Independents show the steepest decline in support for Trump’s immigration agenda
WASHINGTON (December 9, 2025) — A new report released today by PRRI finds that support for President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration has declined by 5 points among Americans since March 2025, from 48% to 43%. The steepest drop in support for Trump’s immigration agenda — 11 points — comes from independents. Support has also declined by nearly 10 points among Americans ages 18-29 (from 41% to 32%) and those 65 and over (from 56% to 47%). Among Americans living in border states, approval of Trump’s handling of immigration has dropped from 42% to 33% since March.
“PRRI data reveal that strong majorities of Americans oppose the Trump administration’s immigration policies,” said Melissa Deckman, Ph.D., CEO of PRRI. “Notably, political independents have registered the largest decline in support for the president’s handling of immigration since the beginning of the second Trump administration.”
The report, “The New Immigration Crackdown: Where Americans Stand,” includes a new comprehensive scale that combines responses to eight questions to measure support for Trump’s immigration policies, finding that only three in ten Americans favor Trump’s immigration agenda, while two-thirds of Americans oppose it. Americans who most trust far-right news (81%) and Fox News (71%), Republicans (63%), Christian nationalism Adherents (57%), and white evangelical Protestants (55%) are the most likely to favor Trump’s immigration agenda.
“According to our analysis, Americans’ attitudes on immigration policy are strongly influenced by their larger political worldview,” said Diana M. Orcés, Ph.D., PRRI Director of Research. “Overall, most Americans reject the Trump administration’s harsh immigration enforcement policies and support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.”
New multivariate analysis reveals which factors best predict support for, or opposition to, Trump’s immigration agenda. Republicans, those with confidence in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and those who view immigration as a critical issue are each at least twice as likely as their counterparts to support Trump’s immigration agenda. Americans who disagree with the idea that immigrants strengthen American society are about three times as likely to support Trump’s immigration policies as those who say that immigrants strengthen American society. Americans who live in border states as well as those who are very concerned that their families will not be able to pay for housing and basic living expenses over the next year, however, are less likely to support Trump’s immigration agenda.
Increasing numbers of Americans in the past year support both a pathway to citizenship and allowing “Dreamers” to stay and gain legal status.
Most Americans (60%) say that immigrants living in the United States illegally should be given a way to become citizens, provided they meet certain requirements, up from 56% last October. Among Republicans, support for a pathway to citizenship increased from 36% in 2024 to 40%; among Democrats, 77% to 82%. The increase in support for a path to citizenship was largest among independents, from 55% in 2024 to 61% this year. Support for allowing immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain legal resident status (known as DACA) increased from 52% in 2024 to 60% in 2025; support increased among Republicans, independents, and Democrats.
Partisan divides remain stark on most of Trump’s immigration policies; yet such polarization is asymmetric, as independents’ views are more closely aligned with Democrats.
Republicans and Democrats differ widely in their support for Trump’s immigration policies, ranging from whether undocumented immigrants should be arrested and detained if they have no criminal record, be detained in internment camps or deported to foreign prisons without due process, or whether ICE officers should be allowed to conceal their identities with masks or use unmarked vehicles. Independents, while not as strongly opposed to many of these policies undertaken or proposed by the Trump administration as Democrats, are still broadly opposed to such measures.
Religion shapes views on immigration policies, with white Christians being more supportive of most of Trump’s immigration agenda than Christians of color, members of minority faith traditions, and the religiously unaffiliated.
White evangelical Protestants hold the most consistently conservative positions on immigration policies: just 39% agree that immigrants, regardless of legal status, should have basic rights and protections, and 34% agree that ICE officers should not be allowed to conceal their identities; 57% agree that undocumented immigrants who have resided in the U.S. with no criminal record should be arrested and detained. While not as supportive of Trump’s immigration agenda as white evangelical Protestants, white Catholics and mainline/non-evangelical Protestants are consistently more supportive than other religious Americans and the religiously unaffiliated. Hispanic Protestants’ views on Trump’s more restrictive immigration policies are far more aligned with Hispanic Catholics than white Christians.
# # #
Methodology
The survey was conducted by PRRI among a representative sample of 5,543 adults (age 18 and up) living in all 50 states in the United States, who are part of Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, and an additional 412 who were recruited by Ipsos using opt-in survey panels to increase the sample sizes in smaller states. Interviews were conducted online between August 15 – September 8, 2025. The margin of error for the national survey is +/- 1.79 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence, including the design effect for the survey of 1.84.
About PRRI
PRRI is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy.
