ICE tactics spark debate before pivotal US midterm elections

Polls have found that Trump’s hardline immigration enforcement effort has divided voters before the 2026 midterm race.

US midterms 2026: Is ICE still a Republican strength? | This Is America

United States President Donald Trump’s mandate for aggressive immigration enforcement has fractured public support in advance of next month’s critical midterm elections.

In the lead-up to the November 3 vote, Fox News released a poll that found 53 percent of registered voters felt the immigration crackdown had “gone too far”.

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That rate was even higher among demographics that may be key to the Republican Party’s prospects in November.

The poll, conducted in September, found that 60 percent of independent voters agreed with the idea that Trump’s immigration efforts have overreached. Two-thirds of Hispanic participants also agreed with the campaign having “gone too far”.

Experts say the political debate about immigration in the US has shifted since the last major election in 2024. At the time, the focus was largely on border security. But increasingly, attention has fallen on how enforcement operations are being conducted.

Cynthia Penaloza is among those questioning the Trump administration’s tactics.

In August, her sister, 23-year-old Joceline Penaloza Magana, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston, Texas, during a traffic stop. Joceline remains in custody to this day.

“We’re always afraid. We’re uncertain of what’s going to happen, if she’s going to be sent back to Mexico, if we’re ever going to be together again or how this is going to change our lives forever,” Cynthia told Al Jazeera correspondent Phil Lavelle.

She rejects Trump’s assertion that his administration’s immigration enforcement operations have targeted “the worst of the worst”.

Joceline, according to the Penaloza family, was an honour roll student who does not have a criminal record. She was brought to the US as a young child, about five years old.

“She’s always been a good girl,” Cynthia told Lavelle.

Guatemalan police escort a convicted criminal who arrived on an ICE deportation flight from Brownsville, Texas [File: John Moore/Getty Images]

A focus on ‘criminals’

Still, the Trump administration has tied its campaign of mass deportation to efforts to control crime.

In a statement earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, credited Trump’s policies with having “unleashed ICE to target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens, including pedophiles, murderers, gang members, terrorists, and rapists”.

Immigration arrests have been on the rise under Trump. In September, ICE announced it had tallied two consecutive months with more than 50,000 immigration arrests, beating a record set in June, when 43,900 people were detained.

Homeland Security has argued that approximately 70 percent of its immigration detainees are criminals, if pending charges are factored in.

But critics have questioned that statistic, given that the legal system in the US gives suspects the presumption of innocence until they are proven guilty in a court of law.

In other words, many of the accused could be acquitted or see their charges dropped. A large portion of those with criminal charges may also be accused of non-violent crimes.

Analysts have found that a majority of people currently in immigration custody are not considered criminals under the law. According to the Deportation Data Project, which analyses government data sets, some 70 percent of those held in ICE detention have no criminal record.

The Trump administration has nevertheless pushed to increase detentions.

“We need more. We need more arrests, and we need more deportations,” Tom Homan, the White House “border czar”, said in an interview in July.

Pushback on the campaign trail

The aggressive arrest tactics may have repercussions on the Republican campaign for the midterms, though.

Republicans are hoping to defend their majorities in both chambers of Congress, as well as in key state and local elections.

Trump made significant gains in the 2024 elections with Hispanic voters. During his re-election bid, he received nearly 48 percent support among Latinos, according to an exit poll from the Pew Research Center — up 12 percentage points from the 2020 election.

But Pew found that his gains may be eroding. Among the Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024, his approval rating has steadily declined, from a high of 93 percent at the start of 2025 to a low of 57 percent as of last week.

Some Republicans running in the midterm election, including Congress member Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, have even openly criticised the president’s hardline immigration policies.

“Mr President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar said in an advertisement campaign launched in September. She cited the large number of immigrants who were arrested without a criminal record.

Other Republicans, however, blame previous presidencies for creating the conflict over immigration enforcement.

“A mess was created, and now cleaning it up is dirty business,” Jeremy Price, a Republican in Texas, told Al Jazeera. “You’re having to find people, arrest them against their will and remove them from the country because they don’t want to leave.”

Democrats, meanwhile, hope to convert that outrage over immigration enforcement tactics into votes, come November.

“I would hope they’d abolish ICE,” Richard Gonzales, the chair of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party in Texas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Lavelle.

“I mean, in my perspective, I think that they’ve, the agency has just lost its identity, and there’s no way to rehabilitate that.”

