DHS Says Border Apprehensions Fell 95%, but Polls Show Voters Disapprove of Trump's Deportation Push

Two years ago, immigration was Donald Trump's strongest card. Heading into the midterms, it is a split verdict.

The border numbers favor the administration. Interior enforcement is where the polling has turned.

The border numbers

DHS data show Border Patrol recorded fewer than 99,000 southwest border apprehensions in fiscal year 2026. That is a 95% drop from the annual average of more than 1.8 million under former President Joe Biden. DHS data also show it was the first fiscal year with zero Border Patrol releases.

Republican strategist Mehek Cooke argues the results prove the crisis was a matter of policy choices, not missing legal authority. Trump, she writes, used existing law from day one and restored consequences for illegal entry.

A new Fox News Poll gives Republicans some support. Voters trust the GOP over Democrats by 10 points on crime, 8 points on border security and 3 points on immigration. The same poll found 72% of voters say one reason for their congressional vote is to express support or opposition to Trump.

Democrats still lead the generic ballot, according to Cooke. Since Sept. 1, Democrats have spent more than $163 million on TV ads mentioning Trump.

The enforcement push at home

The campaign inside the country is a different story. ICE arrested almost 51,000 people in the country illegally in August, DHS says, up from 49,000 in July and 43,000 in June.

The Migration Policy Institute estimates about 660,000 people were deported in the past fiscal year. That is short of the administration's goal of 1 million a year.

A separate ICE report puts ICE removals at roughly 421,182 between October 2025 and Aug. 24, 2026. The two figures measure different things and cover different periods, so they should not be treated as a contradiction.

DHS also told The Daily Wire that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has moved to revoke or terminate the status of roughly 2.2 million people since Inauguration Day. The Daily Wire reported it is not clear all of them actually lost status. That number covers actions taken, not people removed.

The actions include efforts to end Temporary Protected Status for more than one million people from 13 countries. Some of those terminations are held up in litigation. USCIS also ended automatic extensions of work permits and terminated parole programs, including one that let roughly 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans fly in.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said the numbers "reflect the scale of that commitment" to enforcing immigration law. "Securing our border was only the beginning," he said.

The White House says it has also revoked more than 300,000 visas.

Where voters turned

The Associated Press reports that polling shows voters disapprove of Trump's approach to immigration, even as he keeps some support on the border itself. The AP described a deportation campaign marked by violent and even deadly clashes on American streets, with Minneapolis as the turning point.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, put it this way: "The American people supported strong border security. What they got instead was shredding the Constitution, mass deportations and killing American citizens on the streets of Minneapolis." Those are his characterizations of events, not findings by a court.

Trump's allies offer a different explanation. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, says Trump is a victim of his own success. Illegal crossings fell so far, he said, that the visible problem faded, and that is "often politically bad." Krikorian praised the low-profile sweeps that produced month after month of record arrests.

Both things can be true at once. Voters can credit a secure border and still object to how interior enforcement is carried out. The Fox poll's narrow 3-point GOP edge on immigration, compared with 8 points on border security, fits that picture.

Other pressures on the ballot

Immigration is not the only issue on voters' minds. Reporter Jacki Thrapp of The Epoch Times interviewed scores of voters across nine swing states from June through October. Early in the primaries, concerns centered on AI and data centers. By October, voters were talking about high prices, the war in Iran that began Feb. 28, and immigration.

Gas prices rose after the war began. Democratic voters told her they were angry about it. Republican Kristine Cupp, at a county party dinner in Ohio, said she would accept high gas prices if it contains Iran: "Do you want a country that's free, or do you want gas and we make sure it's cheap?"

Trump is also still running against Biden's record. At a recent Florida rally he said Democrats let migrants "pour across our borders from all over the world," and warned, "If they win in the midterms, they'll do it again."

What happens next

Whether voters reward the border results or punish the interior campaign will be one of the first tests of the administration's strategy.

The courts will decide another part of it. Some of the TPS terminations covering more than a million people are held up in litigation, and it is not clear how many of the 2.2 million status actions have actually taken effect.