Poll: ICE

This Navigator Research report covers the most recent perceptions of ICE following the killings of both Renee Good and Alex Pretti, including tracking of ICE’s favorability, the share who believe Secretary Noem should be impeached and Stephen Miller should be fired, and the reforms to ICE that Americans most support.

Trump’s Handling Of Immigration Is At A Low

Trump’s handling of immigration hit its lowest level in his second term. However, Americans still trust Republicans over Democrats on immigration issues, including enforcing immigration laws the right way (40% trust Republicans, 36% trust Democrats), border security (44% trust Republicans, 31% trust Democrats), and fixing the immigration system (40% trust Republicans, 31% trust Democrats).

Perceptions of ICE and Recent Violence

A majority of Americans continue to hold negative views of ICE (net -22; 36% favorable – 58% unfavorable), consistent with Navigator’s first January survey (net -20; 37% favorable – 57% unfavorable), and a drastic decline since June 2025 (net -8).

As views of ICE remain underwater, news of ICE’s actions in Minneapolis continues to dominate, as overwhelming majorities have seen, read, or heard news about the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good (83%), including over seven-in-10 passive news consumers (71%). Not only are these events well-known, they’re worrying. A majority find the deployment of ICE to Minneapolis leading to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti to be concerning (58%), including among a majority of independents (58%) and a third of non-MAGA Republicans (33% concerned).

ICE is more unpopular than other entities. Americans are split on how they view the Department of Homeland Security as a whole, as 44% view the agency favorably, and 43% unfavorably (87% familiar). If reduced to just its acronym, DHS, views are still split but with less familiarity (66% familiar; 32% favorable – 33% unfavorable). Similarly, Americans are split on U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, viewed favorably by a 3-point margin (87% familiar; 45% favorable – 42% unfavorable).

Miller/Noem

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and immigration advisor Stephen Miller, two of the architects of the administration’s immigration agenda, have net-negative approval rates of -14 points and -12 points, respectively.

More people support efforts to impeach Noem than oppose (45% support to 35% oppose). 40% of non-MAGA Republicans support impeaching Noem compared to 37% who oppose. About a third of MAGA Republicans (31%) support impeaching Noem.

Likewise, 42% support firing Stephen Miller compared to 29% who oppose his firing. When given more information about Miller’s role as the architect of Trump’s ICE policies and his initial defenses of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, calling them assassins and domestic terrorists, support for his firing jumps up to 52%.

Reform/Abolish

By a 2-point margin, Americans support abolishing ICE (47% support – 45% oppose), including 74% of Democrats, 55% of Hispanic Americans, 53% of those ages 18-34 years old, and 47% of white women.

When given the options between abolish, reform, or make no changes to ICE, more say there should be significant reforms (43% reform – 27% abolish – 24% make no changes), though Democrats still are more likely to support abolishing ICE than reforming (49% abolish – 44% reform – 3% make no changes).

Reform Policies

Many of the proposed reforms to ICE floated by lawmakers are popular. In particular, the most popular are requiring ICE agents to wear body cameras (86% support), requiring all ICE agents to go through full criminal background checks (84% support), requiring ICE agents to de-escalate conflict whenever possible (76% support), and setting standards of conduct for ICE agents, meaning they could be prosecuted if violating them (76%) support).