AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Protests across the country have continued over President Trump's deportation policies. While the administration initially said that its focus was on hardened criminals, ICE has now increasingly been going into workplaces hoping to meet Trump's goal of 3,000 deportations a day. But how are Americans thinking about what Trump is doing? Well, to talk about that, we're going to bring in NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Hi, Domenico.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey. Great to be with you.
CHANG: Great to be with you. OK, so what indications do we have so far on how people are feeling towards Trump's immigration and deportation policies right now?
MONTANARO: In general, Trump gets better marks on immigration than on other things. There was a CBS poll out this week that found 54% approve of Trump's deportation policies. We should say that that was conducted last week and didn't ask specifically about the situation in Los Angeles. And there was a Quinnipiac poll out today showing the opposite, with 56% disapproving of his deportation policies.
But multiple polls since November have consistently shown that people trust the Republican Party more to handle immigration. It's pretty notable that Trump gets better marks on immigration than the economy, for example. That's a reversal from his first term. But it's not like 54% is very high, Ailsa.
CHANG: Yeah.
MONTANARO: It still reflects a pretty sharp split in the country, considering the passionate opposition. And there's always the risk of Trump going too far.
CHANG: What do you mean going too far? Say more about that risk.
MONTANARO: Well, we are seeing some Republican lawmakers raise concerns. Congressman David Valadao, a Republican from a swing district in California, said he's concerned about the administration's deportation policy shift to workplaces. He said he's urging them to "prioritize the removal of known criminals over the hardworking people who have lived peacefully" in the country for years, and that was a quote. Tony Gonzales is a Republican congressman from Texas. He's chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Republican Conference. He summed it up this way on CNN yesterday.
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TONY GONZALES: We all need to focus on convicted criminal illegal aliens. If we focus there and we're, you know, not going after the milker of cows who's, you know, in 103-degree weather - going after that guy, and we're going after the convicted criminal, I think we're on the right path.
MONTANARO: Of course, there are a lot of people in the White House who disagree with that, particularly someone like Stephen Miller, who's been an architect of a lot of President Trump's hard-line policies focused on culture, whether it's immigration or transgender rights or diversity.
CHANG: OK, so that's all from the Republican side, but what about Democrats? Like, what are you hearing from them?
MONTANARO: It's tricky. Lots of Democrats have been biting their nails on this issue because they lost in 2024 and immigration is something that Trump focused heavily on. But there are lots of progressive activists who feel that Democratic leaders are not standing up for immigrants as strongly as they should be. I talked to Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist. He thinks that that line can be walked, but it needs to be communicated effectively.
JOEL PAYNE: The lesson or the signal from voters is not abandon immigrants. But what voters do want is a clear and cogent policy around how you manage the country's borders. This is a redux of Barack Obama's famous we're a nation of immigrants, and we're a nation of laws.
MONTANARO: And that can be a pretty delicate line to walk, especially when you have a current progressive base that wants to see more fight from Democrats and aren't exactly fired up right now about the pragmatism that marked Obama's politics.
CHANG: Well, President Trump - I have to ask - I mean, he seems pretty eager for this fight. What is it about this political moment you think that makes him feel confident that he has an advantage on this issue?
MONTANARO: Well, this is all about those increased border crossings that we saw during the Biden administration. In 2017, when Trump first took office, Gallup found that 35% said that they wanted immigration decreased. Gallup's latest data from last year showed that that's gone up 20 points. That was the highest in the survey since October of 2001. Now, that was a month after 9/11, but it was also the last time encounters at the southern border were as high as they had been in the last couple of years. So Trump's core beliefs on immigration suddenly aligned with more Americans.
But again, there's risk of him going too far. And when it comes to the politics of all of this, we shouldn't overlook that his response to what's happening in LA does change the subject from the big topic last week - his split from Elon Musk - to ground that he's more comfortable with here - immigration.
CHANG: That is NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Thank you, Domenico.
MONTANARO: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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