Trump’s harshest agenda item is also his most popular

Donald Trump’s popularity is slipping. His honeymoon is over, views of the economy and his stewardship of it are souring, and while inflation and prices remain the public’s top priority, they see his administration as focusing on other things.

Yet the area where they think Trump is most focusing his attention is also the one where he’s most popular: immigration. It’s what the public thinks he’s handling best, and it’s the issue buoying his overall approval rating right now.

A couple recent national polls show how resilient this dynamic is. Take the latest March CBS News/YouGov poll. It finds that an outright majority — 53 percent — of the American public approves of Trump’s handling of immigration. They approve of his mass deportation pledge, and the numbers remain largely unchanged since last month.

That majority support on immigration stands in contrast to his other ratings in that poll. Some 48 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, with 52 percent disapproving in late March. That’s down from 51 percent approval a month ago. And when it comes to inflation, specifically, just 44 percent approve, down from 46 percent last month.

Those sharper marks on immigration come not only despite questions about the legality of the administration’s methods, but also as news organizations reveal embarrassing and concerning revelations about who has been targeted for deportations and detentions.

While this news coverage grows, and Trump’s overall favorability continues to slip, it’s worth asking why his immigration agenda remains popular — and just what might turn it negative.

As the administration veers into a more authoritarian direction in its treatment of immigrants, these shifts will be crucial to track, particularly for those hoping to organize political pressure and public support.

The late March CBS News/YouGov poll of American adults conducted late last week shows basically no change from the last CBS/YouGov poll from late February. Some 53 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s immigration handling in March, while 54 percent approved in February.

The same when asking about the Trump administration’s “program to deport immigrants illegally.” Among all adults, 58 percent approve — essentially mirroring findings in February, when 59 percent of respondents approved.

The second national survey that shows Trump’s resilient immigration support is a AP-NORC poll from March. The public, this poll suggests, is split evenly: 49 percent approve of Trump’s immigration approach, while 50 percent disapprove. Again, views of his handling of other issues are much more negative, but even one in five Democrats approve Trump’s immigration approach, per the survey’s results.

The findings are revelatory, given the poll generally finds more negative views of Trump compared to other March polls conducted by other firms. It’s an outlier, for example, in showing a double-digit net-negative rating for Trump’s overall favorability: 56 percent disapproving and 42 percent approving.

For now, there’s not a clear reason for this sustained support. It might be a sign of Trump’s effective messaging about the issue. From the start, this administration has embarked on a polished and digital-savvy media and advertising tour to frame their deportation efforts as a way to target immigrants who have committed crimes — which happens to be the specific condition that is most popular when surveys offer respondents a variety of options for deportation policy. The administration has recorded and released social media videos, traditional TV advertising, and clips of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem tagging along with ICE agents, meeting with border agents at the southern border, and even speaking from the prison in El Salvador many deportees are being sent.

In turn, this (essentially) campaigning on immigration may be amplifying the effects of polarization, since it’s hardcore conservatives and Republicans who care the most about immigration (both in the lead-up to the 2024 election and since Trump’s inauguration).

And these numbers might also just represent a deeper, wider reality for America. The American polity has generally polarized against immigration, and would prefer to see rates of immigration decline. That’s been true since the post-pandemic era spike in southern border crossings and asylum claims, and was a major 2024 campaign issue that Trump largely sees as responsible for his own election.

Of course, there may also be survey-design limitations: These polls capture the vaguer idea of restrictive immigration policy that Trump came to represent, as opposed to the public’s views on specific policies or scenarios. Public opinion tends to vary tremendously once you ask more specific questions about who might be targeted for deportation, how widespread those enforcement actions should be, and whether there should be conditions or more leniency given to some kinds of undocumented immigrants. And for now, it’s not clear yet what impact news coverage and the government’s response to the most recent specific high-profile deportations will have.

As news coverage, political debate, and outcry grow, (like over the role of foreign prisons and Guantánamo Bay in holding immigrants, and stories of specific, controversial cases), the public may end up polarizing against Trump. That’s what happened during late 2017 and 2018 — the peak of Trump 1.0’s anti-immigrant, kids-in-cages policies. It was around that time that public support for immigration of all kinds began to spike, and openness to more migration grew.

Still, 2017 this is not. The public has not been this negative on immigration since the post-9/11 years, per Gallup tracking data. And Trump, again, remains more popular now than he was at this point in his first term, meaning he has room to spend political capital and advance his agenda while taking a hit in public opinion. In other words, eight years ago Trump saw how much he could get done with immigration while most of the public opposed him. This year, he’s pushing to do even more, with a higher ceiling for what the public will tolerate.