Trump has made ICE a 70-30 issue — for Democrats

By using brutal force in public, ICE has given Democrats a chance to change how voters think about immigration policy. Will they take it?

A certain kind of pundit has been telling Democrats they’re on the wrong side of public opinion on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sohrab Ahmari, an editor at the conservative online magazine Unherd, tweeted last week that Democrats are “going all in on a case that’s 70-30 (at best) against” them.

It turns out that Sohrab has it exactly backwards. New polls released this week show U.S. voters breaking just 20-30% in favor of the way ICE is enforcing President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Polls on things like zip-tying children during raids, detaining U.S. citizens, ICE agents wearing masks, and, of course, shooting and killing citizens such as Renee Good show a public that is moving dramatically away from the president on his once-best issue.

The conventional wisdom in Washington throughout most of 2025 was that the president had a large edge on immigration, and that it would be a huge strategic error for Democrats to campaign on the issue. That case was wrong, but perhaps ar…