Most immigrants in the United States, 60 percent, support President Trump’s efforts at the southern border, where illegal crossings have slowed to a trickle, according to a new survey of immigrants from The New York Times and KFF, a nonprofit that conducts polling and research about health policy.
At the same time, the survey found, fewer immigrants approve of the tactics used to carry out raids beyond the border. The share who think enforcement has been too tough has nearly doubled in the last two years.
The survey, conducted from August to October of this year, provides a rare comprehensive look at how America’s foreign-born population — citizens and noncitizens — views the state of immigration enforcement as the Trump administration continues efforts to ramp up detentions and deportations on a mass scale.
Mr. Trump’s actions at the U.S.-Mexico border — where his administration has limited the ability to claim asylum and has brought down the number of migrants crossing illegally — are largely popular with immigrants. Among the notable findings in the survey, 39 percent of immigrants who disapprove of Mr. Trump’s job performance nevertheless said they support his efforts on border security.
But just 28 percent of all immigrants approve of officers in masks and plainclothes, and 16 percent approve of deporting people to countries where they are not from, according to the survey. Even immigrants who otherwise approve of Mr. Trump’s deportation campaign feel his approach has gone too far.
“Not everyone who comes to the country is bad, but not everyone who comes to the country is good, either,” said Eulalia Lena, who was born in Ecuador but has lived in the United States for 21 years and said she had recently become a U.S. citizen. “Trump is trying to keep the bad ones out. And that’s good for all of us.”
Ms. Lena added: “Unfortunately, he’s not just keeping the bad ones out. He’s also been targeting good, hardworking people.”
Even as Mr. Trump’s policies at the border prove relatively popular, immigrants are far less likely to approve of the Trump administration’s increasing efforts to deport those living in the United States illegally. About 40 percent of immigrants approve of those efforts.
More of that support comes from immigrants who are citizens, who tend to be more politically conservative than immigrants overall. Still, roughly one-quarter of illegal immigrants say they approve of Mr. Trump’s deportation efforts.
“I’m not in favor of all deportation policies, only those that involve deporting immigrants with criminal records,” said Jiovana, 46, an immigrant from Brazil who said she arrived in the U.S. in August 2016 with her two daughters and her husband and is in the country unlawfully. She spoke on the condition that her last name not be used, citing safety concerns.
“Those who have committed crimes and are here trafficking drugs and people, and harming the community, shouldn’t be able to stay,” she added.
Jiovana volunteers at her daughters’ school and started a home-cleaning business with her husband in Maryland. She said that she had tried to obtain legal status a few years ago but that no lawyer would charge less than $40,000, and none had offered any reassurance that she would succeed.
Asked about immigrants with no criminal background who are being deported, she said she was not afraid of that happening to her, because she and her family were good people.
A little over half of Americans support the idea of deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally back to their home countries, according to polls of the American public taken during a similar window. The Times-KFF poll found that 42 percent of immigrants were in favor of increased efforts to deport those here illegally.
The share of immigrants who think enforcement has been too tough has nearly doubled to 41 percent, up from 19 percent two years ago.
Efforts to end birthright citizenship are also deeply unpopular with immigrants. Nearly three-quarters of immigrants disapprove of efforts to end the practice of granting automatic citizenship to anyone born within U.S. borders, which has been interpreted by courts to be a constitutional right.
Views on many of these matters break down along party lines, though efforts to end birthright citizenship and deporting people to countries where they are not from are unpopular, even among Republican immigrants.
The increasing efforts at immigration enforcement have stirred one common emotion in citizen and noncitizen immigrants alike: a nostalgia for Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s time in office. Half of immigrants — including similar shares of citizens and noncitizens — now say things were better for immigrants under Mr. Biden, a noticeable increase since 2023, when 33 percent of immigrants said they were better off under the then president.
Just 16 percent of immigrants say immigrants are better off with Mr. Trump in office. One-third of immigrants say it is no different.
Bianca Pallaro contributed reporting.
Here are the key things to know about the The New York Times/KFF survey of immigrants:
-
The survey was conducted among 1,805 adult immigrants nationwide from Aug. 28 to Oct. 20.
-
The poll includes immigrants who are U.S. citizens, those with visas or permanent residency and those who are most likely undocumented, who were identified as not being citizens or having valid visas.
-
The survey was conducted on the telephone, via the mail and online, and could be taken in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or Haitian Creole. The survey was designed by researchers at KFF in collaboration with The Times and was administered by SSRS, a public opinion research company. You can see the exact questions that were asked and the order in which they were asked here.
-
To further ensure that the results reflect all immigrants, not just those willing to take a poll, the poll gives more weight to respondents from demographic groups that would otherwise be underrepresented among survey respondents, such as immigrants without a college degree and those who do not speak English proficiently.
-
The margin of sampling error for all immigrants is about plus or minus three percentage points. In theory, this means that the results should generally reflect the views of the overall population of immigrants, though many other challenges create additional sources of error. The margin of error is larger for subgroups.
You can see full results and a detailed methodology here. If you want to read more about how this poll was conducted, you can see answers to frequently asked questions.
Ruth Igielnik is a Times polling editor who conducts polls and analyzes and reports on the results.
The post Most Immigrants Support Border Enforcement, but Not Mass Deportations, Poll Finds appeared first on New York Times.
