The Public Sours on the ICE Raids

We already knew that the president’s protean and capricious tariff regime was a problem for this administration. It’s a problem compounded by the president’s undying affection for tariffs. His abiding faith in trade barriers as a panacea for all public ills ensures that, no matter how much the public resents them, they’re not going anywhere.

A similar dynamic is now coming to characterize the mass-deportation regime the president promised on the campaign trail, which voters were fully aware of when they gave him a plurality of the 2024 vote.

As Trump’s discontent with the results produced by New York Times/Siena pollsters indicates, this survey was not great for the president. Trump’s overall job approval rating has fallen to 40 percent — 16 points behind his 56 percent disapproval rating. Moreover, of the ten major issues his administration has tackled, Trump is only in positive territory on one — “the border between the U.S. and Mexico” — and only by 3 percent. But, as with other surveys that break out the issues under the heading “immigration,” this poll found that voters make a distinction between border security and deportations.

When respondents were asked what they think about the tactics deployed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, only 26 percent of registered voters said the agency has taken the “right” approach. Another 11 percent said the agency has “not gone far enough.” But a significant majority, 61 percent, said ICE had “gone too far.” That figure includes almost every self-described Democrat (94 percent) and more than 70 percent of independent voters. Even among self-identified Republicans, only 56 percent expressed faith in ICE’s tactics. And while almost one-quarter of GOP respondents wanted to see ICE go even farther, nearly 20 percent — roughly one in five Republicans — agreed with the majority of Democrats and independents that immigration enforcement had “gone too far.”

For all the president’s hastily published angst, the administration seems to be getting the message that voters are sending:

The voting public is fickle. What they say they’d like to see reflected in public policy doesn’t always match their expectations in practice. Perhaps these dissatisfied voters will reevaluate Trump’s deportation regime more positively once its results are realized. Surely, if the agency’s agents observed a little camera-shyness, or if the administration swore off the theatrical tactics that are designed to create a spectacle, ICE would not be as front of mind as it is right now. But, at the moment, a critical mass of voters is recoiling from Trump’s handling of one of his signature issues.