Exclusive | More Americans want illegal immigrants booted out of US, even if no criminal record: poll

WASHINGTON — Half of all Americans back President Trump’s deportation policies and say that all illegal immigrants should be kicked out of the country, whether or not they’ve committed additional crimes, according to a new poll exclusively shared with The Post.

More than two-thirds (69%) of respondents to the survey by DC-based firm JL Partners — including 58% of Democrats — want illegal migrants who have broken other laws removed from the US.

Just 13% said they opposed the deportation of criminal migrants and 27% said they opposed the removal of everyone in the US illegally, compared to 50% who said they supported the drastic move.

“Opinion pieces by liberal writers, the public statements of Democrats, the views opined on social media — they could not be further from where the median American is on immigration,” James Johnson, co-founder of J.L. Partners, told The Post.

A plurality of Americans (37%) said they endorsed the removal of illegal immigrants to third countries if their home nation refuses to take them, with 30% saying they opposed such a measure, 22% saying they had no opinion and 9% saying they were unsure what they thought.

Exactly half of all respondents said the president’s border policies were about right (32%) or did not go far enough (18%), with only 38% saying the administration was going to far in its crackdown.

“This poll definitively shows that the American public are on the side of President Trump on migration policy and deportations,” Johnson added. “Quite apart from having gone ‘too far’, a majority of the public think the administration’s policy is about right or even hasn’t gone far enough.” 

While a majority of Republicans (76%) and a plurality of Independents (49%) backed deporting all illegal immigrants, more Democrats were against that policy (45%) that in favor (29%).

Trump has made mass deportation and border security a top priority of his second term and it has generally polled as one of his strongest issues.

The president has a net approval rating of 1.4 percentage points on immigration, according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling average.

That’s a higher mark than his standing on foreign policy, inflation, the economy, and handling of the Russia-Ukraine war, according to the outlet.

The Trump administration has faced heavy pushback from lefty protesters against its immigration policies, especially the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to cities across the country.

Many of those agents have faced threats from protesters and even had bounties placed on them by transnational criminal gangs.

A firm 56% of voters said that violence against ICE officers could not be justified, compared to 25% who said it can and 19% who were unsure, according to the poll.

The JL Partners poll sampled 1,004 registered voters Oct. 14–15, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.