Play Hardball: Use Your Leverage to Reform ICE

Ahead of the Senate’s vote on whether to appropriate funds to the Department of Homeland Security, new polling finds that Americans want to see comprehensive reforms of Donald Trump’s ICE, even as they signal strong support for enforcing our nation’s immigration laws. Democrats should use their leverage to demand commonsense reforms to ICE that have the backing of broad bipartisan majorities of Americans.

The Searchlight Institute and Tavern Research conducted an online survey of 1,502 likely 2026 voters from January 23-26, 2026. Results were weighted by gender, race, education, age, and 2024 presidential vote choice. The margin of error is ± 3.9 percentage points, and higher for subgroups.

Key Findings

• Americans want ICE to follow the rule of law. Large bipartisan majorities of voters oppose ICE’s lawless tactics, including detaining U.S. citizens (73%), entering people’s homes without warrants (79%), and failing to wear clearly identifying uniforms (70%).
• 58% of voters want ICE to be reined in. These voters prefer reforming ICE (30%, the top testing option) to eliminating the agency entirely (19%).
• Voters support interior immigration enforcement (72%) — especially if it focuses on criminals and people who pose a threat to our communities — but a majority (54%) believe that ICE’s tactics have been too forceful. Most Democrats (58%) see some deportations as legitimate and necessary, but oppose ICE’s indiscriminate and cruel tactics.
• Voters support law enforcement cooperation with ICE under certain circumstances: While a majority do support officers sharing an individual’s immigration status with ICE during criminal arrests (63%), they strongly oppose such actions during a hospital admission (19%) or traffic stop (34%).

Voters support reforming ICE, rather than abolishing it

A majority of voters want changes to immigration enforcement, but among these voters, most believe that reforming ICE with stricter rules and more training is the best option.
There’s evidence from external polling that voters have several different ideas about what “Abolish ICE” means. We instead asked about specific potential proposals — eliminating the agency, replacing it, reforming it, or expanding its funding and resources.

Most voters (58%) want ICE to be reined in. Reforming ICE was the most popular among all voters, at 30% overall. 81% of Democrats and 60% of Independents want ICE to be reined in, with more Democrats wanting ICE to be reformed or replaced (48%) than abolished (33%). A majority of Republicans (55%) want to make no changes or increase ICE’s funding, but those who want to see changes also prefer reforming the agency (23%) to eliminating or replacing it. Taken together, these findings indicate that reform, not abolition or expansion, is the option with the strongest public consensus.

ICE’s aggressive tactics are extremely unpopular, driving support for reforms

Even voters who generally support ICE and the current level of immigration enforcement believe the agency has gone too far. The least popular practices include entering private homes without warrants, detaining Americans, and failing to identify themselves as ICE agents.

ICE is extremely unpopular overall (net -17% approval), but the political polarization is stark — 74% of Republicans say they approve of how the agency is handling its job, compared to just 7% of Democrats.

Voters want ICE to refocus on criminals and end its aggressive tactics, but support limited law enforcement cooperation. When it comes to specific overreaches by ICE that have made recent news, bipartisan majorities oppose detaining American citizens (73% say this should not be allowed), entering private homes without warrants (79%), or wearing plain clothes or uniforms that don’t identify the agency (63% and 70%, respectively). The issue of agents wearing masks was more polarizing, with 55% of voters overall saying they opposed the practice. Notably, while 60% of Republicans said mask-wearing should be allowed, only 30% said agents should be permitted to wear uniforms lacking agency identification.

While Democrats have concerns about ICE, a majority continue to support enforcing our immigration laws. 58% of Democrats say that at least some immigrants living in the U.S. illegally should be deported. The minority position that no illegal immigrants should be deported is most popular among Democrats and young people, but even among them, that view doesn’t receive more than 30% support.

There was broad bipartisan agreement that ICE should prioritize deporting violent criminals. Detaining American citizens, arrests in sensitive locations (like churches), and separating families spur the greatest bipartisan concern. Notably, even those respondents who indicated they wanted no deportations whatsoever changed their minds when presented with specific scenarios. When we asked respondents who initially said that no illegal immigrants should be deported whether someone convicted of a violent crime should be deported, 76% changed their mind. This number rises to 94% among those who initially said at least some illegal immigrants should be deported.

Voters believe that law enforcement should cooperate with ICE in a limited capacity. 63% say immigration status should be checked during an arrest for a crime (including 54% of Democrats), while just 19% and 20% respectively say this should happen while being admitted to a hospital or enrolling a child in school. Only 16% say law enforcement should never cooperate with ICE, a number that barely rises to 25% among Democrats.

Conclusion

Voters want ICE to follow the law, and focus enforcement on people who pose a threat to public safety. They want to see tangible changes to ICE operations and oppose letting ICE detain U.S. citizens, enter homes without warrants, or fail to wear identifying uniforms. There is a desire for immigration enforcement that is lawful, reasonable, and effective. Senate Democrats should embrace this reality and use their leverage to achieve meaningful changes that rein in ICE’s abuses and refocus the agency on its critical law enforcement mission.