America’s immigration debate has taken a nativist turn. Consider 2016, when then-candidate Donald Trump received fierce pushback for his racist comments about Mexican immigrants and his pledge to build a “build a great, great wall” on the U.S.-Mexico border. While these statements were considered extreme at the time, voters appear to be warming to the rhetoric.
And it’s not just Republicans. The latest Civiqs poll for Daily Kos found that 53% of registered voters—including 48% of Hispanic voters and 55% of independents—support Trump’s plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
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This shift may very well be due to how both major political parties have changed their tune on the issue.
Prior to assuming the presidency, Joe Biden promised to take executive action to undo several of Trump’s immigration policies.
“If I’m elected president, we’re going to immediately end Trump’s assault on the dignity of immigrant communities,” he said while accepting the 2020 Democratic nomination for president. “We’re going to restore our moral standing in the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum-seekers.”
But now Democratic leaders have all but abandoned this style of humanitarian language. In September, after becoming the party’s nominee, Kamala Harris released an ad highlighting her time as a “border-state prosecutor,” which prominently featured stock footage of border walls and federal agents.
“As vice president, she backed the toughest border-control bill in decades,” the ad’s narrator said.
Democratic leaders’ pivot is likely tied to dramatic swing in public sentiment. In May 2020, a Gallup poll found that just 28% of Americans wanted to see immigration into the U.S. decrease. But just over four years later, that number had risen to 55%, marking the first time since 2005 that a majority of Americans said they wanted less immigration. And while the poll found that Republicans were most likely to hold these views, Democrats and independent voters had moved right on this issue too.
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But this shift didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s likely due to a confluence of factors, such as a bipartisan backlash to Biden-era border policies as well as a bipartisan panic—some real and some manufactured—about an alleged crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
During Trump’s first term, his incendiary, anti-immigrant rhetoric caused some Democrats to move left on the issue—a shift that surveys registered. From 2016 to 2019, there was a marked increase in the percentage of Democrats who said that “immigrants strengthen the country because of their hard work and talents,” according to the Pew Research Center.
But polling suggests these feelings weren’t fixed. When Biden took office and rescinded many of Trump’s border policies, it triggered a backlash. By January 2022, Biden was facing blowback from both sides. Democratic allies were outraged at the continuation of some Trump-era policies, while Republicans accused him of being too lax on immigration enforcement.
Because Trump wasn’t in the White House at this time, it seems that the president-elect is not the entire story when it comes to American’s shifting attitudes toward immigration.
The results of the latest Daily Kos/Civiqs poll suggest voters are responding to a sharp rise of border encounters in 2021—which Republicans pounced on to score political points with their base—coupled with right-wing media’s negative portrayals of immigrants.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
It doesn’t help that Republican politicians continue to stoke fears about the border. Between April 2022 and late January 2024, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott spent more than $148 million sending busloads of migrants to blue cities like Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and New York. Suddenly, Democratic strongholds were getting a taste of the border chaos in the form of stressed social services and panicky city officials—all of which no doubt fed an anti-immigrant backlash.
So it could be that voters’ responses today reflect what they perceive as a still out-of-control surge of migrants, despite that unlawful crossings are on track for a Biden-era low in November.
But that doesn’t mean voters are wholly anti-immigrant. Even though the Daily Kos/Civiqs poll found majority support for mass deportations, voters are largely pro-immigrant in other respects. For example, an Ipsos poll for Scripps News fielded in September found that 33% of Americans say securing the border as their top immigration priority, but 18% say their top priority is ensuring those who want to enter the U.S. legally have the opportunity to do so. And 68% support offering a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.
For the moment, it appears deportation fever is still much stronger among Republicans and Trump voters. The Daily Kos/Civiqs poll found that 96% of Republicans support mass deportations, compared with 11% of Democrats.
But Americans’ attitudes on immigration could easily change from here. Indeed, because Trump’s more draconian policies may alienate voters (see: family separation), Democrats have strong incentives to push back. And under a Trump administration, it’s possible the pendulum of public opinion could swing back the other way—especially as Trump and other Republicans seek to target more audacious, legal avenues for immigration, such as birthright citizenship.
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