ICE POLLING WELL . . . IN MINNESOTA:

President Trump is carrying out the immigration policies on which he ran successfully for the presidency, but Democrats assure us that Americans oppose his efforts to roll back the outrageous illegal immigration of the Biden years. In particular, Democrats tell us that Americans hate ICE.

Is that true? If there is any state where ICE is unpopular, it should be Minnesota. Minnesota was home to a massive resistance to federal authority that was stoked by pretty much all leading elected officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. As home not just to daily demonstrations, but to constant attempts to interfere with the execution of federal law, Minnesota should be ground zero for opposition to Trump’s immigration policies and hatred of ICE.

So we decided to poll it. Our Thinking Minnesota Poll, conducted by Meeting Street Insights, was in the field just when ICE was winding down its operations and beginning to depart from Minnesota. So we should have caught anti-ICE fervor at its height. And yet, what we found was a silent majority of Minnesotans who are broadly supportive of the administration’s immigration policies.

These are the key findings:

* 81% of respondents support deporting all illegal aliens who have a criminal record in the U.S. or abroad. This includes 71% of Democrats.

* 72% want Minnesota state and local officials to cooperate with ICE (most did not).

* 75% say it is important to prevent illegal aliens from voting in Minnesota elections.

* 50% say that the actions of Minnesota leaders like Tim Walz and Jacob Frey made the ICE situation more heated with their comments, while only 25% said that local officials helped to reduce tensions.

* 48% support deporting as many illegal aliens as possible, while 49% oppose deporting all illegal aliens.

* 45% support the presence of ICE in Minnesota, while 53% oppose ICE’s presence.

I suspect the latter numbers reflect, not opposition to the administration’s immigration policies, which enjoy broad support, but rather dismay at the constant news of protests, arrests, etc. that accompanied ICE’s presence here. Even I would say that I was glad to see ICE go, given the hysteria and criminality that Minnesota’s liberals stirred up.

In short, the idea that there is broad opposition to the administration’s immigration policies, and a general hostility toward ICE, is false. If we don’t see those attitudes in Minnesota, I don’t think we will see them anywhere.

The purpose of the media is to convince 90% of the public that the attitudes of 10% of the public are held by 80% of the public.