Two Kansas Republican senators who voted last year to boost ICE's funding and authority are now asking the agency to change how it works in their state. Their reaction suggests that Republicans in tight races increasingly view the deportation drive as a political weight.
With Election Day, Nov. 3, roughly five weeks out, the unease is coming from some of ICE's strongest allies, not only from Democrats.
Kansas Republicans Push Back
A burst of ICE activity in four rural Kansas towns this week closed businesses and led schools to ask families who could collect children if a parent were detained, POLITICO reported. Marshall, normally a reliable backer of the president's agenda, said enforcement must be carried out responsibly and securely, and blamed ICE's lack of communication with local law enforcement for widespread disruption.
The three affected cities, Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, said in a joint statement that they had not been told about the operation in advance, according to DTN. Moran said DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin assured him the warrants were limited to people already charged with crimes.
Why Marshall Has Reason to Worry
Marshall is seeking re-election in a state that last sent a Democrat to the Senate in 1932. An Emerson College survey conducted Sept. 15–16 put Democrat Adam Hamilton at 45% to Marshall's 43%, a gap inside the poll's 3.6-point credibility interval. Cook Political Report moved the race from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican" on Sept. 23. Because Trump won Kansas by 16 points in 2024, any close contest there is a warning for the party.
Beef Plants Absorb the Shock
Plants in Dodge City, Liberal and Garden City typically handle thousands of cattle each day. The Kansas Livestock Association said worker absences climbed and some facilities briefly stopped operating, forcing animals back to feedyards, according to AP. The group said it had not heard of arrests at worksites. DHS confirmed its officers were present but said they were not conducting worksite raids.
Mullin said agents were going after "heinous criminals" but did not say how many people had been arrested. That omission matters: AP noted that recent data show more than half of those arrested in July had no convictions and faced no pending charges. USDA slaughter reports cited by DTN showed fed-cattle processing dropping about 9% on Wednesday and nearly 16% on Thursday.
In Maine, the Issue Turns Personal
LePage, the former governor and Trump-endorsed nominee in Maine's open 2nd District, said at a Monday, Sept. 21, event in Augusta that his son's father-in-law is being deported. In his account, the man has a work permit. LePage did not name the relative or his country of origin, and he said ICE should prioritize gang members and criminals. "He has a work permit. He should be allowed to stay," he said.
A White House spokesperson told HuffPost that holding a work permit is not the same as having legal status and that agents will arrest anyone here illegally. Asked about data showing most people ICE targets lack criminal records, LePage replied that ICE has a job to do, leaving him on both sides of the debate.
What the Polls Show
In the Fox survey, which polled 1,211 registered voters with a 3-point margin of error, the GOP's long-running advantage on immigration has essentially disappeared: voters split 49% for Republicans and 48% for Democrats on which party would handle the issue better, and independents favor Democrats by 6 points. Sixty percent of independents said enforcement had overreached.
Other pollsters see a smaller drop. The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, conducted Aug. 28–30, put Trump's immigration approval at 47%, according to an analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, which argues that immigration is still among his best issues even though he trails on it. The two surveys were taken about two weeks apart, so the figures are not directly comparable. This article uses Fox's 43%, the more recent and lower reading.
A Wider Pattern of Distancing
Kansas and Maine are not isolated cases. Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar released an ad on Sept. 17 telling the president that "some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," and CNN noted that Republicans are also breaking from Trump on tariffs and the Iran war.
Across all issues, the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that only 39% of voters approve of Trump's job performance and that 45% describe their vote for Congress as mainly a vote against him.
DHS Stands Firm
DHS rejected the criticism, telling POLITICO that it is carrying out a record-setting removal campaign, exactly as the president promised, and does not choose which laws to enforce or where. The sharpest internal warning in the story came from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who said the administration "maybe has miscalculated a little bit" on immigration enforcement.
What to Watch Next
Three developments will show whether this is a brief wobble or a lasting split:
- Coordination: whether DHS agrees to work more closely with local police in states like Kansas.
- Economics: whether beef-industry disruptions become a cost-of-living issue that voters tie to enforcement.
- Messaging: whether more vulnerable Republicans join Marshall, Moran and LePage before ballots are cast.
