The partial government shutdown impacting the Department of Homeland Security enters its seventh day today, Feb. 20, 2026. It won’t end anytime soon. Congress is on recess until Feb. 23, and the White House has rejected Democrats’ latest counteroffer of various ICE reforms in exchange for department funding.
From a distance, this looks like a good old-fashioned shutdown. But Democrats are using the impasse as an opportunity to change what voters see in their heads when they hear the word “immigration.” On this, they have had some real success recently. While Trump polls significantly better on his handling of the border than on immigration overall, the gap between how voters feel about his immigration agenda (bad) and deportations (worse) has been shrinking. Every day the shutdown drags on, the national conversation about immigration drifts further from border crossings and closer to ICE agents in American cities.
This week’s Chart of the Week shows that voters see “immigration” differe…
