Polls Show Strong Support for Trump Border, Deportation Policies

Two separate polls released in the past week show strong support for President Trump’s key immigration policies: closing the border and deporting aliens here illegally. In fact, those are the most popular among the new administration’s policies, underscoring lingering discontent over the prior administration’s much more permissive immigration stances.

The first poll was conducted for CBS News, sampling 2,609 U.S. adults, and was conducted between March 27 and 28. It has a margin of error of +/- 2.3 points. The second was conducted by The Harris Poll and Harris X for the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, and involved 2,746 registered voters surveyed between March 26 and 27. The margin of error is +/- 1.9 points.

CBS News Poll. Overall approval of the president’s performance was evenly split in the CBS News poll, with half (50 percent) of respondents approving of his handling of his new (old) job (31 percent “strongly” approving) and 50 percent disapproving (40 percent strongly disapproving).

In that poll, Trump received the strongest support for his immigration policies. According to YouGov, 53 percent approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, and 47 percent disapprove. For comparison, just 48 percent approve of the way the president is approaching the economy, and 44 percent of his attempts to tame inflation.

Some 84 percent of respondents stated that the economy and inflation are “very important” to them in gauging Trump’s performance as president, 72 percent stated that his approach to government spending is very important in evaluating his success, and 69 percent stated that immigration was very important in evaluating Donald Trump’s job as president.

By contrast, just 50 percent stated that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs would determine for them the success or failure of the second Trump presidency.

In this poll, 57 percent of respondents believed that Trump was focusing either the “right amount” (41 percent) or “not enough” (16 percent) on “deporting immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally”. By contrast, only 43 percent thought Trump was too focused on deporting aliens here unlawfully.

That said, if you want to understand how much popular support Trump has for his immigration policies, focus on the responses to question 31 in that poll: “Do you approve or disapprove of the Trump administration’s program to find and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally?”

When asked that question, a whopping 58 percent approved and only 42 percent disapproved, a truly impressive response for a president who received the votes of just about half of the American electorate in November.

Harvard/Harris Poll. Trump’s overall support was ever-so-slightly more muted in the Harvard/Harris poll, with just 49 percent of voters approving of the job he is doing as president (31 percent “strongly” approving) and 46 percent disapproving (36 percent “strongly”).

Again, however, Trump’s best grades came on immigration, with 53 percent of those polled approving of how Trump is approaching the issue. To put that into context, only 34 percent approved of President Biden’s handling of immigration in January.

Trump’s most popular policy? According to Harvard/Harris, it’s “deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes”, which garnered the support of 80 percent of voters, including 72 percent of Democrats.

Deportations of illegal alien criminals was followed in popularity by Trump’s efforts to “clos[e] the border with added security and policies that discourage illegal crossings”, a program supported by 74 percent of the respondents polled, including 60 percent of Democratic voters.

If you really want to know how popular Trump’s deportation and border efforts are, however, consider the responses to a separate set of questions, measuring the popularity of various institutions.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was viewed as a shambolic basket case under the prior administration (54 percent of respondents in a September 2024 Harris X poll described it as “not working”), is now the third most popular institution, viewed favorably by 52 percent of those polled and unfavorably by just 27 percent (+25 percent net).

By comparison, the U.S. military is the most popular institution, viewed favorably by 76 percent of those polled and unfavorably by just 12 percent (+64 percent net), followed by the FBI (53 percent favorable, 28 percent unfavorable, +26 percent net).

Chief Justice John Roberts may be viewing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem enviously, given that while his Supreme Court enjoys a +12 percent favorability rating, less than half (47 percent) of voters have a favorable view of the Court.

As an aside, perhaps the most curious responses involve the popularity of our foreign adversaries, with 17 percent of those polled having a favorable view of China (net -43 percent), 13 percent of Russia (net -53 percent), and 9 percent of Hamas (-53 percent net).

Columbia University must have been polled twice.

President Trump leaned into border security and deportations during his 2024 campaign, and for now a solid majority of Americans — and more importantly, American voters — like what he’s done. When DHS is rewarded with a high favorability rating, and nearly three-quarters of Democrats support criminal deportations, “border czar” Tom Homan is plainly doing something right.