U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement mandate is driving him away from public support ahead of next month’s crucial midterm elections.
A poll released by Fox News ahead of the Nov. 3 vote found that 53% of registered voters believe immigration enforcement has gone “too far.”
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The percentage was even higher among the demographic likely to hold the key to the Republican outlook in November.
The poll, conducted in September, found that 60% of independent voters agreed that President Trump has gone too far on immigration. Two-thirds of Hispanic participants also agreed that the campaign had gone “too far.”
Experts say the political debate over immigration in the United States has changed since the last major election in 2024. At the time, the focus was primarily on border security. However, more and more attention is being focused on how executive operations are conducted.
Cynthia Penaloza is among those questioning the Trump administration’s tactics.
In August, her sister, Joselyn Penaloza Magana, 23, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas. Jocelyn remains in custody.
“We’re always afraid. We don’t know what’s going to happen, if she’s going to be sent back to Mexico, if we’re going to be together again, if this is going to change our lives forever,” Cynthia told Al Jazeera correspondent Phil Lovell.
She rejects President Trump’s claim that his administration’s immigration crackdown targets “the worst of the worst.”
The Penalosa family said Joselyn was an honor student with no criminal history. She was brought to the United States at an early age, about five years old.
“She was always a good girl,” Cynthia told Lovell.
Focus on “criminals”
Still, the Trump administration has linked its mass deportation campaign to efforts to curb crime.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said in a statement earlier this year that President Trump’s policies have “activated ICE to target the worst criminal illegal aliens, including pedophiles, murderers, gang members, terrorists and rapists.”
Arrests of people entering the country have increased under the Trump administration. In September, ICE announced that the number of immigration arrests exceeded 50,000 for the second month in a row, breaking the record set in June, when 43,900 people were detained.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that approximately 70% of immigration detainees are criminals, considering pending charges.
But critics question this statistic because the U.S. justice system provides suspects with a presumption of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.
In other words, many of the defendants may be acquitted or have their charges dropped. Most people charged with crimes may also be charged with nonviolent crimes.
Analysts have found that the vast majority of people currently in immigration custody are not legally considered criminals. About 70% of ICE detainees have no criminal history, according to the Deportation Data Project, which analyzes government datasets.
Nevertheless, the Trump administration is pushing to increase detentions.
“We need more. We need more arrests, we need more deportations,” White House “border czar” Tom Homan said in a July interview.
Backlash against campaign activities
However, this heavy-handed arrest tactic could have an impact on Republican campaigning in the lead-up to the midterm elections.
Republicans hope to maintain their majorities in the House and Senate, as well as in key state and local elections.
Trump greatly increased his support among Hispanic voters in the 2024 election. He has nearly 48% support among Latinos for re-election, an increase of 12 percentage points from the 2020 election, according to Pew Research Center exit polls.
But Mr. Pugh realized that his gains were eroding. Among Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024, his approval rating has steadily declined, from a high of 93 percent in early 2025 to a low of 57 percent as of last week.
Some Republicans running in the midterm elections, including Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, have publicly criticized the president’s hard-line immigration policies.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts are going too far,” Salazar said in an ad campaign launched in September. She cited the large number of immigrants arrested without criminal records.
But other Republicans blame previous presidents for the conflict over immigration enforcement.
“A mess has been made, and now it’s a dirty job to clean it up,” Texas Republican Jeremy Price told Al Jazeera. “We have to find people who don’t want to leave, arrest them against their will, and deport them.”
Democrats, meanwhile, hope to turn their anger over immigration enforcement tactics into votes by November.
“I want ICE to be abolished,” Richard Gonzalez, chairman of the Democratic Party of Hidalgo County, Texas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera’s LaBelle.
“So, from my perspective, I think they have. The agency just lost its identity, and there’s no way to recover it.”
