Six in 10 Americans oppose deporting migrants who haven’t committed crimes to El Salvador prison

A majority of Americans oppose some of Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration-related actions like deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran mega-prison without due process, according to a new survey. However, they remain supportive of the president’s overall immigration agenda.

Sixty-one percent of respondents told YouGov earlier this week they oppose or strongly oppose the hundreds of deportations to El Salvador, most of which the Trump administration has carried out using the emergency Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law that allows the government to summarily deport non-citizens.

The administration has admitted not only that “many” of the more than 200 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador’s notorious “tropical gulag” this month lack criminal convictions, but that some are not in fact members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang the administration is targeting using the act.

Critics allege further problems with the El Salvador flights, including that individuals who say they have no affiliation with the gang have been targeted largely on the basis of having tattoos with relatively common motifs.

The administration has admitted to accidentally sending a Salvadoran man to the prison as well, despite a court ruling explicitly barring his removal to that country over fears he’d face prosecution from gangs.

In a Maryland federal court filing, the administration argued that now that the individual, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, was in El Salvador, a U.S. court couldn’t compel officials there to release him.

The administration’s deportation flights to El Salvador have alienated some of its vocal supporters, including podcaster Joe Rogan.

“You've gotta get scared that people who are not criminals are getting, like, lassoed up and deported and sent to El Salvador prisons,” Rogan said during an episode that aired over the weekend.

The administration has bristled at such criticisms, and it accused The Independent of “trying to cover” for violent gang members when a reporter asked White House Press Secretary about what basis the administration had for the deportations.

The YouGov poll captured a similar unease over the administration’s attempts to deport non-citizen students and faculty who advocated for Palestinians during widespread campus protests. Among the 1,095 respondents polled, 51 percent opposed the effort.

Overall, though, Americans are in line with the president on immigration.

Majorities or near-majorities said they supported proof of citizenship requirements for voting and using tax data to find undocumented immigrants, while a separate CBS / YouGov poll found 53% of respondents approve of Trump’s handling of immigration.