President Donald Trump’s administration has consistently doubled down on refusing to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran father based in Maryland whom it had been mistakenly sent to El Salvador – it is a move that is costing him in the polls.
Trump and his team believe that the president has public opinion on their side for both Abrego Garcia and their plans to send alleged criminals to El Salvador. He campaigned on conducting mass deportations and he won many counties along the U.S.-Mexico border that historically voted Democratic in the wake of an influx of migrants during the Biden administration.
But a new poll shows his support is cracking. Echelon Insights, a Republican polling outlet, released a survey of Trump’s approval rating on various policies and it showed that Trump is losing support on immigration.
The poll revealed that Trump’s approval rating on immigration fell from a net score of plus-18 points to a net score of plus-10 points, a drop of eight points in just weeks.
Echelon is one of the most respected polling firms on the Republican side. The firm’s founding partner, Patrick Ruffini, has written extensively about Trump’s appeal among working-class voters.
The Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security has alleged that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 and that he engaged in human trafficking, but has refused to provide concrete evidence. The White House’s top counterterrorism official Sebastian Gorka went so far as to say that people who accused Abrego Garcia’s supporters with “aiding and abetting.”
The fact that Echelon shows that Trump is bleeding support -albeit he is still above water – on his signature issue reflects a larger dissatisfaction with his administration by voters.
There are also signs that Democrats are starting to hit Trump not only where he’s weak, but also where he is strong. On Thursday, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland posted a photo of himself with Abrego Garcia and saying that he had called Abrego Garcia’s family.
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador earlier this week given the fact that Abrego Garcia has a wife who is an American citizen and resided in Maryland. The Supreme Court had ruled unanimously that the Trump administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.
The Trump administration has responded not by trying to return Abrego Garcia but with Trump’s signature style of never backing apologizing. When Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele visited the White House on Monday, Trump said he would not return Abrego Garcia.
But it’s not just the Echelon poll that shows Trump taking a hit on immigration. Quinnipiac University also released a poll earlier this month showing that 50 percent of Americans disapprove of his immigration policy. Tellingly, 51 percent of independents also disapprove of his policies.
For the longest time, Trump’s immigration policies have propped up his approval ratings that have been otherwise meager for any other president in the first 100 days of their presidency.
While his numbers were higher than they were his first term, buoyed by his winning the popular vote and the implosion of the Democratic brand, he’s comparatively unpopular when measured up against other presidents.
But it does not look like the Trump administration will show any signs of letting up on immigration. Rather, in response to Van Hollen’s visit with Abrego Garcia, the White House posted on X that Abrego Garcia is “never coming back.”
The administration remains defiant in legal proceedings to try and bring Abrego Garcia. But being too defiant might come off as opposing the rule of law and eroding the very trust that Trump built on immigration.
