How much support does the idea of "Mass Deportations" (in the USA) actually have? Do you actually know Americans IRL that support these policies?

Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I read Wikipedia and it says a majority of Americans actually support “deporting all ‘illegal immigrants’”. Is this actually true?

en.wikipedia.org/…/Deportation_in_the_second_pres…

At the time of his first campaign, approximately one-third of Americans supported the idea – but by the start of his second term, eight years later, public opinion had undergone a shift, with a majority of Americans believing all illegal immigrants should be deported. By April 2025, slightly over half of Americans felt the level of deportations went “too far”.

(Of course, people say it went “too far” after they already voted this fucker into office.)

The Source Wikipedia Cited: realclearpolitics.com/…/cnns_enten_there_has_been…

My brother who is a legal immigrant and naturalized citizen, actually voted harris in 2024, buy doesn’t seem to be bothered by the mass deportations, even though he hates trump.

It this actually a common sentinment amongst Americans?

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Comments

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Retro_unlimited@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I would much rather have legal immigration be easier, cheaper, faster.

Let them in, let them work, let them pay taxes, let them be free and part of the country they want to be in. They want to be here so badly they are willing to commit the crime of being here illegally and working hard for very little money. it’s gross how often they are taken advantage of.

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- iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Undocumented immigrants contribute significantly to taxes, FYI. If they are buying things, they are paying some taxes.
  
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- AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I’m pretty sure a large number of “illegal” immigrants are those who overstay their student visas or screw up their paperwork. People with a productive life who came here legally.
  
  There’s got to be better way to catch up on paperwork.
  
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SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
For context, two years after 9/11 upwards of 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was directly connected to the attacks and wanted to invade Iraq.

Americans are not smart, and they are very racist.

Those of us who lived through the Dubya Bush years can attest to this. Even Dubya Bush wanted to give illegal immigrants amnesty and a path to citizenship but it was deeply unpopular so it never happened.

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sartalon@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It blows me away how fucking easily my fellow countrymen are led by their god damned nose.

Closet fucking fascists, all of them, and too stupid to recognize simple fucking fallacies.

My life sucks, ooh it must be because an illegal committed a crime. Even though immigrants have a lower crime rate than our ever present white trash.

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W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Deportations seem to be the primary benefit of electing Trump according r/Conservative. I check periodically to see if they regret Trump yet.

Obviously, hard to tell what’s real over there.

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duckworthy36@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Scaring immigrants and reducing both legal and illegal immigration is the stupidest thing any country with a declining birth rate and an increase in elderly population can do.

Who’s going to provide elder care? Who’s going to pay taxes to maintain the country?

The majority of legal and illegal immigrants are often skilled workers with foresight and drive to work to improve their lives. They are often escaping persecution corruption and criminal behavior and looking for peace and prosperity.

They regularly take the worst type of jobs, at low pay rates, even though many of them are highly skilled and educated. These are jobs many citizens do not want, harvesting crops, cleaning, landscaping.

Anyone white who doesn’t realize their ancestors were literally in the same boat and behaved like actual criminals , stealing land from native Americans and killing them with violence and disease, and/or owning slaves, is an idiot.

Many of the people who worry about immigrants are looking for someone to blame for their unhappiness, when the real problem is the rich (or themselves) .

Native people are the only non immigrants in this country.

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- AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It’s even stupider with the attack on universities. We’ve always benefited from a “brain drain” from other countries where many of the best and brightest come here for an education, and some of them stay.
  
  We’re not just attacking immigrants who make our country great, drive the economy, and offset declining birth rates, but we’re specifically attacking those who might improve science, technology, innovation.
  
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KeepFlying@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I don’t support mass deportations but I understand why people do. Id prefer amnesty (especially for children and families who have been here for years) followed by eased legal immigration processes to make it easier to come here legally.

What bothers me recently though isn’t mass deportations themselves, it’s the way they are being done. Unmarked officers, no oversight, sketchy warrants that prey on people’s lack of knowledge of their rights, strong arming local organizations and governments to hand over info, punishing people who are trying to fix their status or lost it on a technicality, etc.

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paequ2@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I know some now legal immigrants, who were granted amnesty in the 80s, who support or feel indifferent about the mass deportations…

Sadly, something I’ve realized that is part of our United Statian culture is that we believe: “If I suffered, then others must suffer as well.”

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- aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  You said it more eloquently, but it’s basically “fuck you, i got mine”. It’s really gross :/
  
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FreakinSteve@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I dont support mass deportations-especiially to concentration camps- but I’d like for all immigrants to up and leave so we could see the country collapse. Goddamn ignorant Nazi fuck honkies cant do a goddamn thing on their own.

Immigrants: return home; arm.up; wait for the stupid fucking yanks to come try to overthrow you again and give them the Vietnam treatment.

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- throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Sorry I cant go “home”.
  
  “Home” is PRC and they aren’t exactly too shy with the tanks."
  
  Besides, PRC also doesn’t have dual citizenship, and I already naturalized as US Citizen, meaning the only citizenship I have is the US.
  
