Most California voters strongly disapprove of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies and believe that raids in the state have unfairly targeted Latinos, according to a new poll.
The findings, released Sunday, reflected striking emotional reactions to immigration enforcement. When voters were asked to describe their feelings about news reports or videos of immigration raids, 64% chose rage or sadness “because what is happening is unfair.”
Among Democrats, 91% felt enraged or sad. Conversely, 65% of Republicans felt hopeful, “like justice is finally being served.”
Such divisions were consistent across 11 questions about the administration’s overall immigration strategy and specific aspects of the way enforcement is playing out in the state, with divisions along partisan lines. The UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll was conducted for the Los Angeles Times.
Democrats almost unanimously oppose President Trump’s tactics on immigration, the poll showed. Most Republicans support the president, though they are not as united as Democrats in their approval.
“It was essential to show the strength of feelings because Democrats are strongly on the negative side of each of these policies,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “That struck me. I don’t usually see that kind of extreme fervor on a poll response.”
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The poll found that 69% of respondents disapprove of the way immigration enforcement is being carried out in the state.
Among Democrats, 95% disapprove, as well as 72% of voters with no party preference or others not affiliated with the two major parties, whereas 79% of Republicans approve.
The poll was completed online in English and Spanish from Aug. 11-17 by 4,950 registered voters in California.
A question that showed the least unified support among Republican voters asked respondents whether they agree or disagree that federal agents should be required to show clear identification when carrying out their work. The question comes as immigration agents have carried out raids using face coverings, unmarked cars and while wearing casual clothing.
Some 50% of Republicans agreed that agents should have to identify themselves, while 92% of Democrats agreed.
G. Cristina Mora, IGS co-director and a sociology professor at UC Berkeley who studies race and immigration, helped develop the poll questions. She said the poll shows that Republican voters are much more nuanced than Democrats. They also split on questions about due process, birthright citizenship and immigration enforcement in sensitive locations.
“Republicans are much more fractured in their thinking about immigration across the state,” Mora said.
Mora said she developed the question about agent identification in response to the recent bill led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) that would require immigration officers to display their agency and name or badge number during public-facing enforcement actions, similar to police and other local law enforcement.
Padilla also spearheaded a letter last month to Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons seeking information about the agency’s policies regarding the identification of agents while on duty. ICE has justified the tactics by stating that agents are at risk of doxxing and have faced increased assault on the job.
“The public has a right to know which officials are exercising police power, and anonymous enforcement undermines both constitutional norms and democratic oversight,” Padilla and 13 other Democrats wrote in the letter.
Another poll question that garnered mixed support of Republicans asked respondents to agree or disagree with the statement, “ICE agents should expand immigration enforcement into schools, hospitals, parks and other public locations.”
Among Republicans, 53% agreed with that statement, though fewer than 1 in 3 agree strongly. Meanwhile, 94% of Democrats disagreed.
Shortly after Trump took office, his administration rescinded a 2011 memo that restricted immigration agents from making arrests in sensitive locations, such as churches, schools and hospitals. Since then, agents have been filmed entering locations that were previously considered off limits, putting immigrant communities on edge.
Schools in Los Angeles reopened this month with “safe zones” in heavily Latino neighborhoods and changed bus routes with less exposure to immigration agents. An 18-year-old high school senior, Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, was walking his family’s dog in Van Nuys when he was taken into federal immigration custody.
Mora said the varied responses illustrate how California Republicans view the Trump administration’s immigration tactics with “degrees of acceptability.” They might feel strongly that immigrants with violent criminal histories should be deported, she said, but the takeover of MacArthur Park, when a convoy of immigration agents in armored vehicles descended there in a show of force, or the enforcement actions outside of public schools “might have been a step too far.”
Mike Madrid, a GOP political consultant who wrote a book about how Latinos have transformed democracy, said the split among Republicans is consistent with national polling. The trend is problematic for Trump, he said, because it means he is losing big swaths of his base.
“This is becoming viewed as overreach more than it is immigration control,” he said. “The idea sets a frame for it, but the actual implementation is widely unpopular.”
Republicans were largely united in response to other questions. Asked about the Trump administration’s proposal to do away with birthright citizenship — which confers citizenship to all children born in the U.S. regardless of their parent’s legal status — 67% of GOP respondents approved, and most of them strongly approved. By contrast, 92% of Democrats disapproved, and as did seven in 10 respondents overall.
Mora said she was surprised by the fact that Latinos didn’t stand out as substantially more opposed to Trump’s actions than voters of other racial and ethnic groups. For example, 69% of Latino voters said ICE raids have unfairly targeted Latinos, just five percentage points higher than the 64% of white non-Latino voters who agreed.
“You would imagine Latinos would be through the roof here, but they’re not,” Mora said. She said this reminded her of research around the tendency for Latinos to individualize their experiences instead of seeing them as racially unjust.
Broadly, 72% of Latinos disagree with the way the Trump administration is enforcing immigration laws in California, while 25% approve and 3% have no strong opinion.
Among Latino voter subgroups, older men and third-generation (or beyond) women are the more likely to support the way immigration enforcement is being handled in California, with 38% of Latino men over age 40 in agreement compared to 11% of Latinas ages 18-39, although among both groups majorities disapprove.
Madrid said that’s consistent with national polling showing a decrease in support for Republicans among Latinos after record gains in the last presidential election. The question, he said, is whether Trump’s approval ratings among Latinos could regress substantially enough to flip control of Congress in the midterms.
“We’re not there yet,” he said.
