MAGA support for ICE remains solid even as the agency faces fresh scrutiny over fatal shootings, aggressive arrests and civil rights allegations. Two polls published last week found that Donald Trump’s most loyal Republican supporters still back Immigration and Customs Enforcement by wide margins, while the broader public has moved sharply against the agency.
The polling landed as pro-Trump commentators pressed for faster removals after hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants lost temporary protected status allowing them to live and work in the United States. On his War Room podcast, Trump ally Steve Bannon demanded to know why those migrants were not being removed immediately. Conservative strategist Mike Davis also called for rapid deportations. White nationalist Nick Fuentes used his Rumble show to attack Haitians in racist terms, and a Proud Boys of Columbus Telegram channel celebrated the status change, according to WIRED.
Why do MAGA Republicans still support ICE?
The short answer from the polling: Trump’s base appears to see ICE as carrying out the immigration agenda it voted for, even when the agency’s tactics generate national criticism. A YouGov poll published last week found that 74 percent of self-identified MAGA Republicans said they had confidence in ICE, and 80 percent opposed abolishing the agency.
A separate survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that three-quarters of Republicans viewed ICE favorably, supported more funding for the agency and rejected the idea that ICE was making communities less safe. PRRI also found that 73 percent of Republicans supported camps to hold immigrants in the country illegally until deportation.
That backing has survived a run of ugly headlines. The Associated Press reported that an ICE agent shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston earlier this month. Araujo had lived in the United States for 35 years, had three children and owned a business. CNN reported that another ICE agent killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, days later. Both men were shot while in vehicles.
WIRED has reported that ICE has tracked critics online, used data broker tools to identify unaccompanied minors and tried to block state health inspectors from reviewing detention centers. The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration has begun arresting immigrants at airports whose visas have expired or whose legal status is in transition, including spouses of U.S. citizens.
The YouGov survey found a visibility problem as well as a persuasion problem: only 51 percent of Republicans said they had heard, read or seen anything about immigrants being shot and killed by ICE agents during the week of the shootings. Around the same period, Trump posted on Truth Social that ICE was “loved and respected in America” after criticism from his base over an internal ICE memo that reportedly told agents to suspend vehicle stops.
What do the numbers say about ICE enforcement?
ICE is on pace to deport 458,000 people this year, according to the agency’s own data cited by WIRED. That figure is far below Trump’s stated goal of 1 million deportations after his inauguration, and some supporters have argued the administration is moving too slowly.
The dragnet has also reached U.S. citizens, according to civil liberties groups and researchers. The American Civil Liberties Union reported this month that ICE agents targeted 155 U.S. citizens, including 32 children, across eight states during the first year of Trump’s second term. UC Berkeley research cited by NBC News found that about half of people arrested by ICE had no criminal records. Federal agents have shot and killed four people, including two U.S. citizens, according to WIRED.
Outside Trump’s core coalition, the politics look different. YouGov found that most Americans believe ICE has used too much force and have little or no confidence in the agency. Nearly half said ICE should be abolished.
Republicans are not retreating from the issue before the midterms. NPR reported last week that Republican campaigns are spending more money and running more immigration ads than Democrats. The bet is plain enough: the party’s most dependable voters still want ICE empowered, even if the rest of the country is increasingly skeptical of what that looks like in practice.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
