Gallup: Americans Wanting Less Immigration Plunges Under Trump

Gallup finds a sharp drop in calls to cut immigration

Fewer Americans say they want immigration into the United States reduced, with support for that position falling by double-digit percentage points from its 2024 peak, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday and reported by Newsweek. The shift comes roughly six months into President Donald Trump’s second term and reflects a continued cooling of the restrictionist sentiment that dominated the 2024 campaign.

Gallup’s survey, conducted June 1–15, found that 73% of Americans now describe immigration as a good thing for the country. That figure is down slightly from a record 79% in 2025, but it remains well above the 67% long-term Gallup average and the 66% recorded in 2024. Just 21% of respondents said immigration is a bad thing for the United States.

On the question of whether levels should change, 35% of Americans said immigration should remain at its current level, 31% said it should be increased, and 29% said it should be decreased. Gallup polling released last year had put the share wanting immigration reduced at 55%.

The Trump-era backdrop and a string of high-profile incidents

Newsweek’s report ties the latest numbers to the political environment around Trump’s return to office, including “a series of high-profile clashes between federal immigration officers and American citizens and immigrants, some of which have been fatal.” It names three Americans whose deaths have drawn attention: Ruben Ray Martinez, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.

Trump returned to the White House promising mass deportations of people without legal status, a pledge built on a surge in illegal entries at the southwestern border with Mexico that began at the end of his first term and accelerated under former President Joe Biden. That surge drove much of the 2024 campaign’s focus on immigration.

Where the cuts in support are coming from

Gallup’s analysis indicates that the decline in appetite for tougher immigration approaches is increasingly coming from Republicans themselves. The share of GOP voters who view immigration as positive for the country fell from a high level in 2025 but still stands at 50%, according to Gallup. Broader trend data shows Republicans are far less likely than they were in 2024 to say immigration levels should be reduced.

A Gallup analysis released in July 2025 found that support for reducing immigration among Republicans had reached 88% during the 2024 cycle before falling back after Trump returned to the White House.

Several polls from late 2024 also found majority support for Trump’s proposed mass deportation program, particularly when respondents were asked about removing undocumented immigrants broadly. That support often declined when voters were presented with scenarios involving long-term residents, families or migrants without criminal records — a pattern consistent with the picture Gallup now draws.

Two analysts, two diagnoses

Newsweek quotes two specialists offering different reads on the data. Jeremy Beck, co-president of the immigration reform group NumbersUSA, argued that “recent fluctuations track with surges in illegal immigration and surges in enforcement, typically highly public street level arrests, suggesting that the poll is a proxy for people’s attitudes about immigration control as much as immigration levels.” Beck added that “President Trump and Congress can stop the pendulum swing by embracing work site enforcement, specifically E-Verify which would dry up the illegal employment market.”

David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, framed the change differently. “The spike in discontent over immigration was driven primarily by border chaos, not opposition to immigrants or immigration on its own,” Bier said. “In 2024, Democratic leadership thought they could blunt those concerns among independents by endorsing restrictions, which led to a historic spike in Democratic voters backing restrictions. The sole factor leading to the discontent — new illegal immigration — is gone now. The Trump administration is slashing legal immigration, and its mass deportation is causing chaos in the interior, which is also unpopular.”

The two analyses agree that 2024’s restrictionist spike was tied to specific conditions at the border. They diverge on prescription: Beck urges a pivot to workplace enforcement, while Bier reads the same numbers as evidence that the administration’s interior operations are themselves feeding public unease.

Why it matters

The political stakes are concrete. Immigration was the top concern for voters in much of 2024 polling, and Republican gains that year were built on the issue. A Gallup result showing that only 29% of Americans now want immigration reduced — and that 50% of Republicans call immigration positive — suggests the coalition Trump assembled around restriction is fraying at its base. For a White House whose signature domestic initiative is mass deportation, a fall in salience and a softening inside the GOP complicates the politics of sustaining the program.

The shift also reshapes the legislative terrain. Beck’s E-Verify pitch points to a tool that has historically drawn bipartisan support, and the new Gallup mix — 35% status quo, 31% more, 29% less — leaves little majority for any single direction. That makes centrist enforcement measures, rather than expansive new restrictions, a more plausible path if congressional Republicans choose to act.

The bigger picture

The Gallup trend line tells a longer story. The 2024 reading of 55% wanting immigration reduced was the high point of a multi-year climb in concern that began with the surge in border encounters. With border encounters having fallen sharply since Trump returned to office — a point Bier emphasizes — the conditions that fueled the spike have eased. At the same time, the Newsweek account notes that high-profile enforcement incidents have kept immigration in the news, even as the underlying driver of 2024’s discontent has faded.

Public opinion on immigration in the United States has rarely held at one extreme for long. The 73% who now call immigration a good thing is a record outside the 2025 peak, and it sits well above the 67% long-term average. By Gallup’s own framing, that average is the baseline against which the 2024 surge — and the current retrenchment — should be measured.

Where the reporting is thin

The Newsweek article is the only source in the materials provided for the immigration findings. The New York Times piece in the source set covers an unrelated Trump-era topic — a proposed 250-foot triumphal arch in Washington and a National Capital Planning Commission reinterpretation of the 1910 Height of Buildings Act — and does not bear on the Gallup numbers. Readers should treat the polling conclusions as drawn from a single Newsweek report of a Gallup release; Gallup’s own published tables and methodology notes were not included in the supplied material. The exact wording of the question wording, sample size and partisan crosstabs beyond what Newsweek quotes are not confirmed here.

Several specific claims in the source text are also truncated — the excerpt ends mid-sentence in a section labelled “Why Sentiment Has Changed,” and the article’s reference to specific deaths and clashes is presented without further documentation in the excerpt. Those details are reported in the source but have not been independently verified in the materials available.

What to watch next

Three markers will indicate whether this shift is durable. First, subsequent Gallup waves: if the share calling immigration a good thing stays near or above 70% and the share wanting it reduced stays under one-third through the rest of 2026, the change looks structural rather than cyclical. Second, the trajectory of border encounters and interior enforcement incidents, because both Beck and Bier link public attitudes to visible conditions rather than abstract ideology. Third, congressional movement: any serious legislative effort around E-Verify or work-site enforcement would test whether Republican leaders read the new Gallup mix as an opening for bipartisan compromise rather than as license to press ahead with broader restrictions.

If the administration’s deportation operations expand further while border encounters remain low, Beck’s reading — that public mood tracks the visibility of enforcement — and Bier’s reading — that interior operations are already feeding unpopularity — will be tested in real time. For now, the clearest signal in the data is inside the Republican coalition, where the share calling immigration positive has fallen from 2025 highs but, at 50%, remains far above where it sat in 2024.