The Trump administration is in a dilemma: It wants to deliver on its deportation promises but faces backlash in many states and on Capitol Hill when it attempts to arrest aliens in the country illegally. The latest poll from the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, The Harris Poll, and Harris X reveals American voters have a schizophrenic response to immigration enforcement — and underscores why the best ICE arrests are the ones you never see in the media or on the internet.
The Harvard/Harris poll was conducted between January 28 and 29, i.e., after the president sent “Border Czar” Tom Homan to Minnesota to calm the waters there. In conducting that poll, The Harris Poll and Harris X surveyed 2,000 registered voters and the margin of error was +/- 1.99 percent.
Favorability of Public Figures
Harvard/Harris asked respondents whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of 25 public figures, from Donald Trump to Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado.
Curiously, voters are evenly split on Machado — 18 percent like her and 18 percent don’t, largely because the rest hadn’t heard of her or didn’t know enough to voice an opinion about a woman the Nobel Prize committee lauded “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.
Perhaps that sounds sketchy to some, or maybe she just needs more TikTok videos and Twitter hits.
Similarly, an equal number of respondents — 33 percent — had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Secretary of State (among other jobs) Marco Rubio.
Twenty-one of the rest received net unfavorable responses, including Trump (8 percent unfavorable), Vice President J.D. Vance (4 percent unfavorable), Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) (3 percent unfavorable), Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) (6 percent unfavorable), DHS Secretary Kristi Noem (13 percent unfavorable), and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (17 percent unfavorable).
Just two of those 25 public figures received net favorable ratings, and by the same margin: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (net 2 percent favorable) and the border czar (ditto).
If the GOP is looking for a 2028 dream ticket, I may have found it, but keep in mind the Harvard/Harris poll was conducted at the same time Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued the following tweet:
Sending Tom Homan to Minnesota is like pouring gasoline on a fire.
The chaos is the point — let’s stop sending Trump officials in and start sending Trump’s agents home. https://t.co/4hLlPkiSAD— Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) January 26, 2026
I’ll return to that theme, but maybe voters saw something in Homan that the billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune didn’t.
Most Important Issues Facing America
Harvard/Harris also asked those 2,000 registered voters the following question: “What would you say are the most important issues facing the country today?”
The top issue at 33 percent was evergreen, “price increases/inflation/affordability”, which should be little surprise given that rising costs have led the pack for as long as I have followed polling. It’s a concern that likely started a few weeks after the first coins were minted 3,000 years ago in China.
A separate pocketbook issue, “the economy and jobs”, took third place, two issues that weigh on the collective minds of 27 percent of the electorate.
The second most pressing issue to voters? “Immigration”, a choice of 29 percent of respondents, up three points since the last Harvard/Harris poll.
Immigration can mean different things as an issue to different people, and the responses suggest that to be the case: 23 percent of registered Democrats, 24 percent of Independents, and 38 percent of GOP voters all identified it as an important issue facing the Republic.
Unfortunately, the rest of the poll doesn’t offer any consensus for what those voters really want done on immigration.
One thing that is clear is that immigration is a much bigger deal for Republican voters than for the rest of the electorate.
Immigration also came in second (after inflation and affordability) when Harvard/Harris asked those 2,000 respondents what issue was “most important” to them “personally”, the choice of 10 percent of Democrats, 7 percent of Independents, and a whopping 21 percent of GOP voters.
Trump Policies
Voters were given a list of 22 Trump II policies and asked whether they supported them, and here’s where that poll starts getting interesting.
More than half, 52 percent, of respondents supported “Deporting all immigrants who are here illegally”, including nearly half (49 percent of Independents) but just 28 percent of registered Democrats.
Support, however, jumps to 73 percent for the Trump II policy of “Deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes”. Those in favor of such a plan include more than half (60 percent) of Democrats and nearly 70 percent of Independents.
Of course, to deport those aliens, DHS must have more “boots on the ground”, and yet the least favored of those 22 Trump II issues was “Hiring an additional 20,000 border patrol and ICE agents to conduct immigration raids and policing within different parts of the country”.
Just 43 percent of voters polled supported additional hiring of immigration officers, including a paltry 17 percent of Democrats and just over a third (35 percent) of Independents.
That’s likely more of a sentiment toward interior immigration enforcement, because elsewhere in that poll, a majority, 52 percent, approve of how Trump II has handled border security, while only 44 percent are supportive of “how immigration enforcement agencies ... are enforcing immigration laws inside U.S. cities”.
Believe me, the responses only get more confusing from there.
On the one hand, 57 percent of those polled oppose “elected officials encouraging resistance to ICE officers” (including 62 percent of Independents), two-thirds (67 percent, including 64 percent of Independents) think local officials should hand illegal alien criminals over to immigration officers, and an equal percentage (67 percent) want “state and local authorities” to “cooperate with federal immigration authorities on the deportation of criminals”.
That’s the exact opposite of what “sanctuary jurisdictions” are offering.
On the other hand, however, fewer than half (49 percent) of respondents think recent illegal entrants should be deported, a figure that drops to 37 percent for illegal aliens who have “lived in the U.S. for many years with no serious crimes”.
That said, 58 percent of respondents polled (including 57 percent of Independents) think nonimmigrants who overstayed their visas should be deported, regardless of whether they are criminals or not.
Respectfully, while the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn’t discriminate between illicit migrants, overstays, and deportable green card holders when it comes to removability, illegal entry is a bigger headache for enforcement (and a more significant attack on sovereignty) than tourists and students who hang around too long, but American voters want ICE to take a harsher line on the latter than the former.
Go figure.
Key Takeaways
Tom Homan’s immigration-enforcement mantra is “the worst first”, a policy more in line with the current views of American voters than the Pokémonesque scheme they were formerly presented. That likely explains why the border czar shares the top popularity spot with RFK, Jr.
Homan knows, however, that immigration enforcement solely focused on illegal alien criminals will fail, and more importantly make it impossible to secure the border in the future. A $7,000 smuggling fee is a wise investment if, once you enter, you won’t be deported so long as you don’t break any other laws.
Supporting border enforcement but not ICE arrests of recent illegal migrants is like insisting would-be arsonists with gasoline cans and matches be arrested, but demanding pardons when cops show up after they’ve started their fires, or campaigning to allow shoplifters to keep their pilfered goods.
That said, after four years of border chaos under Biden, voters likely favored a return to what Warren Harding would have called “normalcy” in immigration enforcement: They want the laws enforced, but they don’t want to know, let alone watch, how it’s being done.
There’s a lack of understanding on how the laws have been enforced in the past, but if there is one thing that’s clear from the latest Harvard/Harris poll it’s this: American voters want criminal aliens off the streets, and don’t want sanctuary politicos to prevent that from happening.