WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s Republicans are divided over whether federal immigration officers should try harder to avoid hurting people following the shooting death of a community activist during an immigration raid, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey.
While 95% of Republicans continue to approve of Trump’s performance as president, the poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday suggests a significant slice of Trump’s backers are wary of his administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement. The poll found American approval of Trump’s approach to immigration at its lowest point since he returned to office a year ago.
Poll respondents were asked to pick whether immigration officers should prioritize reducing harm to people even if this limits the number of arrests, or if they should be willing to use force even if there is a risk of serious injury or death.
Some 59% of Republicans favored a policy prioritizing arrests even if people get hurt, while 39% said officers should focus on reducing harm to people even if it means fewer arrests. Democrats were unified, with 96% focused on avoiding injuries and 4% saying immigration officers should focus on arrests. A handful of respondents did not answer the question.
Americans are following the matter closely. Trump’s campaign to deport unauthorized immigrants has become the signature issue of his administration. Masked immigration officers, often in tactical military-style gear, have become a common sight across the country. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed nine in 10 Americans have heard at least a little about the January 7 shooting death in Minneapolis of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was filmed criticizing immigration officers from her car before an officer fatally shot her in what Trump administration officials have described as an act of self-defense.
‘SOMEONE DIED IN AN ALTERCATION WITH ICE’
The Trump administration has called Good a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer over with her vehicle. Local leaders and protesters across the country have condemned the shooting, saying the fact that Good turned her wheels away from the ICE officer as she drove past him proved her peaceful intentions.
Jason Cabel Roe, a Republican political strategist who has been critical of Trump, said Good’s killing put a human face on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“Someone died in an altercation with ICE. That is not what anyone wants to see happening.”
The controversy has sparked protests across the country, adding to the ongoing conflicts between demonstrators and immigration officers outside of government buildings. On Tuesday, small bands of protesters near a federal building in Minneapolis shouted obscenities at ICE officers, who used tear gas and flash-bang devices against demonstrators, with officers wrestling some of them to the ground, Reuters photos and video of the clashes show.
NEW LOW ON IMMIGRATION
Immigration policy has been a regular bright spot among Trump’s approval ratings since he returned to the White House. He campaigned ahead of the 2024 presidential election on promises to enact the biggest deportation drive in decades, and his approval rating on immigration touched as high as 50% in February 2025, compared to his highest overall approval rating of 47% in the first days of his administration.
Trump’s overall approval rating in the latest poll slipped to 41%, down from 42% in a poll conducted earlier in January, while his approval on immigration slipped to a record low of 40%, from 41% when that question was last asked in December. Even with the decline, however, Trump’s approval on immigration remains higher than the ratings Americans gave his predecessor, Joe Biden, during most of the Democrat’s 2021-2025 administration.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll gathered responses from 1,217 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington, Additional reporting by Tim Reid; editing by Scott Malone, Rod Nickel)
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