republicans were net 11-points negative (43% positive, 54% negative).

Point 5: 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

• Navigator national polling (conducted by GSG/GBAO, July 2025): In a split-sample question Americans were consistent in strongly preferring the federal government pursue a balanced approach to immigration:
  • 66-25% (including 44-14% among those who feel “strongly”) prefer a “balanced approach that fixes our broken immigration system by focusing on deporting those who have committed serious crimes, while still upholding American values like treating people humanely and ensuring due process as protected in the Constitution. This approach would also allow immigrants who have been working, paying taxes, and following the law to apply for legal status,” over, “Focusing on strict enforcement and mass deportation by having ICE target all immigrants who are here illegally for deportation, with the goal of deporting millions of people each year, while investing in border security, detention centers, and increased enforcement to deter future illegal immigration.”
  • 59-33% (including 39-22% among those who feel “strongly”) prefer a “balanced approach that focuses on deporting those who have committed serious crimes, while still upholding American values like treating people humanely and ensuring due process as protected in the Constitution. This approach would also allow immigrants who have been working, paying taxes, and following the law to apply for legal status,” over, “Focusing on strict enforcement and mass deportation by having ICE target all immigrants who are here illegally for deportation, with the goal of deporting millions of people each year, while investing in border security, detention centers, and increased enforcement to deter future illegal immigration.”
• Third Way national/battleground district polling (released May 2025) found that the following “balanced” message received 79% support and outperformed a typical Trump message by 23 points: “Democrats in Congress say that illegal immigration is a problem. They say we are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. We need to restore order at the border and urge immigration judges to process cases so we can decide who can come into our country and send home those who are not eligible under US law. We also need to deport illegal immigrants who have been convicted of violent crimes and create pathways to legal status for people who have been contributing to our communities for years and have a US citizen spouse and children.”
• Way to Win and the Valiente Action Fund polling of likely 2026 voters in key Congressional districts (May 2025) found 53% of swing district voters supported the notion, “President Trump and Republicans have gone too far. We need a functioning border and immigration system, but with enforcement that respects the rights and safety of immigrants, asylum seekers, and American citizens,” while 46% supported, “President Trump and Republicans are on the right track. We need to do whatever is necessary to secure the border, crack down on people coming in illegally, and anyone who broke the law coming here in the first place.”
• Equis/Data for Progress poll of more than 2,500 registered Hispanic voters (May 2025) found strong support for “balanced” solutions. Per the Equis poll summary:
  • “The closest Hispanics get to consensus in this poll is both in (a) support for deporting convicted violent criminals and (b) a belief that mass deportations will punish hard-working people and tear apart families. Enforcement alone is not seen as enough – as is made clear by Trump’s approval rating on immigration and perceptions that his administration has gone too far on deportations. In fact, when forced to rank, only about 1-in-4 Latino voters want Congress to focus on an enforcement-only approach to immigration.
  • While Latinos have not shed their concerns about border security, it is clear that they think Trump has overreached. What most Latinos say they want is a fair and balanced approach that both makes their communities safer (by improving security at the border to stop illegal crossings and drugs and deporting violent criminals) and protects law-abiding, hard-working immigrants (protecting them from deportation and defending a working asylum process).”