Poll: 51 percent support immigration raids

A slim majority of U.S. voters in a new poll support President Trump’s planned immigration raids.

Fifty-one percent of those questioned in the Politico-Morning Consult survey said they are in favor of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on immigrants subject to deportation orders, while 35 percent oppose the move.

Support for the raids is largely partisan, with 85 percent of Republican respondents saying they’re in favor versus only 29 percent of Democrats, the poll finds.

About two-thirds of those polled said they’d heard about the raids, which Trump reportedly delayed weeks ago and announced last week. The operation was set to take place in 10 major cities and target up to 2,000 immigrants.{mosads}

Trump said Monday that the raids did take place, though the scale was much smaller than anticipated, Politico noted. An ICE official told CNN on Monday that there has not been “any surge of arrests or activity or round-ups” in the plans.

The Trump administration continues to face backlash for its hard-line immigration policies and what’s said to be unsanitary and insufficiently resourced detention centers near the border amid an influx of migrants. The administration announced Monday that it was moving to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants, marking an acceleration in its efforts to reduce the number of migrants crossing the U.S. border.

Among surveyed voters, 45 percent overall — as well as 76 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of Democrats —  said illegal immigration is a crisis, according to the poll. Regardless of stance on illegal immigration, six in 10 voters said they thought legal immigrants strengthened the country.

The poll was conducted online from July 12-14 and surveyed 1,984 voters. It has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.