{"id":7681,"date":"2025-04-25T12:29:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T12:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=7681"},"modified":"2025-04-25T12:29:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T12:29:05","slug":"how-the-publics-shift-on-immigration-paved-the-way-for-trumps-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=7681","title":{"rendered":"How the public’s shift on immigration paved the way for Trump’s crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

PASSAIC, N.J. — <\/span>Alleged gang members without criminal records wrongly sent<\/a> to a notorious prison in El Salvador.<\/p>\n

International students detained by masked federal agents<\/a> for writing opinion columns<\/a> or attending campus demonstrations<\/a>. <\/p>\n

American citizens, visa holders and visitors<\/a> stopped at airports, detained for days<\/a> or facing deportation for minor infractions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump<\/a> has launched an unprecedented campaign of immigration enforcement that has pushed the limits of executive power<\/a> and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him<\/a>. But unlike in his first term, Trump\u2019s efforts have not sparked the kind of widespread condemnation or protests that led him to retreat<\/a> from some unpopular positions.<\/p>\n

Instead, immigration has emerged as one of Trump\u2019s strongest issues in public polling, reflecting both his grip on the Republican base and a broader shift in public sentiment that is driven in part, interviews suggest, by anger at the policies<\/a> of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

The White House has seized on this shift, mocking critics and egging on Democrats to engage on an issue that Trump’s team sees as a win.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s changed,\u201d said pollster Frank Luntz, a longtime ally of Republicans who has been holding focus groups with voters to discuss immigration. \u201cThis is the one area where Donald Trump still has significant and widespread public support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luntz said voters dismayed by the historically large influx of migrants under Biden are now \u201cprepared to accept a more extreme approach.”<\/p>\n

\u201cMake no mistake,” he added. \u201cThe public may not embrace it, but they definitely support it. And this is actually his strongest area as he approaches his 100th day (in office).\u201d<\/p>\n

A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a> finds that immigration is a relative high point for Trump<\/a> compared with other issues, including his approach to the economy, foreign policy and trade negotiations. Slightly fewer than half of U.S. adults, 46%, say they approve of Trump\u2019s handling of the issue, compared with his overall job approval rating of 39%, according to the survey.<\/p>\n

The poll was conducted April 17-21, a period that included a trip by Sen. Chris Van Hollen<\/a>, D-Md., to El Salvador to demand that Kilmar Abrego Garcia be released from prison after the U.S. government admitted he was wrongly deported.<\/p>\n

In the 2020 election, few voters considered immigration the most important issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of registered voters in all 50 states.<\/p>\n

Four years later, after Republicans and conservative media had hammered Biden for his policies and often cast migrant U.S.-Mexico border crossings as an invasion, immigration had risen above health care, abortion and crime. It was second only to the economy.<\/p>\n

Under Biden, migrant apprehensions spiked to more than 2 million<\/a> two years in a row. Republican governors in border states bused migrants by the tens of thousands to cities across the country, including to New York, where migrants were placed in shelters and hotels, straining budgets. <\/p>\n

Voters in the 2024 election were also more open to tougher immigration policies than the 2020 electorate. Last November, 44% of voters said most immigrants living in the United States illegally should be deported to their home countries, according to AP VoteCast, compared with 29% in 2020. <\/p>\n

Immigration remains a relative strength for Trump today: 84% of Republicans approve of Trump\u2019s immigration approach, according to the April AP-NORC poll, compared with 68% who approve of how he is handling trade negotiations.<\/p>\n

The poll found about 4 in 10 U.S. adults \u201cstrongly\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d favor Trump\u2019s policy of sending Venezuelan immigrants who authorities say are gang members to El Salvador, with an additional 22% saying they neither favor nor oppose it. About 4 in 10 were opposed.<\/p>\n

Americans are more opposed, broadly, to revoking foreign students\u2019 visas over their participation in pro-Palestinian activism, with about half opposed and about 3 in 10 in support.<\/p>\n

