By Ben Kamisar and Bridget Bowman, NBC
A sizable majority of Americans want significant changes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — but while they largely disapprove of ICE and say its tactics have gone too far, the country is divided over just how much to reform the agency and how to handle immigration policy broadly, according to a new survey.
The new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey finds nearly 3 in 4 U.S. adults support some changes to ICE, with 29 percent saying it should be abolished outright. Approval of President Donald Trump’s sweeping deportation policies dropped steeply after federal agents killed two Americans last month in Minneapolis.
Meanwhile, Congress is debating federal funding for the agency, and a potential shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security looms at the end of the week, with congressional Democrats taking issue with agents’ tactics, clashes with protesters and questions surrounding due process for the targets of immigration enforcement.
A plurality of Americans (43 percent) say ICE should be reformed, while 29 percent say it should be abolished, and 29 percent say it should continue in its current form. The survey of U.S. adults was conducted from Jan. 27 to Friday, after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
Views about the future of ICE also fell along partisan lines, with most Republicans (71 percent) saying it should continue in its current form, while Democrats and independents say it should be reformed or abolished. A majority of independents said the agency should be reformed but not abolished, while Democrats were almost evenly split between those two options. The issue has become a litmus test in a growing number of Democratic primaries ahead of the midterm elections.
A push among Democrats to abolish ICE emerged around the 2018 midterms in response to Trump’s first-term immigration policies, gaining purchase particularly among progressive candidates and activists. Enthusiasm for the push died down during the Biden administration, when Democratic border policies turned into a political advantage for Republicans.
But Democrats have grown newly emboldened by the public sentiment to demand, at minimum, an overhaul of ICE.
A quarter of Republicans said ICE should be reformed, with 5 percent saying it should be abolished altogether. That group was largely made up of Republicans who view themselves more as supporters of the Republican Party as opposed to viewing themselves as supporters of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
The public and legislative push for changes to ICE comes as federal immigration agents have faced criticism for their tactics in detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants. A spate of polling in recent months has reinforced how public sentiment has turned against the Trump administration on immigration enforcement. In a recent interview, “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas asked Trump what he had learned from Minneapolis. “Maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch,” Trump said.
“But you still have to be tough,” he continued.
Two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) say ICE and Customs and Border Patrol personnel’s tactics have gone “too far,” while 23 percent say they have been about right, and 10 percent say they have not gone far enough.
And 66 percent of Americans disapprove of how ICE is handling its job, while 34 percent approve.
Again, views of ICE and its tactics are politically polarized, though with some notable divisions among Republicans.
Overwhelming shares of independents (81 percent) and Democrats (97 percent) say federal agents’ immigration tactics have gone too far, while a majority of Republicans (57 percent) say they have been about right.
But 21 percent of Republicans say they have gone too far, while a similar share of Republicans also disapproves of how ICE is handling its job. They are likelier to be more aligned with the traditional party than the MAGA movement.
The White House is negotiating with congressional Democrats over future funding for the Department of Homeland Security ahead of a deadline of Friday.
Democratic leaders have said they will not support new funding without certain reforms to the department. Measures they have floated include requiring judicial warrants for any actions on private property, banning officers from wearing face masks while requiring them to wear identification, and guaranteeing rights and treatment of those detained.
Sixty-three percent of adults disapprove of federal immigration officers’ and agents’ wearing masks during recent enforcement activities, including 49 percent who say they “strongly disapprove,” compared with 37 percent who approve. More than 90 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents disapprove of their wearing masks, compared with 18 percent of Republicans.
An overwhelming majority of adults, 87 percent, believe federal officers should not be “granted immunity from prosecution for any unlawful activity during immigration enforcement actions.” Vast majorities of basically every demographic say the same, including more than 9 in 10 independents and Democrats, as well as 73 percent of Republicans.
While there is some agreement over those dynamics, Americans remain deeply divided over immigration policy.
Asked more broadly whether undocumented citizens should be offered a chance to apply for citizenship or deported to the countries they came from, Americans broke two-thirds for a pathway to citizenship and one-third for deportations.
Majorities of Democrats and independents backed a pathway to citizenship, but the question also revealed a notable divide among Republicans.
While just 18 percent of MAGA supporters preferred a pathway to citizenship, 41 percent of those who identify more as supporters of the Republican Party wanted to see one.
The NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey surveyed 21,995 adults online from Jan. 27 to Feb. 6 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding.