Trump's Immigration Crackdown Divides Voters Ahead of U.S. Midterms

President Donald Trump's hardline immigration enforcement campaign is dividing public opinion ahead of a crucial midterm election next month. According to a Fox News poll released before the November 3 vote, 53 percent of registered voters said the immigration crackdown has "gone too far."

The figure is even higher among voter groups that could prove pivotal to Republican prospects in November. The September poll found 60 percent of independent voters agreed that Trump's immigration efforts had exceeded their limits. Two-thirds of Hispanic respondents also said the campaign had "gone too far."

Analysts say the political debate over immigration in the United States has shifted since the last major election cycle in 2024. Back then, the focus was mainly on border security. But growing attention is now trained on how enforcement operations are carried out.

Cynthia Penaloza is one of those questioning the Trump administration's tactics. In August, her 23-year-old sister, Joceline Penaloza Magana, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston, Texas, during a traffic stop. Joceline remains in detention.

"We are always afraid. We don't know what will happen, whether she will be deported to Mexico, whether we will ever be together again, or how this will change our lives forever," Cynthia told Al Jazeera correspondent Phil Lavelle.

She rejected Trump's claim that his administration's immigration enforcement targets "the worst of the worst." According to the Penaloza family, Joceline was an honor student with no criminal record. She was brought to the United States as a young child, at about age 5.

"She has always been a good girl," Cynthia told Lavelle.

Focus on 'criminals'

The Trump administration nonetheless ties its mass deportation campaign to an effort to control crime. In a statement earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, credited Trump's policies with "unleashing ICE to target the worst criminal illegal aliens, including pedophiles, murderers, gang members, terrorists and rapists."

Immigration arrests have risen under Trump. In September, ICE announced it had recorded two consecutive months with more than 50,000 immigration arrests, surpassing the record set in June with 43,900 people detained.

The Department of Homeland Security argues that around 70 percent of immigration detainees are criminals, if pending charges are included. But critics question that figure, noting that the U.S. legal system holds that suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. In other words, many of those charged may be acquitted or have charges dropped. A large share of those charged may also face non-violent charges.

Analysts have found that most people currently in immigration detention are not considered criminals under the law. According to the Deportation Data Project, which analyzes government data, about 70 percent of those held by ICE have no criminal record.

Yet the Trump administration continues to push for expanded detention. "We need more. We need more arrests and we need more deportations," White House "border czar" Tom Homan said in an interview in July.

Fallout on the campaign trail

The hardline arrest tactics could backfire on Republican midterm campaigns. The party is hoping to defend its majority in both chambers of Congress as well as in key state and local races.

Trump made significant gains with Hispanic voters in the 2024 election. During his re-election campaign, he won nearly 48 percent support from Latinos, according to a Pew Research Center poll, up 12 percentage points from 2020.

But Pew found those gains may be eroding. Among Hispanic voters who backed him in 2024, his approval rating has steadily declined, from a high of 93 percent in early 2025 to 57 percent as of last week.

Some Republicans running in the midterms, including Representative Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, have even publicly criticized the president's hardline immigration policies.

"Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," Salazar said in a campaign ad launched in September, citing the large number of immigrants arrested without criminal records.

Other Republicans, however, blame previous administrations for creating the immigration enforcement conflict. "A mess was created, and now cleaning it up is dirty work," Jeremy Price, a Republican in Texas, told Al Jazeera. "You have to find people, arrest them against their will and deport them from the country because they don't want to leave."

Democrats, meanwhile, hope to turn anger over immigration enforcement into votes in November. "I hope they abolish ICE," Richard Gonzales, chairman of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party in Texas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera's Lavelle. "In my view, the agency has lost its identity and there is no way to restore it."