The changing views are evident in places like northern New Jersey\u2019s suburban Passaic County, one of the former Democratic strongholds where Trump overperformed<\/a> in November. <\/p>\n

Trump became the first Republican to win the county in more than 30 years. He carried the heavily Latino city of Passaic and significantly increased his support in Paterson, the state\u2019s third-largest city, which is majority Latino and also has a large Muslim community. He drew 13,819 votes after winning 3,999 in 2016. Having lost New Jersey by nearly 16 percentage points to Biden in 2020, Trump narrowed that margin to 6 percentage points last year. <\/p>\n

Paterson resident Sunny Cumur, 54, a truck driver who immigrated from Turkey in the late 1990s, describes himself as a Democrat who doesn\u2019t usually vote. But he wanted Trump to win, he said, because he was concerned about the border under Biden. <\/p>\n

While studies show immigrants are generally less likely<\/a> to commit crimes than native-born Americans, local news in New York and other cities frequently featured what Trump took to calling \u201cmigrant crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Biden did, they opened all the borders, and a lot of people come here for political asylum. Come on! They don’t even check if they are terrorists or not,” Cumur said. He complained that newcomers willing to work for lower wages have been undercutting workers like him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrow \u2019em out. I don\u2019t want to live with criminals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Still, other supporters worry Trump is taking things too far.<\/p>\n

Republican Manuel Terrero, 39, a real estate agent from Clifton, said he was drawn to Trump because of what felt like \u201cchaos\u201d under Biden, with too many people crossing the border and too much crime in neighboring New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be allowed,\u201d said Terrero, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. <\/p>\n

Trump \u201cis doing a lot of good things. And that is one of them, stopping the people that are coming here to create chaos. And the people that have criminal records, send them back. But I am against (deporting) the people that are working,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s the right way to do it.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Nellie Pou, D-N.J., who was elected last year to represent the area in Congress, said her constituents believe strongly in border security but stand by her advocacy for immigrants. She recently joined Democrats on a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want anyone that may be a danger to come to our country to harm any of our citizens. No one wants that. And I firmly believe that\u2019s what people in our district and across America want,\u201d she said. At the same time, she said, \u201cOur country was made of immigrants. … So I believe there\u2019s a place for someone who comes in the legal ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015<\/a> by labeling Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists and pledging to build \u201ca great wall.\u201d He spent much of his first term focused on the border.<\/p>\n

One of his first actions in office was to impose a travel ban<\/a> barring the entry of citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries. That caused chaos at airports and protests across the nation<\/a>. The policy was quickly blocked by the courts, forcing his administration to offer three broader iterations, the last of which was eventually upheld by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The next flashpoint came in 2018, when border officials began separating families detained after illegally crossing the border. In some cases, children were forcibly removed from their parents under a “zero tolerance\u201d policy, and the parents were sometimes deported without their kids.<\/p>\n

Images of children held in cages at border facilities and audio recordings of young children crying for their parents drew intense backlash, with thousands participating in hundreds of marches across the country<\/a>. The protesters included soon-to-be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who was photographed in 2018 breaking down outside a facility in Texas being used to detain migrant children.<\/p>\n

Republicans joined in that condemnation.<\/p>\n

Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, called the separations \u201ctragic and heartrending” in a letter that urged Congress<\/a> to act. \u201cThis disgraceful condition must end,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Americans are rightly horrified by the images we are seeing on the news, children in tears pulled away from their mothers and fathers. This must stop,\u201d said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. He introduced legislation mandating that apprehended families be kept together.<\/p>\n

Bowing to pressure<\/a> and concerned about the impact on the upcoming midterm elections, Trump halted the policy. <\/p>\n

This time around, with border crossings down, Trump has shifted focus to expelling people already in the United States. He is expanding the limits of executive power and jousting with judges as he uses old laws<\/a> and rarely used provisions<\/a> to label hundreds of men gang members so they can be deported without being able to challenge their cases in court. <\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio \u2014 who as a senator once tried to negotiate a bipartisan immigration package<\/a> \u2014 has moved to expel people in the U.S. legally over political beliefs he deems counter to U.S. foreign policy interests.<\/p>\n