  Any EU countries accepting refugees? 👀
  
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  - FreakinSteve@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Vancouver?
    
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folekaule@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I think a lot of them don’t realize who is being categorized as illegal. Conservatives I know seen to be able to hold multiple conflicting ideas at the same time, e.g., hating immigrants but be friends with them on a one on one basis. I don’t think they actually see the problem with that.

Anyway, I think a lot of centrists especially take “illegal” and “criminal” at face value. You can see the argument for deporting people that shouldn’t have been here to begin with. The difference is that we’re seeing a very loose definition of those terms being applied by authorities. Innocent people are being targeted and treated as terrorists.

I think a lot of them don’t realize this, or refuse to believe it. You will see them online saying “Come to America. You have nothing to worry about if your papers are in order and you haven’t done anything wrong.”

This is just my impression of things. People are different and it’s a big country.

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radix@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
This is why subject matter experts matter. Support for the vague idea of “deport people here illegally” is pretty high, but any specific method of actually doing it is much more unpopular. Media is essential in getting that distinction out to the laypeople, but they’ve largely failed.

And I’d argue that it’s not just immigration where this disconnect exists. Lots of policies have broad support until you start talking about specifics. People just want to “get things done” but the “how” is either boring or unsavory.

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- humble_boatsman@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  Media is essential in getting that distinction out to the laypeople, but they’ve largely failed.
  
  They haven’t failed anything. Their billionaire owners purposely misconstrue the truth to manufacture the exact opposite intentions. Creating said “high support”
  
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spacecadet@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I think recent Gallup and CNN polls shows about every 2 out of 3 Americans approve Trumps immigration policy and currently has a +1 favorably rating. The same polls showed his economic policies to be favored by more than 17% more than democrats. The fact republicans are stomping democrats, and democrats keep doubling down on failed ideas is astounding. Let any blue collar worker from the Midwest run the DNC and we would win every election in a landslide, but instead we insult men and push identity politics that even minorities don’t want.

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- throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  
  insult men
  
  The left abandoning young men is why there is the alt-right pipeline… 😓
  
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  - spacecadet@lemm.ee ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Would you rather vote for the people who say you suck and are the root of all the world’s problems or the people who respect your existence? Not a hard decision
    
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Sequentialsilence@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The only person I know who supports these actions is literally known around my neighborhood as crazy Mike, because he’s crazy. He also openly admits he’s hypocritical, as he will condemn an action democrats do, but praise the same actions if they’re done by republicans. He knows he’s hypocritical but doesn’t see anything wrong with it. Like I said he’s crazy.

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- TachyonTele@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Apparently my father goes by crazy mike on the streets.
  
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sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Most everyone I know

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- daggermoon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’m sorry you live in Texas. I love your username btw.
  
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  - sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    From Texas thankfully living in Portland rn. Unfortunately it is only temporary
    
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11111one11111@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Id say every living president other than Obama has a record of supporting more deportations than Trump! Google says there were 17,000 deportations made last month which if expanded out to 48 months to cover his whole presidential term would give an estimated total of 800,000. Not sure what im missing here that is giving such a mismatch of totals but he is some how on pace for the least amount of deportations during any presidential term since before Reagan.

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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Depends on where you’re from. Up in this blue corner I know very few who would support it. Ironically they’re immigrants.

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salacious_coaster@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Yes, it’s common. My understanding is it’s actually more common in Europe and elsewhere, and on the rise globally. It’s getting crowded on this planet, and people want easy answers.

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Jhuskindle@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I’ve never meant someone irl that supports it. I’ve seen some online profiles support it, maybe they are fake.

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- Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Or maybe these people don’t say it to your face, but still believe it.
  
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  - Jhuskindle@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Not really no.
    
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SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Many people I know agree with deporting illegal immigrants and see it as a problem that had been simply ignored for far too long. I found an article talking about deportation flights as early as 2023 (I’ll try to find and link it here) so it’s not new for the Trump admin. He just upped the scale and publicity.

There are disagreements though, mostly with how it’s being carried out. If the agents are unidentifiable as feds some day someone is going to fight back, or a third party will intervene thinking they are getting mugged.

And there is a big lack of due process to make sure those arrested actually require deportation. No way they are all 100% legit with no mistakes. If everything is above board more due process and transparency shouldn’t be an issue if your case is solid.

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- AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Sure , there’s always been some deportations. We’ve always patrolled the southern border and arrested and deported people trying to cross illegally. Sometimes it’s less humane than other times.
  
  We’ve also usually granted refugee status to places having a hard time. We’ve usually not worried much about employed people. We’ve usually not kidnapped people from immigration court. Weve usually not had masked thugs terrorizing anyone not white enough.
  
  Elon musk is probably the typical illegal alien. Came here legally on a student visa. Overstayed when it expired, but wasn’t really a problem and no one trying to hunt him down. At some point he caught up on the paperwork. And the economy benefitted.
  
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Kaboom@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
According to a poll by CBS, over half of voters support mass deportations. justthenews.com/…/majority-voters-approve-trump-d…

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