Mass Deportation, mass cruelty, widespread lawlessness has backfired:
Immigrants are more popular than ever
American know that ICE and Border Patrol engage in lawless thuggery
Democrats and independents approve of a path
to citizenship for undocumented workers.
American Support for Legal Immigration Reaches New HeightsOctober 9, 2025-NEW STUDY
Key Findings
- Record or near-record numbers of Americans support increasing (28%) or maintaining current levels (49%) of legal immigration, while opposition to legal immigration is at an all-time low (21%).
- Just 36 percent of Americans see large numbers of immigrants and refugees arriving in the country as a critical threat, down from 50 percent last year.
- Two-thirds of Americans (65%) say immigrants currently working in the United States illegally should be able to apply for US citizenship, either immediately (43%) or after a penalty and waiting period (22%).
- Only a minority overall favor forcing undocumented workers to leave their jobs and the country altogether (23%), relatively unchanged from last year’s figure (20%).
- (Federal policy is out of step with public opinion.)
Support for Legal Immigration Hits All-Time High
Support for legal immigration has hit an all-time high since the Chicago Council Survey first asked this question in 2002. Today, half of Americans (49%) say that legal immigration into the United States should be kept at its present level, up from 44 percent in 2024. That percentage includes similar proportions across partisan groups, with half of Republicans (52%) and nearly as many Independents (48%) and Democrats (47%) in support of maintaining the present level of legal immigration.
Correspondingly, support for decreasing legal immigration has dropped from one-third of Americans (33%) last year to just one-fifth today (21%). This reverses a four-year upward trend from a previous record low of 27 percent in 2020. The timing suggests that Biden-era policies, perceived by many to be ineffectual on a surge of illegal migration on the southwest border, also affected perceptions of migration through legal routes. Under the second Trump administration, attitudes have reversed.
What Americans think about Trump’s deportations right now
As President Donald Trump seeks to keep his campaign promise of mass deportations, a majority of Americans say actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have “gone too far,” according to a new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll.
More than half of U.S. adults — 54% — described ICE’s actions in enforcing the country’s immigration laws as having “gone too far.” Another 18% percent said the agency has not gone far enough, while 26% said they’d describe ICE’s actions as “about right.”
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| pew |
Five Immigrants To America Won 2024 And 2025 Nobel Prize In Economics
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| PEW Research center |
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| Source: Pew |