Trump’s immigration ratings turn negative, Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds

President Donald Trump’s approval ratings on immigration, relatively strong in the early weeks of his second term, have dipped into negative territory, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a sign that his administration’s hard-line and, in some cases, legally dubious enforcement tactics are losing public support.

A majority of Americans, 53%, disapprove of Trump’s handling of immigration, with 46% approving, a reversal from February when half the public voiced approval of his approach. Negative views have ticked up across partisan groups over the past two months, with 90% of Democrats, 56% of independents and 11% of Republicans now disapproving of the way the president has managed one of his core policy issues.

The findings buttress other recent polls that have tracked falling approval ratings for Trump on immigration, though he still draws higher marks on the issue than on other matters. They come amid mounting public frustration more broadly over his presidency as it closes in on its first 100 days, which have been marked by a blizzard of unilateral actions sometimes violating the constitutional bounds of presidential authority.

White House aides had hoped that Trump’s actions on immigration and a dwindling number of undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border would help bolster his public standing despite declining support in other areas.

Prompted by frustrations that the pace of deportations was falling short of the president’s ambitious quotas, the administration has taken more aggressive action in recent weeks. It deported 238 migrants to a megaprison in El Salvador without the chance to challenge their designation as alien enemies beforehand and targeted international students and faculty at U.S. colleges and universities for removal.

It also resisted orders from federal judges — rulings backed by a unanimous Supreme Court decision — to facilitate the return to the United States of Kilmar Abrego García from El Salvador. Abrego García, a Salvadoran migrant who lives in Maryland and entered the U.S. without authorization as a teen, was arrested by immigration officers and sent to the Salvadoran facility.

A 2019 legal order barred his removal, and the administration has acknowledged that Abrego García was wrongly deported. But federal officials say they have no authority to bring him back and have sought to portray him and others as violent gang members, despite producing no evidence.

The Post-ABC-Ipsos poll finds that more Americans say Abrego García should be returned to the country than remain imprisoned in El Salvador — 42% versus 26%. About 3 in 10 Americans, however, say they “don’t know enough” to have an opinion, a sign that views on the high-profile case are still forming among a sizable segment of the population.

A narrow majority of Republicans, 53%, say he should remain in prison, with just 14% of them saying Abrego García should be returned. The remainder say they didn’t know enough to answer.

By contrast, 74% of Democrats say Abrego García should be returned to the U.S., with 20% saying they don’t know enough to respond. Among independents, 39% say he should be returned, 21% say he should be left in El Salvador and 39% didn’t know enough.

Among those who disapprove of Trump’s immigration policy is Ray King of Nebraska, a machinist who grew up in California and considers himself a moderate Democrat. He characterized the administration’s actions as radical lawbreaking that is jeopardizing basic American values.

Immigration is “a really complicated and very difficult topic and situation, but not following the due process laws that are in place is not a way to fix the problem,” said King, who is White. “That supersedes everything the country was founded on.”

Trump’s track record as a business executive who rarely admitted an error and dragged out legal fights to wear down opponents has convinced King that the president will continue to resist bringing Abrego García back to the U.S.

“His mentality is: ‘I’m a winner and you’re a loser,’” King said. “If he has to bring the gentleman back, he becomes a loser.”

On Thursday, a federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to secure the return of a second man at the Salvadoran prison — a Venezuelan who was deported despite being part of a class-action settlement that should have protected him from removal.

Overall, 51 percent of Americans oppose the administration’s efforts to send undocumented migrants suspected of being members of a criminal group to El Salvador, the poll finds, with 47% in support.

Among those who favor Trump’s approach is Gregory Samuel, 47, of Oklahoma, an independent voter who supported Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race but soured on him given a spike in illegal immigration during his presidency.

In Abrego García’s case, Samuel said his undocumented status should be enough to send him to El Salvador.

“If you’re illegal, period,” he said. “They got an open door, and I’m pretty sure they are gang members.”

Samuel endorsed having Trump defy the federal court judges, whom he called politicized. “It’s out of balance and is an abuse of power” for judges to impede Trump’s executive authority, said Samuel, who is Black and Native American.

As on other issues, support for deporting alleged members of criminal groups without a court hearing breaks sharply along partisan lines, with 85% of Democrats opposing the practice and 82% of Republicans supporting it. Just under half of independents support such deportations, while just over half oppose them, the poll finds.

Just under half of Americans, 48%, say Trump has gone “too far” on his immigration enforcement efforts. About a third, 34%, say Trump is handling immigration “about right,” with 16% saying he hasn’t gone far enough in his efforts.

The responses break along racial lines, with about 6 in 10 Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans saying Trump has gone too far, compared with about 4 in 10 White Americans.

The administration has sought to deport some leaders of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses who have legal status in the U.S., alleging they were supporting the Hamas militant group in the Israel-Gaza conflict — despite vehement denials from the protest leaders and their attorneys.

About 6 in 10 Americans oppose deporting international students who have criticized U.S. policy in the Middle East. Most Republicans, 70%, support such deportations, but public approval drops to 36% among independents and 11% among Democrats, the poll finds.

The Post-ABC-Ipsos poll was conducted online April 18-22 among 2,464 U.S. adults. The sample was drawn through the Ipsos KnowledgePanel, an ongoing panel of U.S. households recruited by mail using random sampling methods. Overall results have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 points.