Survey: Americans Disapprove of Federal Agents’ Enforcement Tactics
In This Resource
Over the past year, Americans have seen striking images of federal agents using violent tactics while carrying out President Trump’s immigration policy priorities.
From deploying tear gas in neighborhoods to firing pepper balls at clergy to shooting and killing protesters, these actions have left a mark on how Americans view federal agents from agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Now, according to new States United polling, Americans have more negative than positive views of these federal agents across a range of questions, including whether agents are making the country safer, whether they are using unnecessary force, and how they make arrests.
States United partnered with YouGov on a national survey of 1,570 adults from Feb. 11 to 19, 2026, to better understand Americans’ views on this issue.
- Nearly half of Americans say that ICE is making Americans less safe.
- More than half say that ICE agents either always or usually use unnecessary force in their enforcement actions.
- Most Americans disagree that it should be legal for federal agents to stop and question people about their immigration status based only on their ethnicities or the languages they speak.
- Most disagree that arrest quotas should be used for immigration enforcement.
More Americans think ICE makes them less safe (47%) than those who think the agency makes them safer (34%).
Part of this unpopularity is rooted in Americans’ dislike of the way that ICE and other federal agencies are behaving when enforcing federal immigration policy. For example, just over half of Americans (51%) say that ICE agents either always or usually use unnecessary force in their enforcement actions, while 23% say that they rarely or never use force in this way.
Few Americans agree that agents should stop people to question them about their immigration status based only on their ethnicities or the languages they speak. Just 26% strongly or somewhat agree with this, compared to 57% who say that they strongly or somewhat disagree.
Finally, Americans were asked about the use of arrest quotas for immigration enforcement. Six in ten Americans report that they either strongly or somewhat disagree that arrest quotas should be used for immigration enforcement. Very few people (18%) say that they agree with the use of quotas.
These data are taken from a States United survey based on 1,570 interviews conducted on the internet of U.S. adults. Participants were drawn from YouGov’s online panel and were interviewed from Feb. 11 to 19, 2026. Respondents were selected to be representative of American adults. Responses were additionally weighted to match population characteristics with respect to gender, age, race/ethnicity, education of registered voters, and U.S. Census region based on voter registration lists, the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, as well as 2022 midterm turnout and 2020 and 2024 Presidential vote. The margin of error for this survey is approximately ± 2.7 percentage points, though it is larger for the analysis of partisan subgroups described above. Therefore, sample estimates should differ from their expected value by less than the margin of error in 95% of all samples. This figure does not reflect non-sampling errors, including potential selection bias in panel participation or measurement error.
In keeping with best research practices, we classify independent voters who reported “leaning” toward either the Democratic or Republican parties as partisans. Therefore, we define “independents” as those respondents who professed no partisan attachments whatsoever.