Public approval for President Donald Trump's immigration policy has reached its lowest point since his return to the White House, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates, with a majority of Americans now believing his stringent approach has gone too far.
The nationwide survey, conducted between Friday and Sunday, gathered responses both before and after immigration officers killed a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday. This incident occurred during confrontations with protesters over Trump's deployment of immigration agents to cities across the country.
Just 39 percent of Americans now approve of Trump's handling of immigration, a two-point drop from earlier this month, while 53 percent disapprove. This marks a significant decline from February, shortly after his January inauguration, when 50 percent approved and 41 percent disapproved, indicating immigration was once a stronger area for his popularity.
Trump's overall approval rating also fell to 38 percent, matching the lowest level of his current term, down from 41 percent in the prior Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on January 12-13.
Some 58 percent of poll respondents said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have gone "too far" in their crackdown, while 12 percent said they had not gone far enough and 26 percent said the agents' efforts were "about right." About nine in 10 Democrats said the agents have gone too far, compared to two in 10 Republicans and six in 10 independents.
The poll, conducted online nationwide, gathered responses from 1,139 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
