Support slipping for Trump immigration push as majority say crackdown ‘goes too far’: poll
President Donald Trump's approval ratings on tackling illegal immigration dropped to a new low as a majority of Americans say the crackdown by federal agents has gone too far, according to a new national poll.
The survey, by Reuters/Ipsos, was conducted Friday through Sunday, both before and after federal immigration agents fatally shot a second U.S. citizen who was protesting enforcement operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The poll is the latest national survey to spotlight the deterioration of Trump's approval on immigration and flagging support for aggressive enforcement operations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Thirty-nine percent of adults nationwide questioned in the poll said they approve of the job the president's doing on immigration, with 53% disapproving.
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The president's approval on the issue stands at its lowest level in Reuters/Ipsos polling since Trump returned to the White House a year ago. In February of last year, weeks after his second inauguration as president, Trump stood at 50% approval and 41% disapproval on immigration, as he quickly shut down the flow of migrants across the nation's southern border with Mexico.
Illegal immigration, with Trump promising a massive surge in deportations of undocumented migrants, was a key issue that boosted Trump and the GOP to decisive ballot box victories in 2024, as they won back the White House and Senate and successfully defended their razor-thin House majority.
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But the fatal shootings of Renee Good, a mother of three, earlier this month, and nurse Alex Pretti this past weekend, as they protested aggressive actions by masked federal agents carrying out immigration operations, sparked national debate and demonstrations, further inflaming political tensions over Trump's mass deportation push.
"The approval for Donald Trump on an issue that worked for him, immigration, is down and going down further," University of Minnesota public affairs professor Larry Jacobs told Fox News Digital.
Jacobs said that the "cracking down on illegal immigration, the conduct of ICE, has squandered the advantage" in public opinion that Trump once enjoyed.
A veteran Republican strategist who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely told Fox News Digital that "the missteps have turned a plus into either a neutral issue or a net negative at best. People don’t like illegal immigration, but they are also troubled by the tactics that they’re seeing."
Pretti was shot and killed on Saturday by Border Patrol agents while recording federal immigration operations in Minneapolis.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials initially said Pretti, who was legally armed with a handgun, was threatening agents, who they say fired in self-defense. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled the actions of Pretti as "domestic terrorism" and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called him a "would-be assassin."
Videos of the shooting depict Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA Hospital, appearing to attend to a woman agents had knocked down when he was sprayed with an irritant, pushed to the ground and beaten. On the ground, bystanders said he was brandishing a cell phone rather than his weapon, and an agent was seen pulling Pretti's gun from his waistband before other agents fired several shots and killed him.
"The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting," Pretti's family wrote in a statement obtained by the AP. "Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you."
Fifty-eight percent of poll respondents said federal immigration agents have gone "too far" in their crackdown, with 12% saying they had not gone far enough and 26% said the agents' efforts were "about right."
There was an expected wide partisan divide, with roughly nine in 10 Democrats and six in 10 independents saying the agents have gone too far, compared to just two in 10 Republicans.
Fox News Digital's Alexandra Koch contributed to this report.