Immigration Attitudes Public Opinion Turns Against Administration Policies

• ICE enforcement disapproval rose in our February 2026 wave across every partisan, age, and gender group. Overall disapproval rose from 52.9% to 59.2% nationally (+6.3 pts), while approval fell from 32.6% to 29.6% (-3.0 pts). Among Independents, ICE disapproval surpassed 64%, rising +5.6 pts. • Approval of Trump’s immigration handling fell from 37.4% to 35.6% nationally (-1.8 pts), while disapproval became an absolute majority at 54.4%, up +5.6 pts. Even among Republicans, disapproval of Trump’s immigration handling rose +3.4 pts. •The 55 and over age group showed the largest enforcement disapproval increases of any age cohort. Notably, ICE disapproval rose +8.3 pts to 58.9%, and Trump immigration disapproval rose+7.7 pts to 54.3%. These are counter-intuitive findings given older Americans’ historically stronger immigration enforcement support. •Men showed significantly lower levels of enforcement disapproval than women in both waves, though the change in disapproval across waves was somewhat larger for men than women. Male ICE disapproval rose +8.0 pts versus +4.8 pts for women; male Trump immigration disapproval rose +6.8 pts versus +4.5 pts for women. •Agreement that undocumented immigrants take jobs from US citizens or keep wages low declined modestly across most groups. Agreement that enforcement mainly targets violent criminals—a claim central to the administration’s public justification for its policies—fell among Independents while rising among Republicans, indicating growing partisan divergence in basic factual assessments of enforcement. •Immigration salience remained high and broadly stable approximately two-thirds of Americans across all partisan and demographic groups rated immigration as important in both waves, with no group changing by more than 3 percentage points.