Polling Data Confirms the Left’s Three-Word Answer on ICE Operations. It’s Devestating.

At midnight on Friday, Democrats voted to partially shut down the government for a third time since October. Their basis for doing so? An illusory feeling that they have the upper hand in this ICE battle. They don’t.

According to recent polling from UpOne Insights, conducted nationally among 1,000 registered voters from February 7-11, 2026, a staggering 82% of Americans say it’s important for the U.S. to enforce immigration laws. This includes overwhelming majorities across party lines: Republicans (99%), independent voters (80%), and even Democrats (66%). Yet Democrats shut down the government anyway.

Minnesota has been engulfed in leftist mayhem as thousands of ICE agents traversed the streets looking for criminal illegal migrants that state and city jurisdictions refused to release to federal immigration officials. Following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti last month, what looked to be a repeat of 2020 ensued: Protestors went nuts. Border czar Tom Homan was brought in to take over deportation operations. Still, with the death of Pretti and Good, Democrats already smelled blood in the water, using it as a pretext to dig their heels in on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, with some on the progressive Left calling for a defunding of ICE and calls for the impeachment of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

Democrats, under the impression they have public support on deportation and enforcement, felt empowered enough to shut down the government partially, despite the negative ramifications for military families, Coast Guard personnel, FEMA workers, TSA agents, and disaster response capabilities.

Those who follow government funding intricacies understand that ICE was already funded $75 billion through the One Big Beautiful Bill. This shutdown is simply theatrics. It doesn’t stop ICE operations. It doesn’t stop border enforcement. It just hurts Americans doing other essential work.

Unfortunately for Democrats, these reckless decisions will be the reason they may have won the Minnesota battle, but lose the Immigration War.

The data gets worse for Democrats from there.

Fully 76% of Americans support deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have a criminal record. This isn’t some fringe position. Voters in presidential battleground states (74%), key U.S. Senate race states (75%), and states with competitive gubernatorial contests in 2026 (76%) all show similar levels of support.

When it comes to violent criminal records specifically, support for deportation jumps to 92% among all American voters.

Let that sink in. 92%. In such divided times as this, these numbers are astounding.

Yet here we have Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s Attorney General, testifying before Congress and saying it “depends” whether someone who enters the country illegally should be deported. When Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) pressed him on this, asking if someone who breaks into Ellison’s home should be arrested, Ellison had the audacity to claim “it’s an entirely different scenario” because “immigration is essentially a civil” matter.

This is the same Keith Ellison who has encouraged protestors to obstruct ICE operations, who has implemented policies that prevent state cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, and who has turned Minnesota into what many call a sanctuary state for criminal illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continues to fundraise off calls to “Abolish ICE” — a position that polling shows would make 49% of Americans less likely to vote for a candidate. This sentiment is especially strong among likely swing voters in the upcoming November midterm elections.

But perhaps the most revealing moment came from a video interaction between an ICE agent and a protester: When confronted by this leftist, the ICE agent said, “If you cared, you would care about the child who got raped and the person who got murdered by the guy we’re looking for.”

The protestor’s response?

“I don’t care.”

Those three words, “I don’t care”, sum up the progressive left’s position perfectly. They don’t care about the victims of illegal immigrant crime. They don’t care that 81% of voters believe entering the country without legal permission violates American law. They don’t care that 67% of Americans—including Republicans (95%), independent voters (65%), Senior Citizens (80%), men (74%), women (60%), and Hispanic voters (70%)—view illegal immigration as a “serious problem.”

They care about political theater. They care about their progressive bona fides. They care about virtue signaling to their base.

What they don’t care about is what Americans actually want.

The polling data is devastating. Learning that a candidate wanted to abolish ICE would make a significant number of Americans less likely to vote for that candidate — 49% less likely, to be exact. Again, this is especially pronounced among swing audiences in November’s midterm elections.

Yet Democrats chose to shut down the Department of Homeland Security anyway. They chose to hold hostage funding for FEMA, the Coast Guard, and TSA. They chose to demand “reforms” to ICE that amount to hamstringing the agency’s ability to do its job: requiring warrants for enforcement operations, banning masks for agent safety, prohibiting operations near schools and churches where criminal aliens often hide.

All while ICE already has $75 billion in funding to keep operations going regardless of this shutdown.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stood before cameras and declared that Democrats would block funding until they got “serious guardrails” and could “rein in ICE” and “stop the violence.” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) echoed these sentiments, calling the White House’s offers “incomplete and insufficient.”

The sheer political malpractice is truly something.

They’re fighting a battle they’ve already lost, according to polls. They’re taking maximalist positions that alienate not just Republicans and independents, but significant portions of their own party. Two-thirds of Democrats believe immigration laws should be enforced. Two-thirds.

The Minnesota situation, tragic as it was, does not reflect what most Americans think about immigration enforcement. What it reflects is the predictable outcome when sanctuary jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with federal authorities, forcing dangerous street confrontations that could have been avoided through simple cooperation and communication.

But Democrats salivated at the opportunity. They saw images of federal agents in Minneapolis. They saw protestors in the streets. They saw comparisons to 2020. And they convinced themselves that public opinion had turned against deportations and enforcement.

That appears to be catastrophically wrong.

The polling data shows Americans want immigration laws enforced. They want criminal illegal immigrants deported. They want ICE to do its job. They don’t want the agency abolished. They don’t want it defunded. They want it empowered to remove violent criminals from American communities.

This shutdown isn’t going to change ICE operations, but it could change how Americans view Democrats heading into November. It will remind voters that when given a choice between protecting American citizens and protecting the feelings of illegal immigrants with criminal records, Democrats chose the latter.

It will remind voters of protestors saying “I don’t care” when confronted with victims of illegal immigrant sex crimes.

Most importantly, it will remind voters that Democrats are wildly out of touch with what Americans actually want on immigration.

Democrats thought Minnesota would be their George Floyd moment on immigration. A turning point that would swing public opinion against enforcement and toward their open-borders vision. Instead, it’s becoming their political Waterloo. They overplayed their hand and misread the room. And now they’re headed into midterm elections having forced a government shutdown to protect… what, exactly, given the poll data above.

The enforcement operations and deportations will continue. The only thing this shutdown accomplishes is reminding Americans which party cares more about illegal immigrants than American citizens.

They’re losing the war. And they might discover just how badly they miscalculated come November.

Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Townhall’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.

Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.