A new Wall Street Journal poll shows GOP voters are evenly divided on whether President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is just right or not aggressive enough.
The survey, conducted July 16–20 among 1,500 registered voters, found strong overall support for Trump’s push to deport illegal aliens. However, some expressed discomfort with the administration’s methods.
While 62% of Americans support deporting illegal aliens, majorities oppose two central tools of the Trump effort: bypassing immigration courts and deporting individuals to prisons in countries like El Salvador and South Sudan.
About half of the respondents approved of Trump’s overall handling of illegal immigration. Among Republicans, that figure jumped to 88%, with just 11% saying the President has gone too far. However, the party is split between those who say Trump’s approach is “about right” and those who say it “does not go far enough.”
According to a recent U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) update, June saw just 25,228 total “encounters” nationwide, the lowest monthly number in the CBP’s history.
While the crackdown has been a central promise of Trump’s presidency, the implementation has stirred backlash. Nearly 60% of independents in the WSJ poll said the administration has overreached, particularly when immigrants are deported without due process or in defiance of court orders.
“You have masked people going to schools… people getting rounded up and put on planes,” said Dima Shportylyuk, a registered Republican in North Carolina who voted for Trump. “This is definitely not what I can say in good conscience is what we should be doing.”
Shportylyuk, a Ukrainian immigrant who became a citizen in 2012, added, “I don’t like how this is being disguised as the rule of law.”
Critics have also pointed to ICE raids at schools, churches, hospitals, and courtrooms, as well as arrests involving smashed car windows and masked agents. Just over one-third of voters believe the administration is targeting illegal aliens with criminal records, while 62% say deportations appear indiscriminate.
Still, Trump’s core message continues to resonate with much of his party.
“I support him escorting them out… If people came here illegally, they shouldn’t be here,” said Shannon Snyder, a former Democrat in Fortuna, California, who now leans libertarian and backed Trump in November.
The administration has moved to sharply curtail legal immigration in several additional areas, including the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals. TPS has been canceled for recipients from Afghanistan, Haiti, Venezuela, Nepal, Honduras, Cameroon, and Nicaragua. Most of these decisions—many of which are tied up in federal litigation—are set to take effect between late summer and early next year.
Support for Trump’s policies was not merely the province of Republicans. Even among Democrats, a small but notable segment backs Trump’s actions on immigration—or believes they should go further. 3% reportedly told WSJ that Trump had not gone far enough, and 5% said his policies were about right. Overall, though, more than 90% of Democratic voters believe the administration has crossed a line.
“People were loving when the criminals were being booted,” Democratic pollster John Anzalone told the Journal. “But they don’t want disruption in good neighborly people being rounded up and shipped off.”
The poll, conducted by Anzalone and Republican Tony Fabrizio, has a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points.