Most Americans say ICE has gone “too far,” poll finds
Most Americans say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone “too far” and is making them less safe, a new survey found, in the wake of ICE officer Jonathan Ross’s killing of Renee Nicole Good.
The survey, shared with Salon by the Public Policy Polling, found that 53% of Americans believe that “ICE agents are going too far” with their immigration raids, while half, 50%, say that ICE tactics are making communities “less safe.” In contrast, around 40% of respondents said that they did not believe ICE was going too far and 42% said that ICE tactics were making communities “more safe.”
55% of responders supported the idea that the Trump administration was focusing “too much” on immigration and not enough on “on fixing the economy, inflation and the rising cost of living,” and 57% said that ICE officers “should be required to adopt police officer standards like working without a mask and displaying a visible badge number.” Just 37% disagreed that the Trump administration was focusing too much on immigration and 33% disagreed that ICE officers should be held to the standards of police.
The survey also found that 76% of Americans had heard “a lot” about Ross’s killing of Good, while just 16% had heard either “just a little” or “nothing at all.”
Half of the respondents said that they agree that “the ICE officer shot and murdered Renee Nicole Good when she tried to drive away” while 42% said that they believed the administration’s line, that Ross killed Good in “self-defense.”
More broadly, 52% of respondents disapproved of President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration, while 45% approved of his performance on the issue. Another 50% agreed that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “should be fired,” and 53% said that they believe Congress should exercise more restrictions on the behavior of ICE officers before agreeing to fund the agency. Just 31% said they did not think ICE should face more restrictions.
The survey comes amid widespread backlash to the Trump administration’s immigration policies and as videos of ICE officers running rampant in American cities circulate widely on social media.
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One video from Minneapolis, for example, shows a gang of masked ICE officers snatching a U.S. citizen from a Target, before dropping him off bloodied in a Walmart parking lot.
At the same time, a third detainee died in ICE custody in 2026 earlier this week, this time in an ICE camp in the Texas desert. In 2025, 31 people died in ICE custody, the deadliest year in two decades. There are questions surrounding some of these deaths as well, with the Associated Press reporting that fellow detainees report that ICE officers had pinned and choked a detainee immediately preceding his death at the same ICE facility in Texas.
The pollster interviewed 668 registered voters from Jan. 12 to 13, 2026 by a mix of text and phone call. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.7%.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Salon.
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