Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll

As the federal government conducts a crackdown on undocumented immigration, a new national University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll has found continued majority support for both birthright citizenship and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants with no criminal record. However, half of the 1,000 respondents of the nationwide survey conducted April 4-9, expressed support for how President Donald Trump has managed the issue of undocumented immigration and large majorities in favor of the deportation of undocumented immigrants who have a criminal record.

“While in office, President Trump quickly moved to make good on his campaign promise to harshly and definitively deal with the issue of undocumented immigration and recent months have seen the federal government arrest, detain and deport thousands of undocumented and legal immigrants and seek to challenge the constitutionality of birthright citizenship,” says Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll.

“While Trump and his supporters believe that his victory was a reflection of a public yearning for a more hardline response to undocumented immigration, our results suggest a public that is of two minds on the issue of undocumented immigration,” Nteta says. “While on the one hand 6 in 10 support birthright citizenship (60%), support a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (61%) and oppose the separation of children from undocumented parents (61%), on the other hand 74% support the deportation of undocumented immigrants with a criminal record, a plurality supports the militarization of immigration enforcement (43%), and half of the poll’s respondents rate President Trump’s performance on immigration positively (50%). The coming months will determine if the nation continues to embrace its identity as an immigrant nation welcoming of newcomers or if we have arrived at a period of sustained backlash against undocumented immigrants.”

“Should anyone born on U.S. soil be a citizen? That’s what the current law says, and a significant majority agrees,” explains Raymond La Raja, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Three out of five Americans believe that a person born in the U.S. should automatically be granted citizenship, while just 1 in 4 disagree. However, roughly half the people who disagree voted for Trump, which explains why he questions birthright citizenship. In contrast, just 7% of Harris voters disagree. Beyond partisan controversies about immigration, we see that the question of birthright citizenship is also polarized.”

“A plurality of Americans opposes the Trump administration’s proposals to end birthright citizenship – 43% oppose this in cases where the parents are unauthorized immigrants, and 51% oppose it when the parents are legal residents,” says Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “In short, Trump is out of step with the dominant trend in American public opinion. However, between a quarter and a third of Americans support ending birthright citizenship for the children of unauthorized immigrants or legal residents. This core of support, which comes disproportionately from Republicans, provides fuel for Trump’s initiative.”

Rhodes says the poll did find a split among Trump’s Republican base on the issue, though.

“Our survey shows that Republicans are of two minds over Trump’s proposals to end birthright citizenship,” he explains. “On one hand, a solid majority, 56%, of Republicans supports invalidating the citizenship of the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants. But only 39% of Republicans support ending birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of legal residents. Democrats, meanwhile, are almost uniformly opposed, and make no distinctions between U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and U.S.-born children of legal residents. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, while there is a noticeable partisan divide over the issue, it is not the case that Republicans overwhelmingly support Trump’s proposal. Republican ambivalence likely serves as a drag on Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship.”

Views on the Tactics of the Administration’s Immigration Crackdown

The new University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll asked respondents of their views on the methods proposed and being used by Trump and his administration officials to manage immigration.

“Amidst the dramatic turn in the nation’s immigration policies, we find evidence that Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of the deportation of undocumented immigrants with criminal records, with close to 3 in 4 expressing support for this policy,” Nteta says. “Across demographic and political groups, the deportation of undocumented immigrants with a criminal record is popular, and we see that a majority of President Trump’s most virulent opponents – Democrats (63%), liberals (60%) and Harris voters (65%) – support this policy. Given the overwhelming public support for this policy, it is no wonder why the Trump administration is touting their efforts to remove undocumented immigrants with criminal records from the shores of the nation.”

“Immigration is the only issue on which more Americans evaluate Donald Trump’s performance favorably rather than unfavorably, but there is tremendous division on both this administration’s overall handling of immigration and specific approaches to immigration,” says Alexander Theodoridis, associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll. “Majorities of Americans of all political stripes favor deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Democrats and Republicans, however, differ starkly on deporting undocumented immigrants with no criminal record or whose children were born in the United States. 

“Americans are generally opposed to deporting legal immigrants who express views that oppose U.S. domestic or foreign policy, though about 4 in 10 Republicans support deportation in those cases,” Theodoridis continues. “There is limited support for invalidating the citizenship of children born here whose parents are in the U.S. illegally or under a temporary visa (23%), separating undocumented parents from their children during immigration proceedings (18%) or deporting undocumented immigrants to prisons in foreign countries (34%).”

“President Trump has expressed support for sending unauthorized immigrants to prisons in foreign countries and recently sent hundreds of unauthorized immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador,” Rhodes says. “Recently, it was revealed that a legal resident was mistakenly shipped to this prison, and that many of the unauthorized immigrants sent had no criminal records. This policy, which many describe as authoritarian, is out of step with public opinion as a near majority of Americans (47%) opposes it, while only a third (34%) approves. The disapproval of a plurality of Americans helps explain why Trump’s harsh policy is the subject of such controversy today.”

Nteta agrees, and points to a number of documented instances of federal agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arresting, detaining and seeking the deportation of legal immigrants to the United States in recent weeks. 

“In many of these cases, the Trump administration claims that these immigrants, through their speech or activities, have publicly supported terrorist organizations or demonstrated antipathy toward Jews at home or abroad,” Nteta says. “Given these activities, it is not shocking that half of Americans (50%) express concern that the Trump administration will deport legal immigrants based on their political views, potentially violating the right to due process that legal immigrants enjoy. While the Trump administration continues to arrest and detain these immigrants, a majority of Americans oppose these efforts to deport legal immigrants who express views in opposition to domestic policies of the federal government (51%) or who express views in contrast to the foreign policies of the U.S. government (50%). Interestingly, on this issue no group, including Republicans, Trump voters or conservatives, exhibits majoritarian support for deporting legal immigrants on these grounds. On the issue of disappearing legal immigrants, the Trump administration is not only out of step with the majority of the public but even their staunchest supporters.”
 

A Pathway to Citizenship?

The latest University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll asked respondents their views on what, if any, steps undocumented immigrants should be able to take to gain American citizenship, and the findings show majority support for such a pathway even if the current administration appears to have taken a hard line against one.

“Trump and congressional Republicans focus on aggressive immigration measures like the revocation of birthright citizenship and the mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants,” Rhodes says, “but a strong majority (61%) of Americans wants to move in the opposite direction, by allowing unauthorized immigrants to become citizens if they meet citizenship requirements and commit no crimes. This proposal enjoys majority support among people of all genders, ages, levels of education and income levels. And while Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to support it, a full 46% of Republicans – and 45% of Trump voters – approve. While it is true that many Americans want the federal government to address the problem of undocumented immigration, they are also compassionate toward unauthorized immigrants who are making contributions to American society.”
 

Methodology

This University of Massachusetts Amherst Poll of 1,000 respondents nationally was conducted by YouGov April 4-9. YouGov interviewed 1,081 total respondents who were then matched down to a sample of 1,000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race and education. The sampling frame is a politically representative “modeled frame” of U.S. adults, based upon the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and 2020 presidential vote.

The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores. The matched cases and the frame were combined, and a logistic regression was estimated for inclusion in the frame. The propensity score function included age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education and region. The propensity scores were grouped into deciles of the estimated propensity score in the frame and post-stratified according to these deciles.

The weights were then post-stratified on 2020 and 2024 presidential vote choice as well as a four-way stratification of gender, age (4-categories), race (4-categories) and education (4-categories) to produce the final weight.

The margin of error of this poll is 3.7%.

Topline results and crosstabs for the poll can be found at www.umass.edu/poll