Support for President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is in free fall in early 2026 after federal immigration agents shot and killed two Americans last month, according to the new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.
The administration’s aggressive tactics and deportation goals have dragged down Americans’ views of Trump on the very issue that helped sweep him into office, the survey shows.
Immigration and border security had long stood out as a strength for Trump in polls, both as he ran for a second term in 2024 and in the first year of his new administration. Now, Trump’s ratings on the issue have sunk to the same level as his overall job approval rating.
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In a double-digit shift, 49% of adults strongly disapprove of how Trump has handled border security and immigration, up from 38% strong disapproval last summer and 34% in April. Self-identified independents drove the erosion, with the share of strong disapprovers in that group having risen 11 points since August.
Fully 60% of those surveyed in the week after the death of Alex Pretti in Minnesota somewhat or strongly disapproved of Trump’s actions on border security and immigration. Another 40% approved of Trump on the issue, including 27% who strongly approved and 13% who somewhat approved.
Meanwhile, his overall approval rating declined slightly to 39%, about even with his rating on immigration and border security.
“In these elections that are won on the margins, particularly in the swing states, independents are a really critical group,” said Marc Trussler, a senior elections analyst for NBC News’ Decision Desk and part of the team that conducted the poll. “To see them shift so heavily on one of the president’s key priorities is really telling.”
The findings expose the limitations of the Trump messaging machine in the wake of the fatal shootings of Pretti and Renee Good by immigration agents in Minnesota. The administration has tried to turn the conversation away from acts of aggression against immigrants, protesters and residents, instead focusing on the dangers of “sanctuary” policies and asserting that a silent majority of Americans welcome immigration agents’ stepped-up presence in their cities.
Instead, nearly three-quarters of the poll respondents say they want the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to be reformed or abolished. They overwhelmingly say immigration officers have gone too far. Well over half, 63%, say the federal government has gone too far in disregarding local and state governments, compared with 37% who said state and local governments have gone too far in disregarding federal authority.
A strong majority, 63%, disapprove of immigration agents’ wearing masks. More blame street clashes on the administration, not protesters. And 58% disagreed when they were asked whether regular, law-abiding citizens had “nothing to fear” from immigration agents.
Americans do want to see local cooperation with federal authorities to deport people in the U.S. illegally. The largest segment of respondents, 46%, said local governments should cooperate in some cases. Thirty-four percent said they should cooperate in all cases, and 20% said they never should cooperate.
The poll was conducted online from Jan. 27 through Friday — after Good’s and Pretti’s deaths — with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. It is clear from the data that the incidents catalyzed disapproval of both ICE itself and Trump’s overall handling of immigration, as have a flood of social media videos showing violent confrontations on the streets.
While major immigration operations have been underway in cities across the country for months, the events in Minnesota had the biggest impact on the public. In the wake of the killing of Pretti, Trump changed the leadership of the administration’s immigration operations in Minneapolis. While the poll was in the field, White House border czar Tom Homan announced that hundreds of immigration agents would be pulling out of the city. And Trump told NBC News since then that he thinks he needs to take a “softer touch” on immigration.
“Those things hadn’t moved the needle that much,” Trussler said of earlier incidents involving ICE and Border Patrol personnel. “It is really the chaos of Minnesota that has done it.”
In making judgments around immigration arrests and clashes with protesters, the public has heavily leaned on videos posted on social media, with the largest segment, 34%, saying that is the most accurate source of information. The next largest segment, 24%, said they turned to national news accounts.
Nationally, a majority of respondents, 62%, say they don’t trust that federal investigations into the shooting deaths of Good and Pretti will be fair and transparent. That follows extensive media reporting about how local authorities were cut out of probing the shootings and the resignations of at least six federal prosecutors, who, according to previous NBC News reporting, felt pressured by the Trump administration during their probes.
It has all put Trump in a perilous spot politically as midterm elections approach during his second year in office. Trump’s overall job approval slid to the lowest mark in NBC News Decision Desk polling of his second term, slightly down from 42% in December’s survey to 39% now.
Approval of ICE is even lower, at 34%. Meanwhile, 65% said the country is on the wrong track.
In addition to causing trouble with independents, Trump and his immigration policies are also fracturing the Republican base, especially the approximately half of Republicans who identified themselves as “more a supporter of the Republican Party” than “more a supporter of the Make America Great Again” movement.
For instance, 74% of MAGA Republicans strongly approved of federal immigration officers’ wearing masks, compared with only 46% of traditional Republicans. (Another 17% of MAGA Republicans and 27% of traditional Republicans said they somewhat approved of officers’ wearing masks.)
While 59% of traditional Republicans supported an investigation of the agent who shot Pretti, 38% of MAGA Republicans shared that opinion.
And while 91% of MAGA Republicans were very or somewhat confident that a probe of Good’s and Pretti’s deaths would be transparent, 73% of traditional Republicans felt that way.
Alongside the national poll, NBC News Decision Desk, NBC affiliate KARE of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Star Tribune simultaneously conducted a Minnesota-specific survey. The results broadly reflected the findings in the national poll, though a higher share of Minnesotans said they viewed local news as their most accurate source of information. A similar share of state residents also said they support some level of local cooperation with deporting undocumented immigrants.
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.