How Americans See Immigration Officers’ Behaviors and Civilian Actions

By Andrew DanillerandJ. Baxter Oliphant

How Americans See Immigration Officers’ Behaviors and Civilian Actions

Published January 29, 2026

---

Amid ramped-up immigration enforcement efforts around the country, Americans overwhelmingly say it is acceptable for ordinary people to record video of immigration arrests. A clear majority also say it’s acceptable for people to share information about where enforcement is happening.

And by wide margins, the public says it’s not acceptable for federal immigration officers to wear face coverings that hide their identities, or to use people’s appearance or language use as a reason for checking their immigration status. 

A new Pew Research Center survey of 8,512 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 20-26 finds that:

• 74% say it is acceptable for people to record video of immigration officers while they make arrests.
• 59% say it’s acceptable to share information about where officers are making arrests

When it comes to the actions of federal immigration officers:

• 72% of Americans say it’s unacceptable for them to use people’s appearance or the language they speak as a reason to check their immigration status.
• 61% say it is unacceptable for officers to wear face coverings that hide their identities while working.

Americans are more divided when it comes to officers arresting U.S. citizens who help others avoid immigration enforcement: 44% say this is acceptable, while 54% say it is unacceptable. Similarly, 44% say it is acceptable for immigration officers to increase their presence in neighborhoods with many immigrants, while 54% say this is unacceptable.

Note: The survey was in the field on Jan. 24, when 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot and killed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis – the second killing of a protestor by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis this month.

Partisans’ views of actions by ordinary people

Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats say it is acceptable for people to record video of immigration officers while they make arrests. However, Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (89%) are substantially more likely to say this than Republicans and Republican leaners (59%).

The partisan gap is wider when it comes to sharing information about where immigration officers are making arrests. Eight-in-ten Democrats say this is acceptable, compared with 36% of Republicans. A majority of Republicans (63%) say this is unacceptable.

By contrast, Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say it is acceptable for ordinary people to report those they think may be in the country illegally: 77% of Republicans say this is acceptable, compared with just 27% of Democrats.

Within each party, there are notable differences by racial and ethnic background.

Among Democrats

• About two-thirds of Black Democrats (68%) say it is acceptable to share officers’ locations. Larger shares of White (84%), Asian (81%) and Hispanic (79%) Democrats say the same.
• Hispanic Democrats are less likely than other Democrats to say it is acceptable to report people they suspect of being in the country illegally. Just 16% hold this view.

Among Republicans

• Hispanic Republicans are more likely than White Republicans to say it is acceptable to record video of immigration officers (67% vs. 56%) or share the location of immigration officers (47% vs. 32%).
• Conversely, White Republicans are more likely than Hispanic Republicans to say it is acceptable to report those they suspect of being in the country illegally (82% vs. 62%).

There are also age differences among Republicans:

• 66% of Republicans ages 18 to 49 say it’s acceptable to record video of immigration officers. This drops to 52% among Republicans ages 50 and older.
• 48% of Republicans ages 18 to 49 say it’s acceptable to share officers’ locations, compared with just 25% of those ages 50 and older.

Full breakdowns by party, age, and race and ethnicity are shown in the detailed tables.

How Democrats and Republicans view the actions of immigration officers

Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to approve of actions that federal immigration officers might take.

Large majorities of Republicans say it is acceptable for immigration officers to:

• Arrest U.S. citizens who help others avoid arrest (76%)
• Increase their presence in neighborhoods with many immigrants (74%)
• Wear face coverings that hide their identities while working (68%)

Overwhelming majorities of Democrats say each of these actions is unacceptable.

When it comes to using a person’s looks or the language they speak as a reason to check their immigration status, Republicans are divided: 48% say this is acceptable, while 51% say it is unacceptable. Roughly nine-in-ten Democrats (91%) say this is unacceptable.

Similar to the patterns in how people interact with immigration officers, White Republicans are at least 13 percentage points more likely than Hispanic Republicans to view each of these actions by officers as acceptable.

Note: While responses to the items in the survey were largely consistent across the Jan. 20-26 field period, Republicans who completed the survey in the days after Pretti was killed were somewhat more likely than those who responded earlier to say recording immigration officers and sharing their locations are acceptable. They were also somewhat less likely than those who responded earlier to view immigration officers wearing face coverings and using a person’s looks or the language they speak as a reason to check their immigration status as acceptable. Refer to the appendix for details.

