Americans have grown less welcoming toward immigrants living in the U.S. illegally since Donald Trump's first presidency but remain wary of harsh measures like using detention camps for Trump's promised mass deportation effort, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Some 33% of respondents in the poll, conducted Dec. 5-10, said most or all immigrants without legal status should be allowed to stay in the United States, down from 39% in Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted in 2017, early in Republican President-elect Trump's first four-year term.
The share of respondents who said most or all immigrants in the U.S. illegally should be deported was largely stable at 53%, compared with 51% in 2017. The share of people who said they weren't sure whether they should be allowed to stay rose to 14% from 9%.
The poll showed a modest hardening of views on immigration among many Americans but also points to potential political risks for Trump depending on how aggressively he implements his deportation campaign after he takes office on Jan. 20.
Only 30% of respondents agreed with a statement that "illegal immigrants should be arrested and put in detention camps while awaiting deportation hearings," while 53% disagreed. Another 17% said they didn't know where they stood or declined to answer the question.
Republican pollster Whit Ayres said Trump could lose support if he splits apart families, puts immigrants into World War Two-style internment camps or deports people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, a group known as "Dreamers."
"Most Americans are not going to support deporting a father who is a sole breadwinner of a family of American citizens," Ayres said.
Trump recaptured the White House in November after vowing to crack down on legal and illegal immigration, including a pledge to deport record numbers of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Some 27% of respondents in the new Reuters/Ipsos poll said immigration should be the top priority during Trump's first 100 days in office, higher than any other policy area.
In an interview with NBC News that aired on Sunday, Trump said he aimed to deport all immigrants in the U.S. illegally.
“I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump said.
The less welcoming stance toward people in the country illegally comes as the immigrant share of the population has surged to 14%, the highest level in over a century, according to 2023 U.S. Census population estimates. That percentage included immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, a number the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated at 11 million in January 2022.
The incoming Trump administration plans to tap resources from across government for the deportation initiative, which Vice President-elect JD Vance has signaled could target 1 million people per year.
The pro-immigration American Immigration Council estimated that deporting all immigrants in the U.S. illegally would cost an average of $88 billion annually. In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Trump's border czar Tom Homan said they would need a similar sum.
In an April interview, Trump declined to rule out building detention camps but said there "wouldn't be that much of a need for them" because immigrants would be deported quickly.
TRUMP'S CRIME RHETORIC
During this year's election campaign, Trump railed against Democratic President Joe Biden for allowing what Trump falsely depicted as a wave of violent crimes committed by immigrants in the country illegally. Numerous studies have found that immigrants - both with and without legal status - do not commit crimes at higher rates that native-born Americans.
The political rhetoric might be shaping the views of some Americans. Among those in the poll that picked immigration as one of the top problems facing the country, some 20% said immigrants committing crimes was their top immigration concern. The share of people focused on migrant crime was slightly higher among minority respondents - at 24% - compared to respondents who identified as white - at 18%.
Surveys in past years found fewer than one in 10 people focused on immigration were particularly concerned about migrant crime.
The decline in the share of people who welcome immigrants in the country illegally was particularly strong among Republicans, where support for allowing people to stay fell to 9% from 18% in 2017. Among Democrats, support for letting people stay was largely unchanged at 61%.
Among Hispanics, a group that exit polls showed swung heavily toward Trump in November relative to the 2020 election, support for letting immigrants stay even if they lack legal status fell to 47% from 54% in 2017. Among Black respondents, who continued to overwhelmingly oppose Trump in November according to exit polls, the share that backed letting people stay fell to 36% from 58% in 2017. Some 29% of white respondents backed allowing people to stay, down from 33% in 2017.
Brett Buerck, CEO of the Republican-focused consulting firm Majority Strategies, said in an email that voters want Trump to take action with immigration enforcement and are "tired of endless talk without real progress."
"The immediate agenda is clear: secure the border, deport criminals, and sort out the rest from there," he said.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted nationwide and online, surveyed 4,183 people and had margins of error of about 2 percentage points for questions answered by all respondents. The figures on Black and Hispanic views were based on smaller samples in the survey and had margins of error of about 4 or 5 percentage points.
