Americans less welcoming of immigrants without legal status, poll shows

WASHINGTON - Americans have grown less welcoming towards immigrants living in the US illegally since Donald Trump’s first presidency but remain wary of harsh measures like using detention camps for Trump’s promised mass deportation effort, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

Some 33 per cent of respondents in the poll, conducted from Dec 5 to 10, said most or all immigrants without legal status should be allowed to stay in the United States, down from 39 per cent in Reuters/Ipsos polling done in 2017, early in Trump’s first four-year term.

The share of respondents who said most or all immigrants in the US illegally should be deported was largely stable at 53 per cent, compared with 51 per cent in 2017.

The share of people who said they were not sure whether such immigrants should be allowed to stay rose to 14 per cent from 9 per cent.

The poll showed a modest hardening of views on immigration among many Americans but also pointed to potential political risks for Trump, depending on how aggressively he implements his deportation campaign after he takes office on Jan 20.

Only 30 per cent of respondents agreed with a statement that “illegal immigrants should be arrested and put in detention camps while awaiting deportation hearings”, while 53 per cent disagreed.

Another 17 per cent said they did not know where they stood or declined to answer the question. 

Republican pollster Whit Ayres said Trump could lose support if he splits apart families, puts immigrants into World War II-style internment camps, or deports people who were brought to the US illegally as children – a group known as “Dreamers”.

“Most Americans are not going to support deporting a father who is a sole breadwinner of a family of American citizens,” Mr Ayres said.

Trump recaptured the White House in November

after vowing to crack down on legal and illegal immigration, including a pledge to deport record numbers of immigrants in the US illegally.

Some 27 per cent of respondents in the new Reuters/Ipsos poll said immigration should be the top priority during Trump’s first 100 days in office, higher than any other policy area. 

In an interview with NBC News that aired on Dec 8, Trump said

he aimed to deport all immigrants in the US illegally.

 

“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together, and you have to send them all back,” Trump said.

The less-welcoming stance towards people in the country illegally comes as the immigrant share of the population has surged to 14 per cent, the highest level in over a century, according to 2023 US Census population estimates.

That percentage included immigrants living in the US illegally, a number the US Department of Homeland Security estimated at 11 million in January 2022.

The incoming Trump administration plans to tap resources from across government for the deportation initiative, which Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance has signalled could target one million people per year. 

The pro-immigration American Immigration Council estimated that deporting all immigrants in the US illegally would cost an average of US$88 billion (S$118.7 billion) annually.

In a Dec 8 Fox News interview, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said they would need a similar sum. 

In an April interview, Trump declined to rule out building detention camps but said there “wouldn’t be that much of a need for them” because immigrants would be deported quickly. 

Trump’s crime rhetoric

During the 2024 election campaign, Trump railed against Democratic President Joe Biden for allowing what Trump falsely depicted as a wave of violent crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally.

Numerous studies have found that immigrants – both with and without legal status – do not commit crimes at higher rates than native-born Americans.

The political rhetoric might be shaping the views of some Americans. Among those in the poll who picked immigration as one of the top problems facing the country, some 20 per cent said immigrants committing crimes was their top immigration concern.

The share of people focused on migrant crime was slightly higher among minority respondents – at 24 per cent – compared with respondents who identified as white, at 18 per cent.

Past surveys found that fewer than one in 10 people focused on immigration was particularly concerned about migrant crime.

The decline in the share of people who welcome immigrants into the country illegally was particularly strong among Republicans, where support for allowing people to stay fell to 9 per cent, from 18 per cent in 2017.

Among Democrats, support for letting people stay was largely unchanged at 61 per cent. 

Among Hispanics, a group that exit polls showed swung heavily towards Trump in November, relative to the 2020 election, support for letting immigrants stay, even if they lack legal status, fell to 47 per cent, from 54 per cent in 2017.

Among black respondents, who continued to overwhelmingly oppose Trump in November, according to exit polls, the share that backed letting people stay fell to 36 per cent, from 58 per cent in 2017.

Some 29 per cent of white respondents backed allowing people to stay, down from 33 per cent in 2017.

Mr Brett Buerck, chief executive of the Republican-focused consulting firm Majority Strategies, said in an e-mail that voters want Trump to take action with immigration enforcement and are “tired of endless talk without real progress”.

“The immediate agenda is clear: Secure the border, deport criminals, and sort out the rest from there,” he said.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted nationwide and online, surveyed 4,183 people and had margins of error of about 2 percentage points for questions answered by all respondents.

The figures on black and Hispanic views were based on smaller samples in the survey and had margins of error of about 4 or 5 percentage points. REUTERS