America’s anti-immigrant fever is starting to break

Patricia Lopez, Tribune News Service

Despite President Donald Trump’s decade-long demonization of immigrants, an overwhelming majority of Americans are rejecting his message. A new Gallup poll shows that 79% of those polled — a record high — say immigration is good for the country, with only 17% saying it is bad. And the number of Americans who want less immigration is dropping fast. Only 30% now support more restrictions, compared to 55% in 2024. These findings come against the backdrop of the cruelest crackdown on immigration in modern history and may indicate that America’s anti-immigrant fever is breaking.

Trump, however, just keeps doubling down. He now is on the cusp of building ICE into a domestic army with massive detention capabilities. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said this week that the public should expect more raids in more states. “We’re going to come harder and faster, and we’re going to take these criminals down with even more strength than we ever have before,” she said, even though ICE’s own data shows the vast majority of those arrested — 72% — have no criminal records.

Perhaps that’s why Americans are turning away from the notion that immigrants constitute an invading force to be repelled and removed. That shift extends to Independents and Republicans. One of the most startling findings in the Gallup poll shows that 64% of Republicans say immigration is a net benefit to the country. Just a year ago that figure stood at 39%.

Only 4% of Republicans a year ago believed immigration should remain at current levels. That has now leapt to 36%. It seems unlikely that a shift of this magnitude is attributable only to GOP voters’ faith in Trump; otherwise, we would probably not see a small but growing share of Republican voters saying immigration levels should be increased. Moreover, support for other Trump immigration measures is eroding, whether hiring more Border Patrol agents or building a bigger border wall. Notably, support for deportations, one of his signature campaign promises, has fallen more than 10 percentage points since 2024. Other polls have detected a similar shift. A Pew poll in June found flagging support for key Trump restrictions, suspending refugee programs, and greater approval of citizenship for those who earned it.

That is affecting Trump’s approval ratings on his defining issue. Gallup found that 62% of the public (and 69% of independents) disapprove of his handling of immigration, with 45% disapproving strongly. Worse still, his draconian approach is costing him his newfound support among Hispanics, who proved critical to his narrow win over Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024. Only 21% approve of his immigration policies. Hispanics make up nearly 20% of the US population, and even if Trump does not run again, members of his party will carry that burden of disapproval into the next election. Unlike crackdowns from earlier eras, social media is playing a pivotal role in this one. Trump can’t control the narrative here against an endless stream of TikTok videos and Instagram Reels that show the brutal reality of roundups and raids, family separations, arrests and lockups.

What is the average American to make, for instance, of videos showing agents mounted on horseback and soldiers in full tactical gear sweeping across Los Angeles’ MacArthur Park on an otherwise peaceful Saturday, with a summer day camp in full swing? Or of a 57-year-old California farm worker chased by ICE agents only to fall off a greenhouse roof to his death? Or of surgical staff in Oxnard, California, seen struggling to block ICE agents’ entry into their center in pursuit of the center’s Honduran landscaper? Americans don’t want this, even if former President Joe Biden did make his share of mistakes on immigration. Among his biggest were allowing criminals to remain at large and neglecting the crisis at the border until it reached powder keg proportions.

And Trump’s swift action at the border paid off — and allayed the concerns of a majority of Americans. By June, illegal border crossings had plummeted to their lowest levels since the 1960s.

With the border crisis quelled, Americans are reverting to their longstanding views on immigration: They don’t want to see it escalate out of control, but they do see a place for it. Polls have shown support for the basic elements of comprehensive reform: tighter borders and ports of entry, coupled with a humane approach to those who come to the US to work. Instead of taking the win, Trump’s pendulum keeps swinging further to the right. Despite reports of horrific conditions at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the tented detention camp deep in the Florida Everglades, the White House is urging states to build their own versions. Red states have responded with gusto. “We don’t have alligators, but we have lots of bears,” an official for Alaska told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina posted on X that her state has “a swamp and a dream. South Carolina’s gators are ready.”

Such comments reflect a disturbing, ride-‘em-cowboy attitude that may play to MAGA fanboys online, but is deeply out of sync with the public at large. The result is a widening gap between the indiscriminate brutality of the Trump administration’s methods and what Americans are willing to tolerate. That gap will only grow larger, as will the inevitable backlash.