CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten pointed out Wednesday that Americans have become “more hawkish” on illegal immigration since President Donald Trump’s first term.
A majority of American adults, 56%, supported deporting all illegal immigrants in an October 2024 ABC News poll. In the same poll, the most recent percentage in favor of deportations is a stark rise from the 42% in 2015 and 36% in 2016 who agreed with the action, Enten noted.
“This is where I think you get very interesting, so we’ll take a look at that ABC News question in particular, and you can really see that there’s been a massive shift from when Trump was first getting into office 8 years ago … You go back to 2015, it was 42%. Go to 2016, it was 36%. Look at where we are now,” Enten said. “This was taken at the end of last year, 56%. This is 20 points higher than it was just before Trump got into office the first time. So feelings towards immigration in this country, feelings toward undocumented immigrants and deporting all of them have become considerably more hawkish and I think it gives Donald Trump much more leverage to go with the American people and sort of have these hawkish, some might say harsh, different rhetoric and issue-based of going after immigrants who are here illegally.”
“So I think the American people are going to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt in doing what he wants to do, at least if you believe these blunt questions, including this one,” Enten continued.
The number of encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border rose to historic highs during former President Joe Biden’s administration, which resulted in roughly 8.5 million migrant encounters throughout its four fiscal years.
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A Gallup poll found that 55% of Americans in 2024 want immigration levels to decrease, a stark rise from the 38% in 2016 and the 41% in 2023 who agreed with this sentiment, Enten said.
“So the bottom-line is, more folks want people here illegally deported and their overall feelings towards immigration has become more hawkish since Donald Trump was first getting into office,” Enten added.
Enten further pointed to polls conducted by The New York Times, Marquette University, ABC and CBC News, which all found that a majority of Americans, ranging from 55% to 64%, believe that all immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported.
Trump repeatedly promised throughout his campaign to enforce mass deportations and strengthen the U.S.-Mexico border. He signed 11 executive orders pertaining to immigration when he reentered office Monday evening, which declared a national emergency at the border, revoked birthright citizenship for children born to illegal immigrants, ordered officials to begin reconstructing the border wall and reinstated the Remain in Mexico policy.
The new Trump administration reversed two Biden-era polices that prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from conducting enforcement activities in “sensitive locations,” including churches and schools, and announced they would roll back the “broad use” of humanitarian parole and returning it to a case-by-case basis. A spokesperson with the Department of Homeland Security said criminals, including murderers and rapists, will no longer “avoid arrests” in these sensitive locations.
Since Trump’s reelection, Congress has taken swift action to pass legislation to strengthen the border and protect American citizens from potential crimes committee by illegal migrants.
The House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate passed The Laken Riley Act, which would require federal officials to detain illegal immigrants who commit theft-related crimes and allow states to sue the Department of Homeland Security for harm caused to Americans by illegal migrants. The legislation is named after a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered at the hands of Jose Ibarra, an illegal migrant from Venezuela who had a lengthy criminal past.
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