Americans are still firmly behind President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, but it appears that at least some of them are getting cold feet as his brutal tactics come into view.
The spectacle of masked agents smashing car windows, detaining folks with no court hearings and deporting some of them to dangerous countries like El Salvador and South Sudan is starting to splinter public support. The reality is jarring, and for a growing number of Americans, it’s becoming too much to stomach. I just wish more of them would see it now before more people get swept under Trump’s indiscriminate campaign against migrants – legal or not.
Let’s start with the numbers.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that 62% of voters still support deporting undocumented immigrants, and just over half approve of Trump’s overall handling of immigration. But beneath that top-line support is mounting discomfort.
Most Americans say Trump administration is going too far
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans opposed deporting people without court hearings or legal review. Independents, a key voting bloc, are especially critical.
Most say the administration has gone too far, specifically when it comes to detaining and deporting individuals who’ve never had a chance to see a judge. The policy of offloading migrants to third-world countries – even countries that they are not from – should strike many more as not just impractical, but also fundamentally un-American.
This tells us something important and gives me a bit of hope.
Americans want stronger border security, but enough of them aren’t ready to abandon due process. They might have begun to reject the spectacle of lawlessness cloaked in the language of “law and order.”
Yet, cheers persist, which is why we must never stop speaking up.
The slow public reaction and the applause for harsh enforcement reveal a darker side of the American psyche – a creeping comfort with dehumanization, a willingness to look away from suffering as long as it happens to “others,” in this case, to migrants whom MAGA wants out of the United States at any cost.
Trump has normalized cruelty toward immigrants
Nobody denies that the United States has the right and responsibility to protect its borders and deport those living here illegally.
Trump didn’t invent mass deportations. Every president before him has done it. Democrat Barack Obama, for instance, deported more than 3 million during his presidency. But Trump has done something different – he’s normalized cruelty, weaponized it and stripped away even the pretense of procedural justice.
What’s more disturbing is how far federal agents have gone under Trump’s orders.
Opinion: Republicans in Congress head home to angry voters. So much for summer break.
Americans have watched as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in full tactical gear raid workplaces, pull people from their cars and drag individuals off the streets. Even a sitting U.S. senator, Alex Padilla of California, was tackled to the ground on national television simply for demanding answers.
Legal residents and even U.S. citizens are being swept up, too. Due process isn’t just being denied – it’s being erased.
A legal resident with cancer isn't getting care
Arizona Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Stanton and Yassamin Ansari are sounding the alarm about inhumane conditions in immigration detention centers. But even as elected officials, they’ve been barred from inspecting facilities like the Eloy Detention Center in Florence, Arizona, where horror stories are emerging.
Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.
One of those cases involves a green cardholder who has lived in the U.S. for two decades and is now battling leukemia while detained, according to Ansari.
Ansari told reporters that the woman has lost 55 pounds, is in severe pain and is not receiving adequate – or any – pain medication. If they can do this to a legal resident with cancer, and keep members of Congress from even entering the facility, what can’t they do?
And where is the collective outrage? Why isn’t the public speaking louder and showing more than slow discomfort in recent polling?
Opinion: Trump keeps brutalizing immigrants because he's failing at everything else
If more people like Joe Rogan spoke up, things could change
Blame that in part on the fragmented media landscape. The country is not just divided politically, but it’s divided informationally, too.
Many Trump supporters tune in to outlets and influencers that amplify the administration’s narrative – painting ICE raids as righteous missions to capture "the worst of the worst.” The reality on the ground tells a different story. When they see that reality, they begin to wonder. Like Trump supporter Joe Rogan, who is finally questioning Trump’s immigration crackdown.
"It’s insane,” the podcaster recently said. "Not cartel members, not gang members, not drug dealers – just construction workers. ... Gardeners.”
"Like, really?” Rogan asked.
That shifting narrative in the MAGA media landscape – from a one-dimensional tale of criminals to the undeniable truth of working-class migrants being ripped from their families – just might be starting to enter the national consciousness.
I bet if more Americans like Rogan pay attention and speak up about what’s really happening under Trump, the cheers will stop.
Elvia Díaz is editorial page editor for The Arizona Republic and azcentral, where this column originally published. Follow her on X, (formerly Twitter): @elviadiaz1
You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump's use of ICE on immigrants may chill his popularity | Opinion
Comments