The latest Harvard/Harris poll dropped on March 31, and it has something for everybody when it comes to immigration. Support for deporting criminal illegal aliens is up (slightly), but while a majority of voters still favor large-scale deportations, popularity is slipping and most want to see some ICE reforms.
The poll surveyed 2,009 registered voters and was conducted by The Harris Poll and Harris X between March 25 and 26 for the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University. The margin of error was +/- 1.99 percentage points.
Trump Approval on the Issues
The president suffered a big drop in popularity across the board on most major issues since the last Harvard/Harris poll in late February.
Support for his handling of the economy fell five points to 40 percent, and the popularity of the job he is doing on foreign affairs dropped four points to 41 percent — each decline likely linked to Trump’s management of the war in (technically, over) Iran, which garnered support from just 41 percent of voters polled.
At 46 percent approval, immigration remains one of the president’s most popular issues, but Trump still suffered a two-point decline on his handling of the issue compared to February (48 percent support).
Most Important Issues Facing the Country
Pollsters asked respondents what they thought the “most important issues facing the country today” were, and pocketbook concerns won out.
Nearly a third, 32 percent, said inflation was their biggest concern, while 30 percent said it was the economy, responses virtually unchanged since February.
Immigration was the third-biggest issue on the minds of voters, the choice of 26 percent of those polled — a one-point decline compared to the previous month — but an immigration-adjacent worry, “terrorism and national security”, jumped eight points to 19 percent, tying it with “corruption”.
Keep an eye on concerns over threats to the homeland as the war in the Persian Gulf unfolds.
Similarly, 12 percent of those polled said that “immigration” was the biggest issue that mattered to them personally, a one-point rise compared to the February polling, trailing just “inflation and affordability” (46 percent) and “restoring basic American values of merit and competence” (14 percent).
Popularity of Trump’s Policies
For how unpopular Trump’s handling of various issues is among American voters, most of his major policies have retained significant support.
More than three-quarters of the registered voters polled, 77 percent, favor “deporting aliens here illegally who have committed crimes”, a two-point rise compared to February, and a proposal popular with both Democratic voters (70 percent) and Independents (74 percent).
But while a majority (54 percent) of respondents polled in March support “deporting all immigrants who are here illegally”, it’s a three-point fall in popularity on the issue compared to the last poll, and a nine-point decline among Independents (47 percent support compared to 56 percent in February).
The DHS Funding Shutdown
If congressional Democrats thought shutting down DHS funding to diminish support for immigration enforcement was a wise move, they were probably correct.
A whopping 60 percent of respondents — including 72 percent of Independents and (not surprisingly) 81 percent of Democrats — support not funding ICE “unless it makes changes to how it operates”, while just over half (52 percent) believe that the Democratic shutdown was a “justified response to ICE actions and policy”.
Note that Independents were evenly split on the last point, with 50 percent of the politically unaligned believing the shutdown was justified and 50 percent stating it’s a “political stunt motivated to please the base of the Democratic Party”, but still these responses suggest some changes are in order.
“DHS Risks Losing the Immigration-Enforcement Narrative”
In that vein, I will note that many changes have been made in how ICE conducts its business since the president sent “Border Czar” Tom Homan to Minneapolis to run immigration enforcement there in late January, as well as since Trump swapped out Kristi Noem for erstwhile Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R) in March, but those changes haven’t sunk into the popular consciousness yet.
This is likely one of those rare situations where Cicero’s classic maxim esse quam videri (“to be, not to seem”) doesn’t apply, but then the administration is in a tough position between pleasing Trump’s pro-enforcement base and placating the rest of the electorate.
Probably the best take on these responses is that a majority of American voters want the immigration laws to be enforced, but how ICE does it matters.
If I were advising the administration on how to thread this needle, I would counsel in favor of the sort of “briefcase enforcement” my boss, Mark Krikorian, has proposed, which focuses on the businesses where those here unlawfully are employed.
Random sweeps through Home Depot, Lowe’s, and Target parking lots, to the extent they occurred under Noem, are a waste of DHS resources because they are unlikely to yield many arrests and are unduly confrontational.
As any couple with 30 or more years under their collective belts will tell you, the secret to a happy marriage is to continually woo your spouse, and the same applies to any popular political issue.
It’s beyond cavil that Trump’s deportation promises were a winner on the 2024 campaign trail, but at some point, it appears those who were calling the shots at DHS concluded they didn’t need to keep explaining to American voters why they were carrying out enforcement operations in the manner they were throughout 2025.
Back in November, I warned that the department risked “losing the immigration-enforcement narrative”, and unfortunately, five months later, it appears I was correct.
The good news for the administration is that Trump has the right personnel in place to make enforcement both effective and more acceptable (if not necessarily popular) for most Americans.
As I told the Washington Post in early March: “Most Americans favor immigration enforcement. They just don’t want to see or hear much about it.” Consider the latest Harvard/Harris poll a vindication of that point.