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Why politicians struggle to read the public on immigration
Governments sometimes overreact to popular opinion, which prompts a pendulum swing the other way.
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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on patrol at an airport. According to YouGov data, 46 per cent of Americans said they thought immigration made the US better off in January 2026.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Sarah O’Connor
A strange thing happened a year and a half ago. No sooner had Americans elected Mr Donald Trump as president on an explicitly anti-immigration platform than US public opinion began to swing much more favourably towards immigration.
That shift has continued as Mr Trump has implemented his crackdown. According to data from YouGov, only 28 per cent of Americans said they thought immigration made the US better off in mid-2024. But by January 2026, that number had reached 46 per cent.
