New polls show that a vast majority of Republicans still support President Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, which led to the killing of two protesters in Minneapolis last month.
But the polls, one by the public affairs firm Ipsos, another from Pew Research Center, also reveal that a small, but growing, share of Republicans now say that the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics have gone too far. And independent voters, who helped swing the 2024 election to Mr. Trump, also say that enforcement has gotten out of hand.
Immigration was key to Mr. Trump’s victory in November 2024 and has been a top issue driving Republican voters.
But after federal agents killed two Minneapolis protesters, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, Mr. Trump said that he may “de-escalate a little bit,” and then removed Gregory Bovino, the hard-line senior Border Patrol official, from the city.
The Ipsos poll, released on Monday, was conducted entirely after Mr. Pretti was shot.
It found that 62 percent of Americans said they thought Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had gone too far in dealing with unauthorized immigration in the country, a modest increase over the 58 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted just before the shooting.
Much of that movement came from Republicans. Most Republicans still said they thought enforcement was about right (45 percent) or had not gone far enough (22 percent). But 30 percent of Republicans now say that immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far, up from 20 percent just before the shooting.
Other surveys taken around the same time, including the Pew survey, also reveal a modest shift among Republicans. A Fox News survey that was in the field when Mr. Pretti was shot, revealed a further divide within the party. In the poll, nearly half of Republicans who describe themselves as “non-MAGA Republicans” say they think ICE has been too aggressive in its deportation efforts.
James Wright, 39, an electrical lineman in Columbus, Ohio, said he voted for Mr. Trump in the last election. He said that immigration was the key issue in deciding his vote and that he still strongly supported Mr. Trump’s approach to immigration.
“The good outweighs the bad, but those two deaths were completely preventable,” Mr. Wright said. “I hope no more of that happens.”
The Ipsos poll suggests that Republican voters viewed the shootings of Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti through slightly different lenses, which could help explain some of the party’s shift. Asked about the shooting of Ms. Good, more than half of Republicans said it was a necessary use of force. Asked about Mr. Pretti, just 33 percent said it was a necessary use of force. A large share, 43 percent, said they were not sure.
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Tyson Miller, 33, who works in food delivery in Charlotte, N.C., said he considered himself an “old guard Republican” and wrote in Nikki Haley on his 2024 presidential ballot.
“I agreed with the idea of deporting violent criminals,” he said. But “you hear of people being whisked away to another country where they are not even from,” he added. “And then you hear about citizens who are whisked away to God knows where. That’s something I can’t get behind.”
Mr. Trump’s victory in 2024 was also built on independent voters, a group in which he made significant gains between the 2020 and 2024 elections, according to data from Pew Research Center.
In numerous polls, independent voters have simultaneously supported mass deportations, while also saying that immigration enforcement has been too excessive.
But only a small share of independent voters rated immigration as their top issue, in a recent poll from The New York Times and Siena University. They care much more about the economy and the cost of living.
Alexander Cisneros, 41, an auto mechanic from Broken Arrow, Okla., who said he identified as an independent, agrees with Mr. Trump on increasing immigration enforcement, but believes he has gone too far in deporting people who are otherwise contributing to society.
Still, he said, the economy is his top issue.
“At the end of the day, the economy was horrible under Biden,” he said.
Ruth Igielnik is a Times polling editor who conducts polls and analyzes and reports on the results.
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