Americans show some concern for due process but want criminal aliens removed from our country.

At the Center for Immigration Studies, the invaluable Andrew (“Art”) Arthur crunches polling numbers that show President Trump getting high marks on immigration enforcement (along with what seem to be disappointing marks on other issues of concern to voters, particularly the economy in general and prices in particular). The polling was conducted for Harvard University’s Center for America Political Studies by Harris Poll and Harris X.

Immigration rates high among the public’s concerns — not as high as rising prices, but right up there with restoring “basic American values” and well ahead of taxes, the national debt, and the war in Israel.

Art writes:

When voters were asked to name the biggest and second-biggest achievements of Trump’s first 100 days, immigration-related issues came out on top, and it wasn’t even close: 31 percent praised the president for “stopping illegal immigration across the border” (including 29 percent of Independents); and 22 percent lauded him for “deporting criminals” (for which Trump received kudos from 21 percent of the politically unaligned). Do the math and you will see that half of respondents named either border security or criminal alien removals as Trump’s biggest successes[.] . . .

Furthermore:

Harris asked respondents whether they supported or opposed specific policies, and two immigration proposals scored big: 78 percent of voters liked the idea of “deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes” (22 percent disapproved); and 70 percent favored “closing the border with added security and policies that discourage illegal crossings” (30 percent disapproved).

Aside from “lowering prescription drug prices for Medicare recipients and low-income patients” (84 percent liked that idea and 16 percent disapproved), no other single issue was viewed more favorably by voters in the Harvard/Harris poll than deporting criminal illegal aliens.

In that vein, 75 percent of those polled supported the administration’s “efforts to deport criminals who are here illegally” (including 56 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of Independents) and 63 percent approved of Trump’s “actions to close the southern border” (including 61 percent of Independents but just 39 percent of Democrats).

This strongly suggests that the administration will continue to prioritize the deportation of aliens with criminal records even if some of its methods press legal boundaries, and likely sees its vilifying of judges as playing well politically. I wouldn’t be overconfident about that. The judiciary does not like being a punching bag, and the administration is not positioning itself for success in some big cases it hopes to win. And as Art points out, there are other warning signs:

Some 15 percent of voters and Independents (and 7 percent of Republicans) said “deporting people without due process” is the biggest “failure or mistake” of the president’s second term. Moreover, 53 percent of voters told Harvard/Harris that “the administration is unfairly deporting people who are not really criminals” (47 percent said Trump is only focused on criminal aliens), and 57 percent support Democratic moves “to stop deportations and ensure that people who are being deported have hearings and trials before being deported” (including 35 percent of GOP voters)[.]

Read the whole thing (linked above). Art focuses on immigration but includes other interesting polling results for our polarizing president, whose 47 percent approval rating in the new survey was nosed out by his 48 percent disapproval rating, just over four months into the second Trump administration.