As President Donald Trump attempts to carry out his immigration crackdown against constant obstruction and opposition from Democrats, activist judges, and the liberal media, new numbers suggest he may face more headwinds on public opinion. A new Economist/YouGov poll of registered voters finds about one-third (31%) support deporting all illegal aliens. That includes only a little more than half (57%) of Republicans, despite recent reports that mass deportations were the key to firing up the GOP base this fall.
Critics believe this poll may be underestimating support for the Trump immigration agenda. Bob Price, associate editor with Breitbart Texas, notes a more important poll happened on Election Day 2024, when more than 150 million Americans cast ballots. "The fact is, the overwhelming majority of people elected Donald Trump on his campaign pledge to deport all of the illegal aliens that entered during the last four years of the Biden administration, and many more beyond that," says Price.
The numbers are much stronger when it comes to deporting illegal aliens convicted of serious crimes, which garners 60% support from all voters, including strong majorities of Democrats and Independents. But Price says the problem of trying to parse out "criminals" is that we don't have accurate data to know whether or not people committed crimes before coming to the U.S. "In many cases, there are people who are in fact serious criminals, who are wandering around the country with various levels of temporary protected status or some kind of temporary admission status, and we don't know who they are," he tells KTRH.
On the overall question of whether illegal immigrants in the U.S. in general should be allowed to stay or be deported, Americans were basically split, with 43% believing they should stay and 40% supporting deportation.
Despite polls and media narratives, Price believes Trump should stay the course and not be distracted from his immigration agenda. "That's what he was elected to do," says Price. "The media has done everything they can to try to paint this in some ugly way and say that it's not what he was elected to do...but it is exactly what he was elected to do."
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