WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Republican Party are divided over whether federal immigration agents should try harder to avoid hurting people after the shooting death of a community activist during an operation, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
While 95% of Republicans continue to approve of Trump’s performance as president, polling conducted on Monday and Tuesday suggests that a significant portion of Trump’s supporters are wary of his administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement. The poll found that approval of Trump’s approach to immigration is at its lowest point since he returned to office a year ago.
Survey participants were asked to choose whether immigration agents should prioritize reducing harm to people, even if this limits the number of arrests, or whether they should be willing to use force even if there is a risk of serious injury or death.
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About 59% of Republicans favor a policy that prioritizes arrests even if people get hurt, while 39% said police officers should focus on reducing harm to people, even if it means fewer arrests. Democrats were virtually unanimous, with 96% focused on preventing injuries and 4% saying immigration agents should focus on arrests. Some interviewees did not answer the question.
Americans are following the matter closely. Trump’s campaign to deport unauthorized immigrants has become a major theme of his administration. Masked immigration agents, often in military-style tactical gear, have become a common sight across the country.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that nine in 10 Americans have heard at least a little about the Jan. 7 shooting death in Minneapolis of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was filmed criticizing immigration agents from her car before an agent fatally shot her, in what Trump administration officials described as an act of self-defense by the agent.
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The Trump administration called Good a ‘domestic terrorist’ who tried to run over the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent with his vehicle. Local leaders and protesters across the country condemned the episode, saying Good’s steering wheel away from the ICE agent as he passed him proved his peaceful intentions.
Jason Cabel Roe, a Republican political strategist who has been critical of Trump, said Good’s death put a human face on the administration’s immigration crackdown.
‘Someone died in a fight with ICE. That’s not what anyone wants to see happen,’ he said.
The controversy sparked protests across the country, escalating ongoing clashes between protesters and immigration agents outside government buildings. On Tuesday, small groups of protesters near a federal building in Minneapolis shouted obscenities at ICE agents, who used tear gas on the protesters, with the officers wrestling with some of them on the ground, according to Reuters photos and videos of the clashes.
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Immigration policy has been a regular bright spot in Trump’s approval ratings since he returned to the White House. He campaigned ahead of the 2024 presidential election on a promise to carry out the largest deportation campaign in decades, and his approval rating on immigration reached 50% in February 2025, compared to his highest overall approval rating of 47% in the early days of his administration.
Trump’s overall approval rating in the latest poll was 41%, down from 42% in a poll conducted in early January, while his approval on immigration has fallen to a record low of 40%, down from 41% when the question was last asked in December.
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Yet even with the drop, Trump’s approval rating on immigration remains higher than the ratings Americans gave his predecessor, Joe Biden, during most of the Democratic administration from 2021 to 2025.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll gathered responses from 1,217 U.S. adults across the country and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Additional reporting by Tim Reid)
