ICE's tactics have sparked controversy ahead of the US midterm elections

Trump's hardline immigration enforcement efforts have divided voters ahead of the 2026 midterm race, polls show.

US President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement mission has shattered public support ahead of next month's crucial midterm elections.

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The bottom line was even higher among demographics that may be key to the GOP's prospects in November.

The poll, conducted in September, found that 60 percent of independent voters agreed with the idea that Trump's immigration efforts have gone too far. Two-thirds of Hispanic respondents also agreed that the campaign had "gone too far."

Experts say the political debate over immigration in the United States has changed since the last major election in 2024. At that time, the focus was more on border security. But increasingly, attention has been focused on how to implement executive operations.

Cynthia Penalosa is among those who question the tactics of the Trump administration.

In August, his sister, 23-year-old Jocelyn Penalosa Magana, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Houston, Texas, during a traffic stop. Jocelyn remains in custody to this day.

We are always afraid. "We're not sure what's going to happen, if he's going to be sent back to Mexico, if we're ever going to be," Cynthia told Al Jazeera's Phil Lovell.

He rejects Trump's claim that his administration's immigration enforcement is targeting the "worst of the worst."

Jocelyn, Penalosa's family said, was an honor student with no criminal record. He was brought to the United States when he was about five years old.

"She's always been a good girl," Cynthia told Lowell.

However, the Trump administration has tied its mass deportation campaign to efforts to control crime.

In a statement earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, described Trump's policies as "setting up ICE to target the worst illegal alien criminals, including pedophiles, murderers, gang members, terrorists and rapists."

Immigration arrests have been on the rise under Trump. In September, ICE announced it had logged two consecutive months of more than 50,000 immigration arrests, beating the record set in June, when 43,900 people were detained.

Homeland Security has argued that roughly 70 percent of its immigration detainees are criminals if pending charges are considered.

But critics have questioned the statistics because the legal system in the United States allows suspects to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

In other words, many defendants can be acquitted or have their charges reduced. A large proportion of those facing criminal charges may also be charged with non-violent crimes.

Analysts have found that the majority of people currently in immigration detention are not considered criminals under the law. About 70 percent of people held in ICE custody do not have a criminal record, according to the Deportation Data Project, which analyzes government data sets.

However, the Trump administration has pushed for increased detentions.

"We need more numbers. We need more arrests and more deportations," White House "border czar" Tom Homan said in an interview in July.

However, aggressive arrest tactics may affect Republican midterm campaigns.

Republicans hope to defend their majorities in both houses of Congress, as well as in key state and local elections.

Trump made significant gains with Hispanic voters in the 2024 election. According to an exit poll from the Pew Research Center, he won nearly 48 percent of Latino support during his re-election bid, up 12 percentage points from the 2020 election.

But Pew found that his gains may be eroding. Among Hispanic voters who supported him in 2024, his approval rating has fallen steadily, from a high of 93 percent at the start of 2025 to a low of 57 percent last week.

Some Republicans running in the midterm elections, including Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida, have even openly criticized the president's hardliners.

"Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far," Salazar said at a campaign launch in September. He pointed to the large number of immigrants who were arrested without a criminal record.

Other Republicans, however, blame previous presidencies for creating conflicts over immigration enforcement.

Jeremy Price, a Texas Republican, told Al Jazeera: "There was a mess, and now it's a dirty job to clean up. You have to find people, arrest them against their will and take them out because they don't want to leave."

Meanwhile, Democrats hope to turn outrage over the immigration enforcement tactics into votes next November.

"I hope they repeal ICE," Richard Gonzalez, chairman of the Hidalgo County Democratic Party in Texas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera Lovell.

"I mean, from my perspective, I think they, the agency has lost its identity and there's no way to rebuild that."