民调显示，特朗普强硬的移民执法政策在2026年中期选举前造成了选民分裂。

2026年美国中期选举：美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）仍然是共和党的优势吗？ | 这就是美国

美国总统唐纳德·特朗普推行的强硬移民执法政策，在下个月至关重要的中期选举前夕，导致公众支持率出现裂痕。

在 11 月 3 日投票前夕，福克斯新闻发布了一项民意调查，结果显示 53% 的注册选民认为移民打击“做得太过分了”。

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（共4条）民调显示，美国中期选举前夕，选民对特朗普感到失望，渴望变革：

在可能对共和党11月大选前景至关重要的群体中，这一比例甚至更高。

这项于9月进行的民调发现，60%的独立选民认同特朗普的移民政策矫枉过正的观点。三分之二的西班牙裔受访者也认为特朗普的竞选活动“做得太过火了”。

专家表示，自2024年上次大选以来，美国关于移民问题的政治辩论已经发生了转变。当时，焦点主要集中在边境安全上。但现在，人们越来越关注执法行动的实施方式。

辛西娅·佩纳洛萨是质疑特朗普政府策略的人之一。

8月，她的妹妹，23岁的乔斯琳·佩纳洛萨·马加纳，在德克萨斯州休斯顿的一次交通拦截中被美国移民和海关执法局（ICE）逮捕。乔斯琳至今仍被拘留。

“我们一直都很害怕。我们不确定接下来会发生什么，她会不会被遣返回墨西哥，我们是否还能再次团聚，或者这件事会如何永远地改变我们的生活，”辛西娅告诉半岛电视台记者菲尔·拉维尔。

她驳斥了特朗普的说法，即他的政府的移民执法行动针对的是“最恶劣的罪犯”。

据佩纳洛萨一家称，乔斯琳是一名成绩优异的学生，没有任何犯罪记录。她大约五岁时被带到美国。

“她一直是个好女孩，”辛西娅告诉拉维尔。

危地马拉警方押送一名从德克萨斯州布朗斯维尔乘坐美国移民及海关执法局遣返航班抵达的罪犯。[图片：John Moore/Getty Images]

关注“罪犯”

尽管如此，特朗普政府仍将大规模驱逐出境行动与控制犯罪的努力联系起来。

今年早些时候，负责移民执法的国土安全部在一份声明中称赞特朗普的政策“让美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）得以打击最恶劣的非法移民罪犯，包括恋童癖者、杀人犯、帮派成员、恐怖分子和强奸犯”。

在特朗普执政期间，移民逮捕人数持续上升。9月，美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）宣布，连续两个月移民逮捕人数超过5万人，打破了6月份创下的4.39万人被拘留的纪录。

国土安全部认为，如果将未决指控考虑在内，其拘留的移民中约有 70% 是罪犯。

但批评人士对这一统计数据提出了质疑，因为美国的法律体系赋予嫌疑人在法庭上被证明有罪之前无罪推定。

换句话说，许多被告可能会被判无罪或撤销指控。此外，很大一部分被控犯罪的人也可能被指控犯有非暴力罪行。

分析人士发现，目前被移民局拘留的大多数人并不被法律认定为罪犯。据分析政府数据集的“遣返数据项目”称，被美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）拘留的人中，约有70%没有犯罪记录。

尽管如此，特朗普政府还是推动了拘留人数的增加。

“我们需要更多。我们需要更多逮捕，我们需要更多驱逐出境，”白宫“边境沙皇”汤姆·霍曼在7月份的一次采访中说道。

竞选活动中的阻力

不过，这种激进的逮捕策略可能会对共和党的中期选举竞选产生影响。

共和党人希望保住他们在国会两院的多数席位，以及在关键的州和地方选举中获胜。

特朗普在2024年大选中获得了大量拉美裔选民的支持。根据皮尤研究中心的一项出口民调显示，在他竞选连任期间，他获得了近48%的拉美裔选民支持，比2020年大选提高了12个百分点。

但皮尤研究中心发现，他的支持率可能正在下降。在2024年支持他的西班牙裔选民中，他的支持率稳步下降，从2025年初的93%高位降至上周的57%低位。

一些参加中期选举的共和党人，包括佛罗里达州国会议员玛丽亚·埃尔维拉·萨拉萨尔，甚至公开批评了总统强硬的移民政策。

萨拉扎尔在9月份发起的一项广告宣传活动中表示：“总统先生，您的一些移民执法行动做得太过火了。”她指出，大量移民在没有犯罪记录的情况下被捕。

然而，其他共和党人则将移民执法方面的冲突归咎于前几任总统。

“他们制造了一场混乱，现在收拾残局成了一件棘手的事，”德克萨斯州共和党人杰里米·普莱斯告诉半岛电视台。“你不得不找到这些人，强行逮捕他们，并将他们驱逐出境，因为他们不想离开。”

与此同时，民主党人希望将民众对移民执法策略的愤怒转化为11月大选的选票。

“我希望他们能废除美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）。”德克萨斯州伊达尔戈县民主党主席理查德·冈萨雷斯在接受半岛电视台记者拉维尔采访时说道。

“我的意思是，在我看来，我认为他们，这个机构已经失去了自己的特色，而且没有办法挽回了。”