A new poll published Wednesday dealt a fresh blow to the Trump administration’s election-season strategy of quietly dialing back its immigration enforcement visibility, with half of Americans — including nearly a quarter of President Donald Trump’s own 2024 voters — saying the White House’s deportation campaign has gone too far.
The survey, conducted by Public First, a London-based polling firm, found that public attitudes toward immigration enforcement remain essentially the same as they were in the period from January through April 2026, when federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens — Renee Good, 37, and Alex Pretti, 37 — in Minneapolis, triggering a wave of bipartisan outrage. The poll was conducted Aug. 8 to Aug. 12.
Mullin’s Makeover Falls Flat
The killings in Minneapolis forced the administration into damage-control mode. Trump ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and replaced her in March 2026 with Markwayne Mullin. Mullin wasted little time distancing himself from his predecessor, publicly labeling Noem’s signature billion-dollar immigration detention warehouse initiative a mistake during congressional testimony — a sharp rebuke that drew wide attention. He also pledged to make the mass deportation campaign less visible, including scaling back the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests carried out in public view. But the image rehabilitation effort appears to have stalled. The poll found a 56% majority of Americans acknowledged at least a “small shift” in how ICE has conducted its operations — yet that recognition has not translated into goodwill. Among those who noticed the changes, 44% reported the adjustments had no impact on their confidence in the administration, while 30% indicated the changes reduced their trust in officials on immigration matters.
Non-MAGA Trump voters proved far more skeptical of the campaign’s direction than the president’s most devoted base. Some 31% of non-MAGA Trump supporters described the deportation drive as too aggressive, compared with 15% of self-identified MAGA voters — a gap that underscores the political risk heading into November’s midterm elections, now less than three months away.
Strategists Sound the Alarm
Republican operatives offered candid assessments of why the strategy misfired. Arizona-based GOP strategist Barrett Marson put it bluntly, noting that Americans wanted stronger border controls but opposed deporting longtime residents such as grandmothers who had lived in the country for decades despite lacking legal status.
Washington-based Republican pollster Whit Ayres said the poll’s findings were “not that surprising at all.” Ayres said agents find it simpler to arrest visa overstayers at airports rather than pursuing dangerous criminals, calling this approach counterproductive for public perception. One anonymous Republican strategist acknowledged that Trump “ran on border security, and he’s following through,” but added that positive results are being drowned out by images of disruption: “The visuals of wins are unfortunately overshadowed by the visuals of chaos.”
John Sandweg, a former acting ICE director, said agents have been “under tremendous pressure” from administration leadership. He said they’ve been forced to adopt aggressive tactics because the Trump administration “seems more interested in the quantity of people arrested, more so than the quality.”
A Deepening Record of Deaths in Custody
The political fallout from the administration’s enforcement posture extends beyond polling numbers. At least seven people have been killed during immigration enforcement operations since Trump was inaugurated for his second term in January 2025. According to a Reuters report, 53 people have died in ICE custody since that same date. ICE raids during Trump’s second term sparked widespread criticism. The White House pushed back sharply against any suggestion that public opinion reflects a policy failure. White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said the administration is delivering on a clear mandate from voters. Bis said Americans sent Trump back to the White House with instructions to deport criminal illegal aliens, and the administration is working daily to remove dangerous individuals from American communities.
Midterm Vulnerability Sharpens
For Republicans, immigration has long functioned as one of the party’s most reliable electoral assets. The new data complicates that calculus significantly. With the midterms approaching, the 80-year-old president’s team faces the challenge of defending a policy that energizes the MAGA base while simultaneously unnerving the broader coalition that returned Trump to the White House in 2024.
The administration’s attempt to lower the temperature on enforcement — without actually easing it — now looks increasingly like a gamble that has not paid off. Mullin’s softer-edged messaging and the reduction in high-profile public arrests have done little to move opinion in either direction among persuadable voters, and the raw enforcement numbers have continued to climb. Whether the White House recalibrates its approach before November, or doubles down on volume while trying to keep a lower profile, remains an open question as the political calendar tightens.