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But one policy had near-unanimous support (+76 points, on net) in the AP/NORC poll: deporting undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a violent crime. Americans even favored deporting legal immigrants who have been convicted of a violent crime by 52 points. But when the pollster asked about deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally who have not been convicted of a violent crime, Americans were marginally opposed (by 7 points).

A Fabrizio, Lee & Associates/GBAO poll conducted Jan. 9-14 for The Wall Street Journal found a very similar pattern. When that survey simply asked if the U.S. should \"detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants,\" 52 percent of registered voters were strongly or somewhat in favor, while 45 percent were strongly or somewhat opposed. But it found much higher support (+52 points, on net) for detaining and deporting \"only undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime.\" Meanwhile, registered voters opposed detaining and deporting immigrants \"even if they have lived in the U.S. for 10 or more years, pay taxes on earnings, and have no criminal record\" by 44 points.

This poll likewise found that Americans get cold feet about deportations when families are at risk of being separated. When asked if the U.S. should \"detain and deport undocumented immigrants even if they have children that were born here and are American citizens,\" registered voters said no by 19 points. Additionally, registered voters opposed detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants \"even if it means businesses will face worker shortages,\" albeit by only 5 points — suggesting fewer Americans are moved by this argument.

Finally, an Ipsos/Axios survey from Jan. 10-12 found even stronger support than the other two polls for deporting undocumented immigrants in general, but every other deportation policy they asked about was underwater. For instance, according to this poll, Americans supported \"deporting immigrants who are in the country illegally\" by 34 points — but they opposed \"quickly deporting detained immigrants, even if it involves separating families or sending people to countries other than their country of origin\" by 28 points. The survey also found that Americans opposed \"deporting immigrants that came to the U.S. illegally as children\" by 29 points.

The poll also found Americans staunchly against using the military to conduct immigration raids. They opposed \"using active duty military to find and detain undocumented immigrants in U.S. cities and towns\" by 21 points and \"using money allocated to the U.S. military to pay for deportation\" by 41 points. (So far, this hasn't happened, as the raids have been conducted by ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security.)

If Trump wants to stay on the right side of public opinion while keeping his campaign promise to deport immigrants, it's clear what he has to do: deport only those who are convicted of crimes. But the administration could struggle to stick to that narrow mandate given the quotas they have reportedly issued to ICE (1,200-1,500 arrests per day). Already, there are reports that ICE has arrested undocumented immigrants with no criminal record and that the raids are separating families. If stories like these become the public image of Trump's deportation efforts, he could soon find that immigration is no longer a political strength for him.

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