Following the death of Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE, the clear sentiment of Americans has been revealed by recent polling. According to a YouGov poll, 48% of Americans believe that the shooting of Alex Pretti was justified. 20% believe it was justified, and 32% are unsure. The fact that only 20% believe that the shooting was justified shows that the only group defending this act is Trump’s core GOP base.
Among independents, there is -37% net-justification for the death of Pretti. This issue is not one that Trump can win, with a near majority of the American public and the majority of both Independents and Democrats believing that the shooting was unjustified. This comes as approval of ICE and Trump’s popularity on immigration(which since the start of his term has outperformed his other issues by a decent margin) has decreased in the past few months.
Donald Trump cannot continue his current immigration policy if he wants to keep immigration control his most popular issue. Although Americans believe that immigration is a key issue to the United States, with 68% of Americans believing that illegal immigration is an issue in their community, ICE is not the answer to the American people.
ICE has separated itself from being an immigration force through its deployment in US cities where it has attacked and killed American citizens, and its brutality has been viewed by many on video and social media platforms. Nearly 60% of Americans now believe that ICE has gone too far in their tactics, and only 10% believe that they haven’t gone far enough.
In the past year, ICE has only spawned more resistance from Democrats and Independents(who now have net-favorability for abolishing ICE) and lost Trump ground on what could be a leading issue going into the midterms.
In the past four months, Trump’s approval on immigration has decreased by 14 points, an issue that until August was supported by a majority of Americans. If Trump keeps ICE in US cities, the brutality will continue and Trump’s immigration approval will fall even more as Americans see that ICE is not fixing their perceived problems with immigration.