Fresh off the wire: A Reuters/Ipsos poll drops a bombshell on the Democratic Party's immigration house of cards. Over 1,000 American adults weighed in, and the verdict? Just 22% trust Dems with a "better plan" on borders, dwarfed by 40% backing Republicans. On crime? A dismal 20% for Dems versus 40% GOP. It's a double whammy, with a ±3% margin screaming statistical smackdown. No surprise: Biden's open-floodgates fiasco from 2021-2024 unleashed social chaos; 8.6 million migrant encounters, record naturalisations, and a foreign-born boom to 52 million (15.5% of the population), that turned sanctuary dreams into suburban nightmares. Trump's agenda? 42% approval for ICE mega-expansions and mass deportations, flipping Biden's 26% December 2024 flop on its head. This isn't voter whimsy; it's recoil from a policy that prioritised "equity" over enforcement, breeding crime spikes, housing hell, and cultural clashes.
The Poll's Punch: Dems' Double-Digit Drubbing on Core Crises
Conducted September 20-22, 2025, the Reuters/Ipsos survey isn't some fringe flash poll, it's a national snapshot of 1,000+ adults, laser-focused on "which party has a better plan." Immigration? Republicans lead 40%-22%, an 18-point gap. Crime? 40%-20%, another 20-point rout. Broader issues echo the beatdown: GOP edges on economy (+10), foreign conflicts (+12), even corruption (+6). Dems cling to edges on environment (+14), women's rights (+13), and healthcare (+9), but the visceral stuff, streets, borders, safety, tilts hard Right.
This aligns with Reuters' September 23 update: Trump's overall approval holds at 42%, buoyed by 42% thumbs-up on immigration, his top issue score, steady from early September. Contrast: Biden's endgame? A measly 26% approved his "open borders" push in December 2024, per contemporaneous polls, amid 8 million+ illegal entries. Trump's deportation blueprint, ramping ICE to snag millions, hits 42% approval, per the same Ipsos data. Why the flip? Voters aren't abstract; they're visceral. Post-Biden, 71% of Americans in a 2024 Gallup poll called immigration a "crisis," up from 55% in 2020. X erupted: "Dems own the chaos, GOP owns the fix," one viral thread (50k likes) thundered.
Issue | GOP Better Plan (%) | Dem Better Plan (%) | Gap |
Immigration | 40 | 22 | +18 |
Crime | 40 | 20 | +20 |
Economy | 34 | 24 | +10 |
Foreign Conflicts | 36 | 24 | +12 |
Environment | 24 | 38 | -14 |
Biden's Border Bonanza: From "Root Causes" to Root Chaos
It is no shock that these numbers sting; Biden's 2021-2024 tenure was a masterclass in migration mismanagement. Day one: He axed Trump's wall, ended "Remain in Mexico," and halted deportations for 100 days, vowing to tackle "root causes" with $4B to Central America.Effective? No. CBP tallied 8.6 million Southwest encounters (Jan 2021-Oct 2024), including 2.5 million releases into the U.S. and 2.8 million removals/expulsions. For 2023? Record 2.5 million encounters; FY2024 nearly 3 million inadmissibles. Gotaways? Over 1.5 million evaded capture.
The fallout? Social seismic shifts. Foreign-born population exploded to 52 million, 15.5% of America, highest ever, produced by 3.5 million naturalisations, the most in any presidential term. Cities buckled: NYC spent $4B+ on 200k migrants; Chicago's tent cities sparked riots. Crime? ICE's non-detained docket hit 650k criminal noncitizens by July 2024, including 13k+ gang members released. Fentanyl? 100k+ overdose deaths yearly, 90% via border routes. Housing? Inflows jacked rents 20% in border states; national fertility dipped to 1.62 (2023), as young families priced out.
X users seethe: "Biden's 'humanity' = our homelessness," one post (20k retweets) linked to LA's 75k homeless surge, tied to shelter strains. Gallup 2024: 55% say immigration worsens crime (up 20 points from 2019). The chaos? Catch-and-release galore, parole programs like CHNV flew in 520k before fraud halts; CBP One app greenlit 1.4M entries. Amnesty whispers? Dems' 2024 platform pushed pathways for 11M illegals, but voters smelled sell-out.
Enter Trump 2.0: 42% approval for his ICE blitz, deploying agents to snag millions, per Reuters/Ipsos. It's no mystery. Biden's 26% cratered amid headlines of Venezuelan gangs in Aurora, CO, and Haitian migrants overwhelming Springfield, OH (schools strained, pets "eaten" rumours viral). Trump's pivot? Mass deportations, wall restarts, "Remain in Mexico" revival. Early 2025 polls: Encounters plunged 60% post-inauguration, gotaways down sharp. Voters nod: 27% prioritise immigration in Trump's first 100 days, per Reuters December 2024.
The contrast? Biden's 605 executive actions (vs. Trump's 472) modernised legal paths, 100k refugees in FY2024, highest since '90s, but border optics owned the narrative. 33% now back legal status for Dreamers (down from 39% in 2017), signalling hardening. X consensus: "Biden broke it, Trump fixes it, 42% says yes."
This poll's no fluke; it's feedback on four years of folly. Biden's "compassionate" chaos, 8M+ entries, crime spikes, cultural clashes, eroded trust, leaving Dems at 22% on immigration. Trump's tough talk? 42% buy-in, a 16-point rebound. Social bedlam bred backlash. As Reuters notes, immigration's slipped from top-three worries, but the scar lingers, voters crave control, not migration swamping.
"A new poll reveals that American adults mostly distrust Democrats on the issue of immigration, suggesting huge opposition to their mass migration agenda.
The poll, conducted for Reuters by Ipsos, asked more than 1,000 American adults "which party has a better plan" on various issues from crime to the environment. The poll was conducted over the weekend and has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points.
Significantly, just 22 percent of Americans said Democrats have a better plan on immigration, while 40 percent said they prefer Republicans on the issue. With crime, only 2 in 10 Americans said they favor Democrats to handle the issue, while 4 in 10 prefer Republicans.
Likewise, 42 percent of Americans approve of President Donald Trump's immigration agenda — which is focused on massively expanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to more swiftly arrest and deport millions of illegal aliens from the United States.
Compare that approval on immigration to former President Joe Biden's: In December 2024, just 26 percent of Americans said they approved of his administration's open borders policies, which oversaw the arrival of more than 8 million illegal aliens to the United States.
The poll reveals a deep distrust among Americans for Democrats' mass migration agenda, where amnesty for illegal aliens, catch and release at the southern border, and rapid naturalizations are at the forefront, while interior immigration enforcement is gutted.
Under Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, for instance, the foreign-born population hit a record 52 million or about 15.5 percent of the nation's total population. In addition, Biden and Harris oversaw a record 3.5 million legal immigrants securing naturalized American citizenship — by far the most of any single presidential term in U.S. history."