President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration promises are popular among a wide swath of Republican voters, according to a new survey released earlier this month.
Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) published the findings of a survey that analyzed, among other things, how voters feel about the idea of placing illegal immigrants into militarized encampments as they await deportation.
The PRRI survey found that about 46 percent of Republican voters support such a policy. About 19 percent of Independents and eight percent of Democrats agree. Overall, about a quarter (26 percent) of Americans support this approach.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to use the U.S., military to round up illegal immigrants and put them in detention camps using the Alien Enemies Act. His pledge came as the nation is facing a continual crisis at the southern border with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers trying to enter the country.
These numbers represent a significant drop from when PRRI conducted a similar survey in May 2024. Back then, about 47 percent of all Americans supported militarized camps for illegal immigrants, including 79 percent of Republicans and 47 percent of Independents. Almost a quarter of Democrats (22 percent) agreed with the policy.
PRRI president Robert P. Jones told Axios that he was “pretty stunned at how many Americans, particularly Republicans and white evangelicals, supported this.”
The proposed policy received its highest level of support among White evangelical Protestants at 75 percent. Among Hispanic Catholics, about 33 percent agreed with the plan, along with 42 percent of Black Protestants and 47 percent of Hispanic Protestants.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1789 is a federal law that empowers the president to detain or deport non-citizens from countries at war with the United States. Under the law, the president can apprehend immigrants without a hearing. ‘
Some have criticized Trump’s promise to deport 21 million illegal immigrants, arguing that it is not realistic and would place an undue drain on the country’s immigration system.
The U.S. immigration system's backlog of 3.7 million court cases will take four years to resolve at the current pace — but that could balloon to 16 years under Trump's mass deportation plan, according to an Axios analysis.
Left-leaning immigrant advocacy groups have been pushing back against Trump’s plans for illegal immigrants.
Valiente Action Fund, for example, tells Axios it found that hard negative ads against Trump, showing how his policies would separate families, swayed some Black and Latino male voters who were previously supporting hard immigration policies.
"We have to tell that story, and not let Trump define immigration for our country," Valiente Action Fund executive director Maria Rodriguez tells Axios.
Trump’s pledge to deal with the immigration crisis was welcome among many on both sides of the political divide. However, it seems clear that while most favor an approach that would curb illegal immigration and ease the strain the border crisis has placed on major cities and border towns, rounding up untold numbers of illegals and putting them in camps is not a popular proposition.
It is likely that Team Trump is fully aware of this, which is why this particular plan might not materialize. Indeed, the ambitious mass deportation plan might not even become a reality. The president-elect is known for making bold declarations that might even border on extreme only to water them down into something that is more palatable for the public.
The fact is, America might not need mass deportations to ease concerns about immigration. If Trump can deport a higher number of dangerous illegals who commit violent and property crimes after entering the country while also reducing the flow of illegals across the southern border, that would likely be enough for Americans to feel as if the Trump administration has taken significant action to deal with immigration. It would certainly be a step in the right direction.
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