Immigration by the Numbers

Border-crossings plummet, public approval rockets.

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Democratic leaders who are calling for more protests against ICE agents appear to be playing right into President Donald Trump’s law-enforcing hands. A substantial majority of Americans support deporting violent illegal immigrants, so those on the extreme left screaming for obstruction of justice, harboring illegals, and defending convicted rapists and killers are losing immigration polling points. Americans seeking public safety have little tolerance for thuggery.

Polls Show Support for Trump

USA Today reports that June polling, conducted before the LA riots, showed Trump’s immigration and deportation policies received his highest approval ratings, surpassing those for his handling of the economy and inflation. As might be expected, 93% of Republicans supported the president’s deportation efforts in the CBS News/YouGov poll conducted June 4-6, compared to a mere 18% of Democrats, with a noteworthy 49% of independents approving.

Many Americans perceived that Joe Biden’s administration and mainstream media were gaslighting them when millions of illegals poured over the southern border. The stunning speed at which the new administration has delivered on the campaign promise to shut off the spigot has also turned up the lights.

Illegal immigration has decreased from a torrent to a trickle almost overnight. US Customs and Border Protection (ICE) reported Field Operations Encounters (which include apprehensions, inadmissibles, and expulsions) of 750,505 from February through April 2024 to just 86,893 across the same three months in 2025 – an 88% drop. The New York Post reported a slight uptick in illegal migrants for May but cited federal data showing “crossings are still down a whopping 91% from a year ago.”

More Arrests to Come

The current administration is just warming up. While dispatching more customs agents to the southern border, the White House has increased ICE raids nationwide, directing federal authorities to up their “daily quota” of arrests from 1,800 to 3,000 daily. After a mere 100 days in office, the Trump team had arrested more than 66,000 illegal immigrants and deported more than 65,000.

The issue of immigration was a high priority for American voters in the 2024 election, and poll numbers show broad swaths of the public oppose open borders. Further bad news for Democrats staking their political careers on defending illegal immigration is that more Americans are souring on legal as well as illegal immigration.

Polling data from Gallup showed that 50% of respondents were dissatisfied with the level of immigration into the United States in 2021, while only 39% reported being satisfied. By 2024, 64% of respondents were dissatisfied, and 28% were satisfied. Approval of immigration, in general, also took a hit. Gallup found that, in 2020, 77% of respondents believed immigration was good for the country; 19% viewed it as bad. In 2024, 32% indicated it was bad and 64% as good. If gaining public support for immigration is the Democratic Party’s goal, the riotous push for more illegals is undermining legal immigration in the bargain.

Criminal Conduct Backfires

Things get even worse for proponents of illegal immigration when it comes to criminal activities: Most voters supportive of illegal immigrants who work or behave lawfully still want dangerous criminals sent packing. Consequently, knee-jerk opposition to deportation efforts without discriminating against rapists and other miscreants is a disastrous position for the left, and viral videos of Third World-style upheaval in Los Angeles hardly improve the situation.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are encouraging obstruction of justice to protect convicted child rapists, drug dealers, and violent killers. The Department of Homeland Security has released the names of 19 suspects arrested by ICE in Los Angeles to date, along with their corresponding convictions. These aren’t people Americans want on their city streets, let alone on public playgrounds, yet some powerful Democrats seem willing to incite violence to defend them.

Trump’s travel restrictions on 19 targeted countries took effect June 9. While this may fuel more Molotov cocktail flames from the hardcore left, the measures are designed to achieve the same goals favored by a large majority of Americans: blocking dangerous illegal immigration. The Trump administration has articulated reasonable national security justifications for the restrictions. Concurrently, the administration crafted a lengthy list of nuanced exemptions to mitigate the impact for green card holders, the immediate family of US citizens, dual US citizens, refugees already approved for asylum, Afghan allies with Special Immigrant Visas, persecuted religious minorities, and athletes and coaches participating in major sporting events.

The administration’s immigration strategy for the bans is focused on nations with poor screening and document security, links to terrorism, a lack of cooperation on deportation, and high visa overstay rates. Chad, Haiti, and Laos reportedly have large numbers of immigrants who remain after their visas expire. The June 1 attack in Boulder, CO, was allegedly committed by an Egyptian national whose visa had expired months prior. Trump officials claim the listed countries pose a “heightened risk to US national security.”

Immigration Losing Steam?

Statista estimates the number of illegal immigrants in the United States at 11 million, concentrated in Texas and California. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) pegs the number at 18.6 million as of March 2025, 11% higher than its June 2023 estimate of 16.8 million.

Those supporting a borderless nation invite terrorism, disease spread, cartels, and wayward criminals into Americans’ backyards in the name of equity and inclusion without regard for the innocent victims impacted by hardened hoodlums like those just busted by ICE in LA. The argument that Americans need these new entrants to build their houses is specious: FAIR claimed, “As of 2025, American population growth comes almost entirely from unsustainably high levels of immigration, both legal and illegal.” If the borders remain closed and the flow of illegal departures accelerates, no new construction is required, and US citizen families can afford an existing home.

(Originally published at Liberty Nation.)