How do Americans feel about President Trump’s immigration policy?

New survey finds strong partisan division

A recent survey of more than 30,000 Americans across all 50 states found 37% approval for President Trump’s immigration policy, with a stark 67-point gap between Republicans and Democrats (11% of Democrats approve, compared to 78% of Republicans). 

The survey, led by Harvard Kennedy School researcher Matthew Baum, the Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications, along with researchers from Northeastern University, Rutgers University, and the University of Rochester, measured attitudes around immigration policy along lines of party and identity. 

How do Americans feel about ICE, workplace raids, and using the military in deportations? 

There are wide partisan divisions in approval for ICE’s actions, workplace raids, and the role of the military in deportation.

• Approval for ICE’s enforcement of immigration laws has just 33% approval, with another wide gap. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans approve, compared to 9% of Democrats.
• There is 31% support for ICE workplace raids (62% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats).
• There is 34% support for using the military to assist with deportations (64% of Republican, 15% of Democrats).

What patterns exist along geographic lines?

• Approval for President Trump’s immigration policy also varies widely by state—such as the 22-percentage point gap between Hawaii’s approval (28%) and Idaho’s (50%).
• Northern Plains and Mountain West States (like Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas) are more likely to approve of enforcement, whereas Pacific Coast states and Vermont are the least likely to approve. The South is more varied, with the Deep South states having higher support of enforcement and the border states registering as more moderate.
• States with higher support for enforcement tend to have the lowest rates of personal connection to immigrants.
• States with the most personal connection to immigrants have the least support for aggressive tactics. 

Where does the partisan gap shrink?

The wide gap shrinks when Americans are asked to consider specific circumstances:

• Nationally, there’s just 31% support for such as deporting undocumented immigrants who work, hold no criminal records, and have lived in the United States for years. Just under half of Republicans support this (49%).    
• There’s also 59% overall national support for birthright citizenship (which, by the Fourteenth Amendment, declares that children born in the United States are citizens), and no state has less than 46% support.

How do people connect to these issues? 

• While 24% of Americans overall worry that a family member or close friend could be deported, these fears vary by race and ethnicity. Forty-two percent of Hispanic Americans, 36% of Asian Americans, and 28% of Black Americans, compared to 20% of white Americans report worry about a friend or family member’s deportation.
• There’s very little partisan difference in people reporting that they know someone who is undocumented (18% of Democrats, 16% of Republicans and Independents), but there are splits by race and ethnicity: 31% of Hispanic Americans say they know someone who is undocumented, compared to 15% of white Americans.

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Photograph by David Dee Delgado/Getty Images