President Donald Trump ran on a bold immigration approach to undo the harm caused by the Biden Administration’s disastrous open borders policies and years of neglect of the law that left criminals and gang members roaming through U.S. cities for decades despite legal orders to leave.
In March 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began ramping up the deportation of illegal immigrants, prioritizing those with criminal records and beginning by targeting “sanctuary cities” that limit cooperation with federal agents and shield criminals.
Throughout the spring and summer, ICE deportations steadily climbed. In March, ICE arrested 18,877 illegal aliens. The Trump Administration crossed the 20,000 threshold for total arrests within a single month in May, arresting 22,636 illegals. It crossed the 30,000 threshold in June with 30,436 arrests. July and August both saw over 50,000 arrests.
The Department of Homeland Security also reported in August that since President Donald Trump has taken office, more than 3 million illegal aliens have left the United States voluntarily. DHS notes that staying in U.S. detention centers is a choice, as the United States offers streamlined self-deportation with the CBP Home App.
Democrats have been saying for years that the GOP’s approach to deport illegal aliens and reverse open borders policies is structurally and politically untenable. But in a year when deportations spiked across the country, Americans are more supportive of President Trump’s immigration agenda than they were in January, according to new polling.
Ten months into 2026, with deportation numbers in July and then August breaking records for the largest numbers of illegal alien arrests, voters are more supportive of President Trump’s handling of immigration than they were in January of this year.
The New York Times/Siena College survey from Sept. 8–13 asked voters to rank President Trump’s performance on a number of issues, including immigration. While 55 percent of voters disapprove of his immigration strategy, 43 percent approve. This translates into a net approval rating of -12 points on immigration.
In the Times/Siena survey from Jan. 12–17, before deportations of illegal aliens began setting records, voters disapproved of President Trump’s immigration agenda by 18 points, 58 percent to 40 percent. As voters observed Trump’s deportation plan in action, more of them came around to supporting it.
Support for Trump’s immigration strategy shifted at the margins across several demographics since January, but the largest shift occurred among non-college voters, indicating that the original demographic concerned with cheap foreign labor and rising crime is more supportive of the president’s immigration agenda now that it is being enacted.
Non-college voters shifted +9 points toward supporting President Trump’s handling of immigration since January, going from 42 percent approval to 51 percent.
Non-college whites shifted five points toward supporting President Trump’s handling of immigration since January, going from 54 percent support to 59 percent. However, it wasn’t only whites. Non-college minorities improved their support for President Trump’s handling of immigration by three points since January, going from 23 percent approval to 26 percent.
While the largest shift occurred among non-college voters, a core Trump demographic, swing voters shifted toward supporting President Trump on immigration at the margins as well.
Voters under age 30 shifted two points toward supporting the president on immigration, going from 24 percent approval to 26 percent. While not a large move, it questions the narrative that immigration policy is driving young people toward the left.
Immigration policy and deportation show a mixed bag in polling, with the mainstream media constantly pushing the narrative that Trump’s immigration policy is pushing away voters who believe it is too radical. In August, Politico published a poll showing that “half of Americans still say the president’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive.” That is exactly what the poll found, though presumably the other half did not think so.
When it comes to deporting illegal aliens who have committed other crimes — which the Department of Homeland Security documents with weekly memos detailing the administration’s commitment to deporting the “worst of the worst” including gang members and those convicted of manslaughter, murder, sexual battery, and spousal injury, among many other crimes —support for deportation skyrockets.
A Harvard-HarrisX survey from May 29–31 found overwhelming support for deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, with voters saying 80 percent to 20 percent that these individuals should be deported. Seventy-one percent of Democrats, 90 percent of Republicans, and 79 percent of independents support mass deportation for criminal illegals.
The reality is polls consistently show about half of Americans reject the president’s core immigration premise — that deportation of criminals must be enacted to make the country safer — and about half support it. This is not surprising; a little over half the country voted for President Trump, who made it clear that mass deportations were on the agenda. What is interesting is that as mass deportations have been carried out, support has not deteriorated, instead it has slightly risen.
While polling continues to show a mixed bag of views on immigration, the data shows that Republicans have suffered very little political repercussion for supporting mass deportations, despite vehement warnings from Democrats. The people wanted a reversal of the Biden-era mass influx of illegal aliens, and they voted for exactly that in 2024. Disapproval of President Trump’s immigration policy has decreased, not increased, over the past ten months, which saw record-high numbers of arrests and deportations.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
