Vantage Data House

Americans' Views on ICE

vantagedatahouse.com N = 1,602 respondents February 25-27, 2026 Poststratified ML estimates

Overview

Key Findings

High-level takeaways from modeled estimates

Views on ICE were sharply polarized: Republicans exceeded Democrats by 34.5 pp on support for strict enforcement (even if it increases deportations/detentions) and by 42.3 pp on confidence in fair, thorough investigations after fatal shootings involving ICE agents.
Republicans showed strong support for enforcement and high institutional confidence. Most Republicans endorsed strict enforcement even if it increases detentions and deportations, and they reported high confidence in the fairness of investigations into fatal shootings involving ICE agents.
Boomers drove Republican support for strict enforcement: they were about 17.6 pp more supportive than younger Republican cohorts (Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X).
Overall, White respondents showed higher support for strict enforcement than Black respondents (17 pp), but within-party racial gaps were small. Among Republicans, the Black–White gap was about 5 pp, and it was smaller among Democrats and Independents.
Hispanics were 8.4 pp less supportive of strict immigration enforcement than Whites overall, but within the Republican Party the gap shrank to 3.9 pp.
Differences by gender, education, rural–urban residence, income, and religion were small.

Survey Questions

Topline Results

Two ICE questions with full response distributions

Demographics

Demographic Breakdown

Explore each question by demographic group

Question 1

ICE enforcement

Question 2

ICE investigations

Interactive Explorer

Crosstabs Explorer

Enforcement first, investigations second

Question 1

ICE enforcement

Cross-tabulated estimates by two demographic variables

Question 2

ICE investigations

Cross-tabulated estimates by two demographic variables

Values are weighted poststratified estimates (percent).

Geographic

State Ranking

All 51 states ranked with top and bottom tiers highlighted