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”. 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 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.
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.
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