Donald Trump speaks during a stop at the Machine Shed restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa, on January 27, 2026. | Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images

When President Donald Trump launched his deportation campaign last January, he had the American public at his back.

Under Joe Biden, unauthorized border crossings had soared to record levels — and threw America into a nativist mood. In November 2024, a CBS News/You Gov poll found 57 percent of Americans expressing support for “a national program to find and deport all immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally,” while 73 percent said that the next president should make deportations a priority.

The Trump White House was happy to oblige. And during its first months in office, the public seemed pleased with its efforts. In early 2025, voters approved of Trump’s handling of immigration by as much as 12 points, while favoring his “program to deport immigrants illegally in the US” by 16.

Immigration was the foundation of Trump’s political strength — the issue where he consistently enjoyed the trust of a supermajority of Americans.

And he squandered it within a year.

Key takeaways

Once, the phrase “Trump’s immigration policy” evoked images of order in the American imagination: a wall ringing the nation’s borders, migrant panhandlers and criminals airbrushed from city streets.

Today, those words conjure much different pictures — of masked paramilitaries pepper-spraying protesters, breaking into people’s homes, tearing parents from their crying children, and pumping bullets into American citizens.

Voters do not like what they see. Trump’s approval on immigration is now underwater by 12 points. Americans disapprove of his “deportation program” by 8 points and say ICE is making communities “less safe” rather than “more safe” by 21. Not long ago, “Abolish ICE” was among the most politically toxic propositions in American politics. Now, 46 percent of voters — including one-fifth of Republicans — support the idea, according to a recent YouGov poll.

Until this week, the White House evinced little concern for its immigration agenda’s collapsing support. When an ICE agent needlessly shot a 37-year-old mother to death in Minneapolis in early January, the Trump administration immediately rallied to the shooter’s defense. When Border Patrol agents were caught on video Saturday firing 10 bullets into the back of a protester, the Department of Homeland Security swiftly smeared the victim as a domestic terrorist, effectively asking Americans to trust........

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