President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration hasn’t hurt his approval among U.S. Hispanics – in fact, it’s surging despite his historic success in securing the southwest border.
“Donald Trump's Approval Rating Skyrockets With Hispanics,” Newsweek reported Tuesday, citing two new polls showing that six in ten Hispanics now approve of Trump’s job performance.
In one survey of Hispanic likely voters, Trump’s approval has surged 22 points, from 38% in April to 60% in May. Likewise, a Civiqs/Daily Kos poll finds that Trump's approval rating among Hispanic registered voters has spiked 15 points, from 42% to 57%, over this same time.
Meanwhile, on May 12, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) reported that the number of apprehensions of illegal aliens has plummeted 93%:
“The breakdown in April 2025 shows Border Patrol recorded 8,383 apprehensions along the southwest border, with 906 classified as at large — a 93% drop from the 128,895 apprehensions recorded in April 2024. That averages out to 279 apprehensions per day, including 30 at large, which is a dramatic decrease from 4,297 per day just a year ago.”
Acting CBP Commissioner Pete Flores credited the Trump Administration for prioritizing border security:
“For the first time in years, more agents are back in the field—patrolling territories that CBP didn’t have the bandwidth or manpower to oversee just six months ago.
“But thanks to this administration’s dramatic shift in security posture at our border, we are now seeing operational control becoming a reality – and it’s only just beginning.”
In “Some progressives blame Latinos for Trump win, rather than Democrats' shortcomings,” Florida’s WLRN cites similar levels of support for the president in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods – and examines some of the causes:
“A new poll released late last month by the the nonprofit UnidosUS, a large Democratic-leaning Latino advocacy group, found that nearly half of Latino voters feel the Democratic party doesn’t care about them and is even hostile towards the Latino community.”
Another factor is that Democrats’ branding is alienating Hispanics, because their messages, terms and symbols “trigger political trauma for many Latino immigrants,” WLRN notes.
While prominent Democrats like Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY) proudly proclaim themselves to be “Democratic Socialists,” that term “triggers the trauma of having to flee socialism in their home countries,” the article explains.
Similarly, the term "progressive" embraced by Democrats also has negative connotations, as the Spanish word “progresista” is associated with “extreme left-wing rule that drove many Latin American countries into ruins.”
Pres. Trump’s work to keep criminal illegal aliens out of the U.S. also resonates strongly with security-conscious Hispanics, WLRN explains:
“Many Latinos fled violence and unrest in their homelands and don’t want to see it brought here. When Trump says he’ll deport criminals, that’s a positive sign for Latinos who saw their countries become crime-ridden. In Gamarra’s 2024 poll, almost 21% of Florida Latinos said border security and illegal immigration were the main threat to national security.”