Their targets have included hundreds of students and others with legal status, including those on student visas or holding green cards conferring permanent residency, as well as those who have sought asylum using legal channels.<\/p>\n

Jorge Loweree, of the American Immigration Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, said Trump was doing something \u201cthat\u2019s wholly new in historical terms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s critical that people understand what the administration is doing,\u201d said Loweree, the council’s managing director of programs and strategy. \u201cWe have an administration that believes they can disappear who they want, where they want, to anywhere they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loweree argued that even if voters in November rejected what they saw as chaos at the border, that \u201cdoesn\u2019t necessarily mean that they support these very draconian measures that are being implemented today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few elected Republicans are speaking out, though some of Trump\u2019s outside allies have criticized what they see as overreach. <\/p>\n

Joe Rogan, the popular podcast host who endorsed Trump late in the campaign, voiced alarm at the case of Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela with no criminal record who was among those sent to El Salvador’s maximum-security CECOT prison<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta get scared that people who are not criminals are getting like lassoed up and deported and sent to like El Salvador prisons,\u201d Rogan told his listeners. \u201cThat\u2019s horrific. And again, that\u2019s bad for the cause. Like the cause is let\u2019s get the gang members out. Everybody agrees. But let\u2019s not (have) innocent gay hairdressers get lumped up with the gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The April AP-NORC poll found that about half of Americans say Trump has \u201cgone too far\u201d when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, compared with about 6 in 10 who say he\u2019s \u201cgone too far\u201d on imposing new tariffs on other countries.<\/p>\n

It found Americans split on mass deportations, with about 4 in 10 in favor of deporting all immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and a similar share opposed. The percentage who support mass deportations is down slightly from an AP-NORC poll<\/a> conducted in January, just before Trump took office.<\/p>\n

Still, about one-third of U.S. adults say Trump\u2019s actions have been \u201cabout right\u201d on immigration, and about 2 in 10 think he hasn’t gone far enough.<\/p>\n

One case that has gained traction nationally is that of Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident from El Salvador who was sent to CECOT<\/a> despite an immigration court order preventing his deportation. Trump officials have said that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, a claim Abrego Garcia’s attorneys deny, and noted that his wife once sought a protective order against him. <\/p>\n

El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has said he will not let Abrego Garcia leave the country.<\/p>\n

More Democrats have traveled to El Salvador to highlight the case. And people angry about the situation have confronted Republican lawmakers, including at a contentious town hall Wednesday hosted by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, during which several members of the audience shouted at him<\/a> to push for Abrego Garcia’s return. <\/p>\n

The White House has embraced the fight. \u201cA request for Democrats \u2014 please continue to make defending criminal illegal immigrants your top messaging point,\u201d wrote Trump\u2019s director of communications, Steven Cheung.<\/p>\n

Some in the party have urged it to steer clear. Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., called the case a \u201cdistraction\u201d from issues such as tariffs that have emerged as a bigger weakness for Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the debate (Republicans) want. This is their 80-20 issue, as they\u2019ve described it,\u201d he said of Republicans on his podcast. \u201cIt\u2019s a tough case, because,\u201d he said, it risks people wondering, \u201care they defending MS-13?\u201d<\/p>\n

But Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, is urging Democrats to seize on the case. He says border issues are \u201cmuch more nuanced than \u2018immigration good for Trump, bad for Democrats'” and believes that voters are on their side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we can’t stand up against the illegal rendition of the father of a U.S. child to a prison known for torture, then I don\u2019t really know what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press polling editor Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PASSAIC, N.J. — Alleged gang members without criminal records wrongly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador. International students detained by masked federal agents for writing opinion columns or attending campus demonstrations. American citizens, visa holders and visitors stopped at airports, detained for days or facing deportation for minor infractions. Since returning to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7683,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681\/revisions\/7683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}