New poll: Most Californians oppose mass deportations, support due process

Should you discover out that your neighbor has a previous felony conviction, your knee-jerk response is perhaps to need him to maneuver out.

However what if that particular person dedicated a housebreaking in his late teenagers, spent years in state jail, turned his life round and is now mentoring at-risk youth?

Are the main points necessary? Researchers found that that is the case.

A new poll by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research examines California voters’ attitudes towards due course of for immigrants with felony convictions through the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on unauthorized immigration. The survey additionally examined help for a way taxpayer {dollars} are spent and Californians’ views on the matter the state’s sanctuary policy.

It discovered bipartisan help to make sure that immigrants threatened with deportation obtain due course of, together with these with felony data.

“This survey reveals that there are clear issues concerning the present administration’s method to immigration enforcement,” mentioned Sara Knight, analysis director at Goodwin Simon Strategic Analysis. “I’m not stunned by the outcomes, however I’m inspired to see the energy of help for due course of and the rising frustration over the inhumane remedy of individuals in our immigration system.”

President Donald Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations focusing on, amongst different issues, criminals, and he has delivered. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers have arrested greater than 160,608 noncitizens nationwide with felony convictions or pending fees since his inauguration.

The Trump administration has sought to take action expand the use of “expedited removal”,“which permits immigration officers to take away sure noncitizens, resembling these convicted of crimes, from the US and not using a listening to earlier than an immigration choose.

Researchers go on this newest ballot Goodwin Simon Strategic Researchlaunched to CalMatters this week additionally displays declining help, even amongst a slim majority of Republicans, for the strictest immigration enforcement practices. It discovered that 84% of Democrats, 61% of independents and 54% of Republicans agreed that “even when somebody has a felony file, they deserve a good trial and the chance to have their case heard by a choose earlier than they’re deported.”

The ballot was commissioned by the Immigrant Authorized Useful resource Heart and the Nationwide Day Laborer Organizing Community, each pro-immigrant organizations. Goodwin Simon Strategic Analysis describes itself on its web site as a “independent opinion research agency.Researchers wrote the survey questions and surveyed greater than 1,200 self-identified voters. Knight mentioned the partisan divide amongst respondents mirrored divisions over the social gathering and the citizens. The margin of error was 3 factors.

Another current polls echo related conclusions launched in current weeks, together with one launched final week by UC Berkeley’s Chance Lab that discovered a 3rd of Latino voters supported Trump now regret their choice. One other ballot by the neutral analysis agency Public Policy Institute of California discovered that 71% of Californians surveyed mentioned they disapproved of ICE’s work. And, one CNN exit poll after the Proposition 50 redistricting election on Nov. 4, it discovered that about three-quarters of California voters mentioned they have been dissatisfied or indignant with the way in which issues have been going within the U.S., and 6 in 10 mentioned the Trump administration’s actions on immigration enforcement have gone too far.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary on the Division of Homeland Safety, pointed to different current nationwide polls to argue that the general public helps Trump’s immigration insurance policies.

“President Trump and Secretary of Homeland Safety (Kristi) Noem are delivering on the American folks’s mandate to deport unlawful aliens, and the most recent polls present that help for the America First agenda has not wavered – together with a New York Times Survey that almost 8 in 10 People help the deportation of unlawful aliens with felony data,” McLaughlin mentioned in a written assertion.

“The American folks, the legislation, and customary sense are on our facet, and we won’t cease till legislation and order are restored after Biden’s open border chaos flooded our nation with the worst felony unlawful aliens,” she continued.

From jail to ICE

Within the newer Goodwin Simon Strategic Analysis ballot, 61% of voters surveyed mentioned they need California’s jail system to cease handing immigrants immediately over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for deportation.

State legislation doesn’t apply to immigrants convicted of great crimes. State prisons have been turned over to ICE Greater than 9,500 folks have a felony file since Governor Gavin Newsom took workplace in 2019, in accordance with information launched to CalMatters. Thus far in 2025, ICE has picked up 1,217 detainees immediately from the California Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the info reveals.

The corrections division additionally gives ICE with data that helps the company find, arrest and deport people who find themselves not transferred immediately. CalMatters has collected and reviewed greater than 27,000 pages of emails between state jail officers and ICE. The emails present that jail officers frequently talk with ICE about people in state custody, together with U.S. residents. They typically share private details about their households, guests and telephone calls. Usually these relations don’t have any felony file and are U.S. residents

Nieuwsom, US Senator ALex Padillaand Chairman Robert Rivas have all denounced ICE’s broader deportation efforts. However all three have additionally expressed some help for federal immigration officers eradicating noncitizens with prior violent crime convictions from the group.

The governor has mentioned he’ll veto laws geared toward limiting the state jail system’s capacity to coordinate with federal immigration authorities to deport criminals.

‘Perhaps we’re deporting the fallacious folks’

Researchers at Goodwin Simon discovered that voters’ opinions change once they study extra particulars concerning the private circumstances of a noncitizen with a previous felony conviction, even for violent crimes. Pollsters gave voters two tales.

One was a few man who was dropped at the US from Mexico as a baby. When he was in his early twenties, he acquired right into a combat and somebody was injured. The person was sentenced to seven years in jail, the place he turned his life round by attending faculty and serving to different inmates earn their highschool diplomas. When he acquired out of jail, he was deported to Mexico earlier than an immigration choose might rule on his case.

The opposite story was about an individual intently related to a person whose household fled the genocide in Cambodia as a child. Within the US, the person was the lookout for a theft as a teen and served 30 years in state jail. After his launch, jail officers turned him over to ICE.

“Perhaps we’re deporting the fallacious folks. Despite the fact that this final particular person dedicated against the law, he served his time and is now a beneficial member of society, so it will be tough to say for sure whether or not anybody who has ever dedicated against the law deserves to be despatched again. That is why due course of is necessary,” one Republican voter from Sacramento responded to the ballot. She shifted her views from the view that individuals with prior felony convictions needs to be robotically deported to favoring a choose who critiques every particular person case after listening to the tales.

After voters rated each the professional and anti messages and the 2 tales, help amongst Democrats for having particular person circumstances reviewed by an immigration choose earlier than deportation rose from 84% to 90%; from 61% to 74% amongst independents, however fell from 54% to 51% amongst Republicans. Central Coast voters and Republican girls voters elevated help for due course of by 9 factors after listening to the tales.