WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Disapproval of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy increased ahead of his State of the Union address, according to several recent polls.
In his Feb. 24 address, Trump touted some of the actions he has taken in the first year of his second term, while making a pitch to midterm voters for his fellow Republicans. But the speech came as more U.S. adults grow skeptical of his immigration policy.
A trio of polls by PBS/Marist/NPR, Reuters and AP-NORC, all released in February, found similar results. The PBS/Marist/NPR poll found 65 percent of Americans, up from 54 percent last June, said the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have gone too far in their enforcement of immigration laws. The AP-NORC poll found 62 percent said the deployment of federal immigration agents into U.S. cities has gone too far.
Meanwhile, the Reuters poll found just 38 percent approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, a new record low for that poll. The AP-NORC similarly found 4 in 10 Americans said they approve of Trump’s immigration performance.
J. Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy at the Center for Migration Studies of New York and the former director of migration policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News, “I believe we are seeing a dramatic shift in public opinion against the administration’s mass deportation campaign.”
Appleby noted the polling shift came after the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. 37-year-old citizens and Minneapolis residents shot and killed by federal agents Jan. 7 and 24 respectively as they protested immigration enforcement actions in that city.
Faith leaders, including Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, called for prayer following the deaths of Pretti and Good, with many bishops and clergy taking up the USCCB president’s call to hold Holy Hours for peace in the aftermath.
“The tragic events in Minneapolis have exposed the abuses of ICE and marked a turning point in how the public views the immigration policy of the administration,” Appleby said. “My hope is that the administration understands this and works to restore due process and fairness to the immigration enforcement system. My fear is that they will act defiantly and double down on their unlawful tactics.”
Reuters reported in February that more than 400 federal judges have ruled since October that ICE illegally detained people in at least 4,421 cases. A New York Times review of federal dockets found at least 35 cases since August in which federal judges demanded the administration explain why it was flouting their orders. Numerous federal cases accusing people of criminal violence or obstruction of immigration enforcement agents have fallen apart due to a lack of evidence or even falsified evidence.
Immigration enforcement policies have been a cornerstone of Trump’s platform. After the shootings of Pretti and Good, Trump told NBC in an interview that aired Feb. 4, “Maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch. But you still have to be tough.”
Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a group that works to apply the perspective of Catholic social teaching in policy and practice to the U.S.-Mexico border region, told OSV News, “The overwhelming majority of Americans support a balanced, orderly approach to immigration that ensures security, protects the vulnerable and honors the important contributions of immigrants.”
In a piece for Angelus, the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s news outlet, following the deaths of Pretti and Good, Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles denounced the violence in Minneapolis and argued that passage of the Dignity Act (H.R. 4333), would be a “realistic” and “good-faith starting point” toward immigration reform.
“There is no question that the federal government has the duty to enforce immigration laws. But there must be a better way than this,” he said.
The Dignity Act, he argued, “would reform the visa and asylum processes, tighten border security and enforcement measures, and establish a mandatory, nationwide electronic verification system for employers; it would provide a path to a legal status for the millions of undocumented people who have been living and working in the country for five years or more, and also a path to citizenship for the 2.5 million ‘Dreamers.’ The bill holds undocumented immigrants accountable for breaking federal law, requiring them to undergo a criminal background check, pay back taxes they owe, and it imposes a stiff penalty fee.”
Corbett said that immigration reform is the “moral” and “sensible” thing to do and preferable to the “fiscal, constitutional and moral nightmare” of Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
“Every day, we are working with more and more faith leaders, business leaders and ordinary Americans ready to turn the page and implement urgent changes,” he said.
Among them, Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, in a Feb. 20 statement released by the USCCB denounced the plan by ICE to open 20 warehouses for detaining people accused of immigration violations, including eight “mega centers” that would each be “capable of detaining 7,000 to 10,000 people.”
“The thought of holding thousands of families in massive warehouses should challenge the conscience of every American,” he said.
Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.
Bishop Cahill urged the Trump administration and Congress “to lead with right reason, abandon this misuse of taxpayer funds, and to instead pursue a more just approach to immigration enforcement that truly respects human dignity, the sanctity of families, and religious liberty.”
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