Caitlin Dickerson

When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated.

The polling is really contradictory.

And I have really come to see just in the last, you know, in this current Trump term that I think a lot of that is attributable to the fact that people don't have a baseline understanding of deportation.

very, very simple aspects of the system.

And perhaps through no fault of their own, politicians haven't done a good job of explaining it and messaging it, maybe even journalists.

But for example, Americans now are really confused because ICE is deporting all of these people who've lived in the United States for a long time.

And I think many Americans' first reaction to that is, well, they've been here so long, they should have figured out a way to become legal.

They don't realize that there is no

way for most people living here.

And so I think that helps to explain contradictory polling where if you ask Americans, you know, if someone came to the United States illegally, do you support deporting them?

Most Americans will say yes.

But then if you ask them, but if someone's lived here in the United States for 10 or 15 years, they've never committed a crime, they have U.S.

citizen children, or they're an essential worker, should they be deported?

They'll say no.

My sense is

is that people want order at the border.

They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time.

I think it's sort of two different questions.

Do you have immigration enforcement at all or not?

And I think what he's saying is that the public seems to believe in some level of immigration enforcement, which is also my sense.