A fun leftover from yesterday deserves a little more analysis than just the lead entry in last night’s Final Word. Besides, the Adventures of Manbun McSoyboy probably eclipsed the real story related by Harry Enten in the latest polling on illegal immigration and the impact that Trump has had on the electorate.
How do we know this is a big deal? Mainly because CNN itself hasn’t bothered to report on these results other than in this one segment yesterday morning. Enten steps through the numbers that show an astounding forty point flip on immigration policy in the one demo that Democrats believe they’re courting with their open-borders activism — actual legal immigrants. Five years ago, polls showed that legal immigrants who have received citizenship status favored Democrats on immigration policy by 32 points.
That was then. This is now:
HOLY COW — LEGAL immigrant voters have swung harder to the RIGHT than any other demographic since 2020! 🚨
🔥The REPUBLICAN party is now the party of LEGAL immigration.
🚫The DEMOCRATIC party is officially the party of ILLEGAL immigration.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 11, 2025
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, let — let’s just sort of start off on the fact that immigrant citizens, immigrant voters, foreign-born voters, have gone tremendously to the right on this issue in 2024 and 2025 versus where they were in 2020. Closest to or trust more on immigration. You go back to 2020. Democrats, get this, held a 32-point lead on this issue. Immigrant voters were in the Democratic camp. Jump forward to 2024, 2025. Look at that shift. A 40-point shift to the right among immigrant voters. Republicans now lead on this issue by eight points over Democrats, more so than any other group that I could find. The group of voters who became more hawkish on immigration were, in fact, immigrants themselves, immigrants who are registered to vote in this country.
[KATE] BOLDUAN: So, that’s on that issue. How about how they feel about kind of traditionally, historically about Donald Trump?
ENTEN: Yes. So, you know, you see this shift and you go, what is going on underneath the hood? Well, take a look. Donald Trump, you remember when he first ran back in 2016, immigrant voters were one of his weakest spots. But look at this, Trump’s vote share in presidential elections among immigrant citizens, those who are registered to vote, look at this, 2016, he got 36 percent of the vote. You go to 2020, 39 percent of the vote. Look at this, in 2024, all the way up to 47 percent of the vote. Some polls I looked at had him barely losing that vote. Some polls I looked at had him barely winning that vote. Again, there is no bloc of voters that shifted more to the right from 2020 to 2024 than immigrant voters. And Donald Trump, at least in some surveys, actually won that vote. On average, it’s about equal.
So, there may be all this stuff, right, about undocumented immigrants and Trump being harsh on them, but immigrant voters themselves have increasingly liked Donald Trump and have increasingly moved to the right on immigration and into the Republican camp.
Indeed. For context, let’s remember that by 2020, the border was almost entirely under control and the flood of illegals had pretty much ended. The sense of crisis at that moment was the pandemic, which had contributed in an odd way to border security through the use of Title 42 to bypass some asylum procedures. The focus on immigration policies at that time largely lined up in Democrats’ favor, with the media stoking concerns about “Dreamers” (remember them?) and sob stories of family separations and asylum seekers’ difficulties.
Five years later, the context has radically shifted in a way that Democrats still fail to appreciate. The open-borders policies put in place by the Biden Regency for four years — and the flood of dangerous organized crime networks from Central and South America — has completely changed the game. Voters across the board wanted action to put an end to the Biden border crisis, which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris spent four years denying existed at all. The result of that dereliction of duty and gaslighting can be seen across many polls and surveys, most notably the Harvard-Harris CAPS polls each month. Immigration enforcement and deportations are an 80/20 or 70/30 issue among the entire electorate.
With that in mind, why wouldn’t those who immigrated to the US through legal channels resent those who arrogantly barged into their country? Katie Pavlich made that point earlier today:
The media may be forced to finally distinguish between legal and illegal immigration after purposefully conflating the two for decades. Long overdue. pic.twitter.com/LsD93Z2cWI
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) June 11, 2025
Enten speaks to that issue as well:
BOLDUAN: Well, then on that — what you’re getting at, how — how — how immigrant citizens, voters, feel about people in the country illegally.
ENTEN: Yes. And this is where it all kind of comes together Kate Bolduan. Look at this, the net favorable rating, immigrants who are here illegally, among immigrant citizens, again, those registered to vote. In 2020, look at this, plus 23 points on the net favorable rating. But look at where we were in 2024, minus six points. Underwater. So, immigrant citizens have become increasingly unfavorable in their views of those immigrants who are here illegally. So, I think it’s so important when we’re talking about this debate from a political angle to separate those out who are undocumented immigrants versus those who are here legally and those who are citizens and those who are voters, because that group of voters has felt increasingly distant from those immigrants who are here legally.
And so, again, when we’re talking about this, at least from a political angle, this is why Donald Trump feels so comfortable, because, in fact, amongst the group that you would think that would be most opposed to this, in fact, they become increasingly favorable, not just towards — just towards Donald Trump, but towards the Republican point of view on immigration and becoming distant from those immigrants who are here illegally.
Why? Legal immigrants came to the US and became citizens because they are proud to be American and love this country. Illegal aliens, especially those now seen in the Los Angeles riots and elsewhere, are burning American flags and raising the Mexican flag as symbols of their loyalty. And other flags, for that matter:
At the “immigration” protest we have a Soviet flag, Mexican flags, Palestinian flags, keffiyehs and the burning of US flags. This has nothing to do with ICE. This is about the “revolution” and the “resistance.” It’s always the same playbook. #LARiots #ICEProtests… pic.twitter.com/hn3vKpn9c3
— Kevin Briggins (@KJBrigg) June 9, 2025
I’m totally fine with peaceful protests. I also understand that such protests sometimes get violent, either because emotions get out of hand or agitators infiltrate the peaceful crowd. What I don’t understand is waving of the Mexican flag to protest illegal deportations. pic.twitter.com/aSVqj7k14m
— [email protected] (@BehroozParhami) June 10, 2025
All waving Mexican flags on US sovereign territory to protest being sent back to Mexico. Not a single American flag to be seen. Yet, it’s not an invasion though.🤔🤔pic.twitter.com/1dzcYJpGhl
— Joel: יוסף פנחס (@Blueeyedbull56) June 8, 2025
Legal immigrants who vote didn’t endure the process of entering the country legally, working hard for five years, and then getting naturalized to shout “Viva La Raza” and hoist Mexican flags in American territory. They came here to be Americans and be loyal to the USA. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that naturalized-citizen voters would flip 40 points in this atmosphere, or to admire Trump for dealing with the illegal-immigrant crisis that Democrats created. If that surprises Democrats, well … future elections will hold more surprises for them, and you can bet on that.
