President Donald Trump made immigration a key focus of his re-election campaign, and many political observers say it led to his success at the ballot box last November. But now, amid a string of questionably legal deportations and immigration operations by multiple federal agencies, recent polls show that even the president's supporters are souring on his immigration policies and handling of the economy.
A new LA Times poll found that Trump's approval ratings have significantly declined since the beginning of his second term, with 59% of respondents disapproving of his job performance.
Trump's approval rating on the economy has fallen to 37%, a significant drop. A separate survey released on Saturday by the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research found that only 24% of Americans believe Trump has focused "on the right priorities" as president.
Additionally, a New York Times poll on Friday found that 59% of respondents said the president’s second term has been “scary.”
A majority of Americans in the LA Times poll, including Republicans and Democrats, believe that the Trump administration must follow federal court rulings amid concerns over his potential defiance of court orders.
Trump's support is eroding across demographic lines, the LA Times poll found, with "declines in approval among Hispanic, Black, and Asian American voters, as well as among voters who initially supported him but were not strong supporters."
Bill Hing, professor of immigration law at the University of San Francisco, discussed the matter with KCBS Radio.
And he had a very strong opinion on why the polls are dropping, saying "I do think that they've crossed the line and here's what's happening. I think that common decent folks in the United States, which I believe that that's still a majority of the country, they're realizing that it's friends and neighbors, folks that they have known for many years that are being swept up by these immigration operations and they're known to be good decent people and on top for that."
Hing added: "These deportations without any hearings on airplanes are headed to these awful detention centers in El Salvador. It's something that I think Trump supporters didn't realize could happen without any hearings. And even the Supreme Court has said, it's a conservative Supreme Court, that due process is important, that people deserve a right to be heard before they're deported. So I think that's the line that's been crossed.
"That due process has been violated by the Trump administration."
On the other side, the BBC spoke to Trump supporters who are happy with their vote. Amanda Sue Mathis said she agreed with Trump's executive orders restricting gender care for Americans under the age of 19 and banning transgender women from female sports. She also liked the dissolution of DEI programs and the return of a "merit based democracy."
"Broadly, she thinks the president is "kicking butt" and his first 100 days have made her "happier with [her] vote".