President Donald Trump has moved to make sweeping changes to the U.S. immigration system, but public views of his policies and proposals in this area vary.

Several of the administration’s most restrictive policies face substantial opposition from the public, while others receive widespread support.

According to a new Pew Research Center survey of 8,512 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 20-26, 2026, a majority of Americans favor:

• Maintaining a large military presence at the U.S.-Mexico border (62%)
• Requiring people who want to enter the U.S. to let immigration officers review their social media accounts (56%)

But the survey also finds that most Americans oppose:

• Giving immigration priority to people if they pay a $1 million fee (79% oppose, including 60% who strongly oppose)
• Suspending all applications for asylum (66% oppose)
• Keeping large numbers of immigrants in detention centers while their cases are decided (64%)
• Pausing immigration visa applications from people in 75 countries (60%)

How Republicans and Democrats view these policies

There are wide partisan gaps on many immigration proposals and actions from the Trump administration. But majorities of both Republicans and Democrats oppose giving people priority status in the immigration process for a $1 million fee.

Republican support for the immigration actions we asked about varies –  but majorities support most of them.

Large majorities of Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party favor a strong military presence on the border with Mexico (89%) and requiring people wanting to enter the U.S. to let immigration officers review their social media accounts (79%).

Republicans are about evenly split over suspending asylum applications (51% favor, 47% oppose).

By about two-to-one, Republicans oppose giving people priority in the immigration process if they pay a $1 million fee: 67% oppose, while 32% favor this.

Most Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents oppose each of these actions, though to different degrees.

A third or more support maintaining a large military presence on the border with Mexico (37%) and requiring people who want to come to the U.S. to make their social media accessible to immigration officers (36%). The other actions are supported by fewer than 20% of Democrats.

Appendix: Did attitudes shift after Alex Pretti was killed?

Pew Research Center surveyed 8,512 adults from Jan. 20 to 26, 2026 about Americans’ views of immigration. Read findings on immigration officers’ actions and the public’s response to immigration enforcement.

This survey was in the field on January 24, the day Alex Pretti was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. While the vast majority of interviews were completed prior to the shooting, 12% of respondents completed their interviews January 24-26.

We examined whether Americans’ views on questions about the acceptability of behaviors by immigration officers and ordinary civilians differed after Pretti was killed.

The results suggest that while attitudes were relatively consistent before and after the event, there were modest changes, primarily among Republicans and Republican leaners.

Of course, those who take our surveys earlier and later in the field period aren’t necessarily identical. For example, we know that some harder to reach groups tend to take surveys later in the field period.

To test this, the best way to understand the relationship between two variables while controlling for other factors is often through the statistical method of regression analysis. To do this we limited our sample to Republicans and Republican leaners, as Democrats’ attitudes showed no evidence of systematic change. We then regressed each of our seven survey items on a dummy variable indicating when each respondent took the survey, as well as a mix of political and demographic control variables such as strength of partisanship, age, education, and race or ethnicity, using ordinary least squares regression.

The results of the regression analysis show that while some of the difference between early and late survey respondents on our questions about the actions of ordinary people and the actions of immigration officers can be explained by other differences between these groups besides the date on which they took the survey, some of the differences between early and late respondents remain statistically significant even after controlling for the other variables included in our model.

Republicans’ views on two survey questions in particular appear to be influenced by whether they took the survey before or after Alex Pretti was killed: The acceptability of immigration officers wearing face coverings that hide their identities and the acceptability of immigration officers using a person’s looks or the language they speak as a reason to check their immigration status. However, the size of these differences is relatively modest.

The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Overview

Data in this report comes from Wave 185 of the American Trends Panel (ATP), Pew Research Center’s nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults. The survey was conducted from  Jan. 20 to Jan. 26, 2026. A total of 8,512 panelists responded out of 9,302 who were sampled, for a survey-level response rate of 92%.  

The cumulative response rate accounting for all stages of nonresponse and attrition is 3%. The break-off rate among panelists who logged on to the survey and completed at least one item is 2%. The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 8,512 respondents is plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.

The survey includes oversamples of non-Hispanic Asian adults and adults ages 18-to-29 in order to provide more precise estimates of the opinions and experiences of these smaller demographic subgroups. These oversampled groups are weighted back to reflect their correct proportions in the population.

SSRS conducted the survey for Pew Research Center via online (n=8,272) and live telephone (n=240) interviewing. Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish.

To learn more about the ATP, read “About the American Trends Panel.”