Politics
Poll: Florida voters back deporting criminals, oppose ousting longtime residents without records
Florida voters are drawing a line on the hot-button and life-altering issue of immigration enforcement: Deport violent offenders, but give longtime residents a chance to stay while prioritizing cost-of-living issues.
New survey figures from D.C.-based Wave Polling and Research show there is broad support for border security alongside resistance to mass deportation and several other immigration-enforcement tactics.
Most Florida voters favor a route to citizenship for immigrants and believe President Donald Trump is focusing too heavily on forcefully ousting immigrants while disregarding economic concerns ahead of the Midterms.
Six in 10 Florida voters believe the mass deportation of immigrant workers is hurting the economy and raising costs for families. The remainder consider it necessary to protect American jobs and enforce the law.
That finding mirrors similar polling Wave conducted nationally, which found 62% of voters see economic harm in the current approach, and its survey of Pennsylvania voters, where the share of detractors is 59%.
About 60% of Florida voters say Trump is focusing too much on deportations and too little on the economy — slightly less than the nearly two-thirds of voters nationally who believe the same.
Nationally, Democrats now lead Republicans as the party most trusted to handle immigration, with Democrats at +2 over Republicans — a major shift from May 2025, when the GOP held a +12 advantage.
It’s the first time in a decade that metric has flipped, according to data journalist and Wave Polling principal G. Elliott Morris, formerly of The Economist and FiveThirtyEight, who noted that the parties are now viewed evenly on deportations — an 11-percentage-point swing.
“The ground has really shifted in terms of the partisan opening on immigration,” he said. “In terms of the why, there’s of course the excess of enforcement (and) the images of that. There’s also an economic angle that voters are really resonating with.”
Republicans have also lost ground nationally in public approval on the issues of crime and public safety, falling 8 points to +2, and border security, a 15-point drop to +7.
Still, a majority of the Sunshine State’s electorate approve of the President’s handling of border security at large. His economic performance drew a harsher assessment, with 60% disapproving and 35% approving.
Those results suggest voters are distinguishing between federal efforts to stifle illegal border crossings and removing immigrants who already live and work in their communities, as support for the former did not translate into an endorsement of the latter.
Asked to choose an enforcement approach, 70% of Florida voters say they favor concentrating on undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes while providing paths to legal status for those who work and pay taxes. The rest favor deporting all undocumented immigrants, regardless of their criminal history.
In a separate question, 74% agreed that undocumented immigrants who commit crimes should be deported while hard-working undocumented immigrant workers need a path to legal status. That included 47% who strongly agreed and 27% who somewhat agreed.
Enforcement preferences grew clearer when Wave asked voters about specific actions. Nine in 10 approve of deporting undocumented immigrants who commit violent crimes. But a majority (53%) believe removing people with no criminal record who have lived in the country for many years is going too far.
Seventy percent agreed detaining U.S. citizens or legal residents during immigration raids — which has been done to more than 500 Americans under Trump, according to ProPublica — crosses the line.
Nearly two-thirds (64%) say the same about separating parents from their U.S.-born children during deportation. A Brookings Institution report published in May estimated that more than 145,000 U.S. citizen children have had a parent detained since January 2025.
Florida voters heavily favor more measures to hold poorly behaving immigration enforcement officials accountable. About 4 in 5 want agents to wear body cameras and visible identification. Most also support requiring a court hearing before someone is deported.
Asked to weigh priorities for Congress, Florida voters put deporting violent offenders first, with 51% picking it as their top immigration-related policy preference. A path to citizenship and investigations into killings by federal immigration agents and deaths in detention followed closely together with 35% and 37% support, respectively, ahead of deporting everyone living in the country without authorization or expanding detention facilities (26% and 15%).
Wave also tested a central feature of the Dignity Act, a signature proposal of U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar that would let eligible immigrants remain in the U.S. legally without a route to citizenship.
That approach drew 52% opposition in Florida and 50% disapproval nationwide, as Florida Politics detailed in a separate report. Three in four Florida voters prefer an approach that includes a citizenship option, which has 79% approval nationally for immigrants who have been in the U.S. for at least 10 years, pay taxes and undergo background checks.
Florida voters also have little confidence that removing immigrant workers would improve their own pay. Just 28% agreed deportations would raise wages for workers like them, compared with 23% nationally.
When asked why wages have failed to keep pace with living costs, Florida respondents were far more likely to blame large corporations (52%) stymying pay to increase profits than immigrants competing for jobs (18%).
California-based pollster Verasight surveyed 1,030 registered Florida voters online for Wave Polling Oct. 1-5. Results were weighted to reflect the state’s registered electorate by demographics, 2024 presidential vote and local voting patterns.
Verasight also polled 1,000 registered voters nationally Sept. 30-Oct. 5 and 502 registered voters in Pennsylvania.
The Florida poll had a 4.4-point margin of error, while the national and Pennsylvania surveys had margins of error of 3.4 and 5.6 points, respectively.
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