Poll Finds Half of Americans Say Trump’s Deportation Push Is Too Aggressive

Evelyn Hockstein / REUTERS The Trump administration’s push to keep ICE out of the headlines before the midterms does not appear to have convinced voters, with half of Americans saying its immigration crackdown is still too aggressive.

After the White House faced bipartisan backlash over the killings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents earlier this year, President Donald Trump ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Her successor, Markwayne Mullin, pledged to make the White House’s mass deportation campaign more discreet, including by making fewer arrests in public.

He also threw Noem under the bus by publicly calling her signature billion-dollar warehouse crusade a mistake in humiliating testimony .

But with less than three months until the midterm elections, a Politico poll published Wednesday suggests the makeover has failed to shift public opinion.

Half of Americans, including nearly a quarter of Trump’s 2024 voters, still say the 80-year-old president’s immigration campaign is too aggressive, according to Politico.

That figure is “virtually unchanged” from polling in January and April, when outrage mounted over federal agents killing U.S. citizens Renee Good, 37, and Alex Pretti, 37.

Non-MAGA Trump voters are more than twice as likely as self-identified MAGA voters to believe that Trump’s mass deportation campaign has gone too far, with 31 percent describing it as too aggressive compared with 15 percent of MAGA voters, according to the poll conducted from Aug.

8 to Aug.

12.

The findings point to a potential vulnerability for Republicans heading into the November midterms on an issue that has traditionally been a source of strength for the party.

“Voters really did want border security, but they did not want to see abuelita taken away because she’s been here for 40 years but without documentation,” Arizona-based GOP strategist Barrett Marson told Politico.

The poll, conducted by London-based polling firm Public First, found a notable proportion of Americans have noticed the administration’s attempts to change course.

But those changes have done little to improve trust.