The country is deeply divided over the Trump administration’s treatment of illegal immigrants.  There doesn’t seem to be much resistance this time to closing down the Southern border.  The gap opens over what to do about the illegal immigrants who entered the country before the border got shut down.  Do all or most of them get to stay?  Do they all get deported without regard to how long they’ve been here or what role they now play in the economy? 

In June 2025, 52 percent of Americans supported deporting illegal immigrants.  The partisan divide was stark, but also revealing on minority positions within each party.  Those approving deportations included 90 percent of Republicans, but also 20 percent of Democrats.[1]  

Almost as many Americans (49 percent) said that President Trump had crossed some boundary of reasonableness in his sweeps and arrests. Thus, 50 percent of Americans disapproved of President Trump dispatching National Guard and even Marine units to Los Angeles to cow disorderly demonstrators protesting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducting sweeps for illegal immigrants.  Only a third (35 percent) of Americans approved of the deployment of military forces to deal with a civil policing matter.[2]    

If you desire the end, then you must desire also the means.  Either essentially half of Americans desire the end, but don’t want the reality of it shoved in their faces OR their desire for the end is purely rhetorical.  Hard to tell which is true.  Some of each?  Apparently, President Trump desires the end and accepts—even relishes–the means. 

The Republican opponents of deportation may largely represent businesses that depend upon illegal immigrants because many Americans have never known what hard work for low pay is really like.  The Democratic supporters of deportations provide a warning shot—if any more were needed after the election—of the fragility of the party’s coalition.

The 80 percent of Democrats who oppose deporting illegal immigrants doubtless have a variety of motives.  The illegals toil in vital sectors of the economy where the Native-born don’t want to work.  The illegals are in flight from Hell-hole countries (of which there are a great many).  They are just trying to make better lives.  Immigration is what made America great!  Ideally, there shouldn’t be any immigration restrictions at all, except for identifiable terrorists and criminals.  Broadly, on many issues, Democrats are cosmopolitans (citizens of the world and concerned for their fellow citizens) and Republicans are parochial (American citizens and concerned for their fellow citizens).  It will be difficult to reconcile those two positions. 

            In September 2025, the Supreme Court lifted a stay by a federal judge in California that had stopped Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using ethnicity and language as partial grounds for stopping and detaining suspected illegal immigrants.  Some ethnicity and language communities in California “braced” for impact.  One apologist for the government argued that “[M]ost undocumented migrants in Los Angeles are Latino…”[3]  Fine, but most Latinos in Los Angeles are not “undocumented migrants.”  They still are subject to stops and detentions and “show us your papers.” 

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[1] Reuters/Ipsos poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 June 2025, p. 17.

[2] Reuters/Ipsos poll reported in “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 June 2025, p. 17. 

[3] The Week’s summary of Andrew McCarthy’s statement in National Review, in “Trump sends ICE into Chicago and Boston,” The Week, 19 September 2025, p. 4.