Most Americans say ICE has ‘gone too far’ in new poll
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Ashley Lopez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.
This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.
Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for NPR comes from NPR member stations and Eric and Wendy Schmidt through the Schmidt Family Foundation, working toward a healthy, resilient, secure world for all. On the web at theshmit.org. |
| 0:18.2 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Thursday, February. February. It's the hardest word of the year. |
| 0:26.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast for Thursday, February 5th, 2026. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. |
| 0:33.3 | I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. |
| 0:37.5 | Today on the show, we have a new NPR PBS News, Marist poll. |
| 0:42.4 | And it finds a significant share of Americans, say ICE. |
| 0:45.9 | Immigration and customs enforcement has gone too far. |
| 0:49.5 | Domenico, after the past month of intense focus on ICE tactics and alarming video out of Minnesota, |
| 0:55.2 | maybe it doesn't come as a total surprise, but help us understand the numbers. |
| 0:59.6 | Yeah, the 65% in this poll who say that ice has gone too far is up 11 points since last summer. |
| 1:05.5 | So a big reason has been everything that we've seen on TV, you know, the two American citizens |
| 1:10.3 | who have been |
| 1:11.0 | killed just in the past few weeks over this. And really the biggest movement has been with |
| 1:16.7 | independents and Democrats by double digits. They've moved to saying that ICE has gone too far. |
| 1:22.0 | We take Republicans out of it. It's just huge numbers. I mean, 93% of Democrats, not surprising, |
| 1:27.2 | right? But also 71% of |
| 1:29.6 | independents who Trump did fairly well with in the 2024 election saying that they think ICE has gone too far. |
| 1:36.8 | Observing independent voters sort of talk about immigration is interesting because by and large, |
| 1:41.8 | I have heard independent voters say, especially swing voters, |
| 1:44.6 | say like closing the border in general is something that they approve up, but it is this |
| 1:49.3 | extra element of ice and the killings we've been seeing and what's been going on in |
| 1:52.4 | Minneapolis that has been obviously the big impetus for this change. I think if, you know, |
... |
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