More Americans now favor providing undocumented migrants a pathway to legal status over deportation, a new poll finds.
The sentiment was backed by 64 percent of those surveyed and that percentage has increased since President Donald Trump entered office, according to the Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters, while 31 percent said they preferred deportation.
Respondents were asked for their preference out of the two options “if [they] had to choose.”
Six months ago, the same poll found that 55 percent favored providing undocumented migrants with a pathway to legal status in the U.S.
Among Democrats, 89 percent chose to offer legal status compared to 31 percent of Republicans, who favored deportation.
It comes as the Trump administration has launched a sweeping anti-immigration agenda, aiming to carry out what it says is the largest mass-deportation operation in America’s history.
The administration has cranked up the pressure on federal agencies and increased arrest and deportation targets.
As a result, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been in the spotlight as they carry out raids across the country.
In total, 59 percent of those polled said they disapprove of the way the president is handling deportations, while 39 percent said they approve.
And 56 percent of voters disapprove of how ICE is doing its job, according to the poll, while 39 percent said they approved. The vast majority of Democrats disapprove (89 percent) while Republicans largely approve (77 percent).
On how the president is handling immigration issues as a whole, 57 percent of Americans said they disapprove, compared to 41 percent who approve. Only 7 percent of Democrats approve, compared to 86 percent of Republicans.
More than 56,000 people are being held in immigration detention, the highest level in years and what may be an all-time record.
There were 56, 397 people in immigrant detention as over June 15, according to a Syracuse University database.
Internal government data obtained by CBS News suggests an even higher figure, with roughly 59,000 immigrants behind bars — or 140 percent of the agency’s ostensible capacity to hold them.
