Support for Abolishing ICE Is Surging Among Republicans

In the wake of the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti by federal agents amid the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, voters’ support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is spiking—including among President Donald Trump’s own party. A new YouGov poll taken on Saturday, the day of Pretti’s fatal shooting, showed 19 percent of Republicans and 48 percent of American adults across the political spectrum voicing support for abolishing ICE. That marks a notable shift from when YouGov pollsters asked the same question last June, as Trump was ramping up his immigration crackdown. At that time only 9 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Americans overall backed abolishing ICE. Support for shuttering the agency has also surged among independents, with 47 percent backing its elimination in the Saturday poll compared to 25 percent in June. Read More: What Minnesota Tells Us About America’s Future Good and Pretti’s fatal shootings have heightened scrutiny of the aggressive tactics being used by federal immigration agents under Trump’s second Administration. Following Pretti’s killing, several congressional Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for an investigation into the incident. Other recent polls have shown support declining for how Trump is carrying out the mass deportation effort that he successfully campaigned on in 2024 as ICE’s operations in the interior U.S. come under fire. A New York Times/Siena poll conducted from January 12 to 17, after Good’s killing on January 7, found that a majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of several issues—immigration included—and ​​49 percent said the country was worse off than a year ago, compared with 32 percent who said it was better off. Regarding immigration specifically, 58 percent of respondents disapproved of how Trump was handling the issue, up from 52 percent in a previous Times/Siena poll conducted in September. A larger portion of around half of respondents backed the Administration’s deportation of illegal immigrants and the President’s handling of the U.S.’s southern border in the recent poll. But the reality of ICE’s enforcement tactics drew censure from most Americans: 61 percent—including 19 percent of Republicans, compared to 94 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents—said that ICE tactics had “gone too far.” Trump attacked the Times/Siena poll on Truth Social the day it was released, calling the results “fake” and “heavily skewed toward Democrats.” (Among the registered voters who responded to the poll, 45 percent identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning compared to 44 percent who identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning.)  In a separate post, he said that “Fake and Fraudulent Polling should be, virtually, a criminal offense.”  Yet, the poll is part of a larger trend of surveys that have documented growing disapproval of ICE’s tactics, especially after Good’s deadly shooting, which sparked protests in Minneapolis and around the country, and follows a longer decline in support for Trump’s handling of immigration. A poll conducted for CNN by SSRS from January 9 to 12 found that 56 percent of respondents said that the shooting was an “inappropriate use of force” by federal officers, and 51 percent said that ICE enforcement actions were making cities less safe rather than safer. More than half of independent respondents were among those who said that ICE enforcement was making cities less safe. And while a majority of Republicans—56 percent—said the shooting represented an appropriate use of force, 21 percent said it was an inappropriate use of force, with 7 percent saying it was inappropriate but an isolated incident and 14 percent saying it was both inappropriate and reflected a bigger problem with ICE’s operations.  Another survey, taken by Ipsos January 16 to 18, similarly found that 52 percent of Americans felt Good’s shooting marked an excessive use of force, including 19 percent of Republicans and 54 percent of independents. And a separate poll by Quinnipiac conducted from January 8 to 12 found that 57 percent of registered voters disapproved of ICE’s handling of immigration enforcement, including 64 percent of  independents and 12 percent of Republicans. Backing for Trump’s broader handling of immigration had also been falling for months even before the recent shootings, according to a number of polls. Recent approval numbers on the issue differ markedly from polling taken in the weeks after Trump took office last year. A Pew Research Center survey taken last February, for instance, found that 59 percent of U.S. adults said they approved of Trump increasing efforts to deport people. In December, in contrast, Pew found that 53 percent of Americans said he was doing “too much” to deport illegal immigrants, with that sentiment rising among both Democrat sand Republicans. That approval of Trump’s immigration agenda was already waning by the spring and summer. An Ipsos poll from April 2025 found Americans slightly more disapproving (53 percent) than approving (46 percent) of his handling of immigration.