What CA’s new poll shows about views on Trump’s immigration crackdown

from Wendy FryCalMatters

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If you find out that your neighbor has a past conviction, your knee-jerk reaction might be to want them moved.

But what if this guy committed a burglary in his late teens, served years in state prison, turned his life around, and is now a mentor to at-risk youth?

Do the details matter? The researchers found that they do.

A a new study by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research examines California voters’ attitudes toward due process for immigrants with criminal convictions amid the Trump administration’s national crackdown on unauthorized immigration. The survey also explored support for how tax dollars are spent and Californians’ views on the country’s asylum policies.

He found bipartisan support for ensuring that immigrants facing deportation receive due process, including those with criminal records.

“This survey shows there is clear concern about the current administration’s approach to immigration enforcement,” said Sarah Knight, research director at Goodwin Simon Strategic Research. “I’m not surprised by the results, but I’m encouraged to see how strong the support for due process is and the growing frustration with the inhumane treatment of people in our immigration system.”

president Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations targeting criminals, among other things, and he delivered. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have arrested more than 160,608 noncitizens nationwide with criminal convictions or pending charges since he took office.

The Trump administration is seeking to expand the use of “expedited removal,,” which allows immigration officials to remove certain noncitizens, such as those convicted of crimes, from the United States without a hearing before an immigration judge.

Researchers say this latest study of Goodwin Simon Strategic Studiespublished on CalMatters this week, also reflected declining support, even among a small majority of Republicans, for the harshest immigration enforcement practices. It showed that 84% of Democrats, 61% of independents and 54% of Republicans agree that “even if someone has a record, they deserve due process and a chance to be heard by a judge before they are deported.”

The study was commissioned by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and the National Labor Day Organizing Network, both pro-immigrant organizations. Goodwin Simon Strategic Research describes itself on its website as “an independent public opinion research firm.” Researchers wrote the survey questions and polled more than 1,200 self-identified voters. Knight said the partisan divide among respondents reflected the partisan divide in the electorate. The margin of error is 3 points.

Some other recent polls echo similar findings released in recent weeks, including one released last week by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab that found a third of Latino voters supported Trump now they regret their choice. Another opinion poll from the nonpartisan research firm Public Policy Institute of California found that 71 percent of Californians polled said they disapprove of the job ICE is doing. And, ah CNN exit poll after the Nov. 4 Proposition 50 redistricting election found that about three-quarters of California voters said they were dissatisfied or angry with the way things were going in the U.S., and 6 in 10 said the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement actions had gone too far.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, pointed to other recent national polls to argue that the public supports Trump’s immigration policies.

“President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary (Christy) Noem are carrying out the mandate of the American people to deport illegal aliens, and recent polls show that support for the ‘America First’ agenda has not waned — including New York Times poll that nearly 8 in 10 Americans support deporting illegal aliens with criminal records,” McLaughlin said in a written statement.

“The American people, the law and common sense are on our side and we will not stop until law and order is restored after Biden’s open border mayhem flooded our country with the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens,” she continued.

From jail to ICE

In the more recent study by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research, 61 percent of voters polled said they want California’s prison system to stop turning immigrants over directly to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.

The state’s asylum law does not apply to immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes. State prisons have been transferred to ICE more than 9,500 people with criminal records since Gov. Gavin Newsom took office in 2019, according to data released to CalMatters. So far in 2025, ICE has taken in 1,217 inmates directly from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the data show.

The Department of Corrections also provides ICE with information that helps the agency locate, arrest, and deport people who are not directly transferred. CalMatters obtained and reviewed more than 27,000 pages of emails between state prison officials and ICE. The emails show that prison officials regularly communicate with ICE about people in state custody, including U.S. citizens. They often share personal details about their families, visitors and phone calls. Often these family members have no criminal records and are US citizens

Newsom, US Senator ALex Padillaand spokesman Robert Rivas condemned ICE’s broader deportation efforts. But all three also indicated some level of support for federal immigration officials to remove noncitizens with prior violent felony convictions from the community.

The governor said he would veto legislation aimed at limiting the state prison system’s ability to coordinate with federal immigration authorities to deport criminals.

‘We might be deporting the wrong people’

Goodwin Simon researchers found that voters’ opinions change when they learn more about the personal circumstances of a noncitizen with a past conviction, even a felony. Sociologists gave voters two narratives.

One was about a man who was brought to the United States from Mexico as a child. He got into a fight in his early 20s that left someone injured. The man was sentenced to seven years in state prison, where he turned his life around by taking college classes and helping other inmates get their high school diplomas. When he was released from prison, he was deported to Mexico before an immigration judge could rule on his case.

The other story was about a person closely related to a man whose family fled the Cambodian genocide when he was a baby. In the US, the man was a detective for robbery when he was a teenager and served 30 years in a state prison. Upon his release, prison officials turned him over to ICE.

“We might be deporting the wrong people. Even though this last person did commit a crime, he served his time and is now a valued member of society, so it would be hard to say for sure if a person who has ever committed a crime deserves to be sent back. That’s why due process is important,” one Sacramento Republican voter responded to the poll. She changed her mind from the view that people with past criminal convictions should be automatically deported to the preference of a judge who hears the stories on a case-by-case basis.

After voters looked at both pro- and anti-messages and both stories, support for an immigration judge to hear individual cases before deportation increased from 84% to 90% among Democrats; from 61% to 74% among independents, but fell from 54% to 51% among Republicans. Central Coast voters and Republican women increased their support for a fair trial by 9 points after hearing the stories.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.