In 2024, immigration was Donald Trump’s signature campaign issue. In 2026, it has become, perhaps, his greatest political albatross.
An NBC News Decision Desk poll released Wednesday shows the damage that Trump’s aggressive campaign of mass deportations has taken on the president’s political standing. Sixty percent of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling both immigration and border security (with a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points). In June, 51% either approved or strongly approved of Trump’s handling of those issues.
Ipsos polling released in late January found 51% of Americans say Trump’s immigration policy is on the wrong track. Amazingly, just a year ago, Americans said Republicans have a “better plan, policy, and approach” than Democrats on immigration by a 22-point margin. Now that advantage is down to five points.
How things went so wrong is perhaps best explained by the Trump administration’s own data.
CBS News obtained an internal Department of Homeland Security report that reportedly “lays out the most serious charge or conviction for those arrested by [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] with criminal histories.” MS NOW has not independently reviewed the report.
While administration officials consistently portray those rounded up by ICE as the “worst of the worst,” the data speaks to a very different reality. Of the more than 400,000 people arrested by ICE, less than 14% have been charged with or convicted of a violent crime. A mere 2% had been charged or convicted with homicide or sexual assault. A similar percentage had gang affiliations.
In fact, close to 40% of those rounded up — more than 150,000 people — had no criminal record at all. The only charge against them was either living in the U.S. without documentation or overstaying their permission to be in the country. Traditionally, these offenses, which are not considered crimes but civil offenses, are handled by immigration judges.
Of course, while the numbers tell a sobering tale of mass detention and criminalization of civil offenses, it is the mechanics of Trump’s mass deportation campaign that have angered Americans.
The same polls that show Americans are OK with deporting criminals also show that they, for example, don’t want to see undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children sent packing.
It’s the photo of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, wearing a Spider-Man backpack and a blue bunny hat, detained along with his father in Minneapolis and sent to an ICE facility in El Paso. It’s the harrowing stories of undocumented migrants who have started businesses, raised families and lived in the U.S. for decades, being rounded up and deported to their home countries. It’s the tale of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, deported to El Salvador in violation of a court order and then sent to a prison infamous for the mistreatment, even torture, of prisoners.
It’s the near-incessant videos on social media of masked, heavily armed ICE and Border Patrol agents escalating traffic stops into full-scale brawls, ripping Americans out of their cars, firing pepper spray and plastic bullets at peaceful protesters and, in the tragic cases of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, shooting them dead in the streets of Minneapolis.
In its zeal seemingly to deport as many people of color as possible, the Trump administration has created not only a humanitarian disaster but a political one as well.
Make no mistake, Americans overwhelmingly support deporting violent criminals, and a significant majority believes even those accused of committing crimes such as shoplifting should also be forced to leave. Had the Trump administration focused on just these two groups, while also displaying a modicum of compassion for those who have been in the U.S. for decades or who are raising families, it’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which Trump received broad support for his immigration policies — and his approval ratings might not be toiling in the high 30s.
But the same polls that show Americans are OK with deporting criminals also show that they, for example, don’t want to see undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country as children sent packing. They oppose deporting the parents of children who are U.S. citizens, those who have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and those who have committed no crime other than entering the country. In short, what Americans say they want is a reasonable, compassionate and balanced approach to undocumented immigration. Instead, over the past year they’ve gotten White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s fever dream of trying to deport any immigrant of color from the United States. Even after the horrific shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and pledges from the administration to change tactics, the same abuses by ICE agents continue to take place. Little has changed, and it’s small wonder that Trump’s polling on immigration continues to plummet — dragging his overall approval rating down in the process. It’s honestly one of the most extraordinary own-goals in modern political history. Trump has taken an issue where the public was on his side — and that of the GOP — and thrown it away. Of course, while the political fallout has been rough for the White House and is likely to get even worse in November, the real victims here are the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding migrants, along with their families and friends who have paid a far greater price — ripped from their homes, from their children and spouses,mmi and from the communities to which they’ve contributed so much. Trump’s immigration strategy is a self-inflicted political disaster, but above all, it’s an American tragedy.
Michael Cohen is an MS NOW columnist. He is also the publisher of the newsletter Truth and Consequences and hosts the weekly podcast That ‘70s Movie Podcast. 
