Deportations, Faith And The 2026 Midterms: Will Trump’s Crackdown Move Religious Voters?
(ANALYSIS) The furor over President Trump’s deportations appears likely to persist throughout the potentially close 2026 contest to decide House and Senate control.
An Ipsos poll recently showed 62% of Americans think Trump’s tactics have gone “too far,” compared with 58% before the killing of Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti.
Ipsos also found a weak 39% support for the deportation of immigrants who entered illegally or overstayed a visa but are law-abiding otherwise.
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Thinking realistically, it’s hard to imagine that publicized celebrity outbursts at the Grammy awards (complete with an f-bomb), or athletes' remarks and boos at the Olympics, or who says what at the March 15 Oscars ceremony, will affect voters not already committed to the cause.
What about the protests in hundreds of localities after the killing of Renee Good, intensified by Pretti’s death? Economists Amory Gethin and Vincent Pons see increasing liberal reliance upon demonstrations, which have reached “unprecedented size and frequency.”
Yet, as noted in a Feb. 2 New Yorker analysis, their study of the 14 major protest waves from 2017 through 2022 concludes that the main result is added online chatter. There was a small anti-Trump tilt from 2020’s Black Lives Matter, but otherwise, demonstrations had no discernible impact on voting behavior.
The New Yorker concludes that Trump’s continual local networking is more effective. On that, it’s hard to beat contacts in the nation’s estimated 370,000 houses of worship. What do key religious blocs now think? Mainline Protestant and other liberal clergy are predictably prominent in the anti-ICE crusade, but there’s reason to doubt they are winning new voters.
Regarding the vast evangelical movement, a Jan. 30 rundown by Religion News Service sees both devout Trumpublican loyalty and dissent from Trump’s policy. A Dec. 11 National Association of Evangelicals pronouncement typifies the mood during the movement’s more harmonious 1942-2015 era.
The N.A.E. critiques current enforcement methods, wants secure borders and deportation of violent criminals, and advocates comprehensive reform, including permanent legal status or citizenship for otherwise law-abiding aliens. Whatever, as with dug-in clergy on the left, it’s hard to imagine many evangelicals will desert the Grand Old Party.
That brings us to members of by far the largest U.S. denomination, the Catholic Church. This writer continually insists that their political impact warrants closer attention. A hugely important change in the past generation was white Catholics’ migration from strong Democratic identity to modest but reliable Republican majorities and, lately, slippage in Hispanic Catholics’ Democratic majorities. How many might become swing voters and trim Republicans’ usual Catholic advantage?
There’s heated Catholic punditry. On the left, Father Thomas Reese, the RNS Catholic columnist, says Trump has “invaded Democratic cities and states” with officers “who act against immigrants and citizens without restraint” as “a partisan tool of his vengeance.” Reese contends that with deportations and many other actions, “Trump is destroying the United States.”
On the right, Pavlos Papadopoulos, a professor at Wyoming Catholic College, defends the president. He writes in firstthings.com that Trump is simply enforcing existing laws and fulfilling his campaign promises.
But soft immigration beliefs, and street “brawlers” with highly coordinated “harassment and assault” against federal officers, threaten “the dissolution of America as a distinct, self-governing nation.”
Before considering Catholic leaders’ potential impact, it’s worth remembering how pro-immigrant convictions were long ingrained in U.S. Catholic culture. From the 1845-1849 Potato Famine, which sent masses from Ireland to America, through the recent Hispanic influx, the U.S. church has been built upon immigrants. In the 1850s, Catholic immigrants were targeted by rioters in major cities.
The American Party, which won 21.5% of the 1856 presidential vote, wanted a ban on immigrants in public office and a 21-year wait before they could gain naturalized citizenship. But the 1860s victorious Republican Party opposed such changes to immigration law and upheld “full and efficient protection” of the rights of naturalized citizens. That suppressed the Nativist threat, and America has since generally accepted massive immigration. However, in 2024, President Biden’s lax border controls created popular enthusiasm for strict limits.
Last November, the American bishops voted 216-5 for their first “Special Message” to the nation in 12 years, which opposed “indiscriminate mass deportation.” Though “nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders,” and comprehensive reform is needed, the bishops denounced the “climate of fear” and “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement.” The American Pope Leo XIV immediately affirmed this “very important” statement and lamented American “vilification” of immigrants, deemed “extremely disrespectful.”
Will these and future denunciations affect voters? The church’s moral credibility has eroded over 40 years of sexual molestation scandals. Then there’s the rise of pick-and-choose Catholicism, dramatized by strong rejection of the 1968 papal encyclical against unnatural birth control.
Pew Research polling last year showed U.S. Catholics disagree with official teachings on these matters: birth control (by 84%), in vitro births (83%), barring Communion for unwed couples (76%), mandatory celibacy for priests (63%), the all-male priesthood (59%) and forbidding same-sex marriages in church (50%).
But those are internal church disputes; morality on public policy might be different. The classic example is abortion. In 1973, the Supreme Court’s Roe decision legalized the practice nationwide (though in 2022 the Court overturned Roe and restored state-by-state policy-making).
Early on, Gallup reported that 60% of Catholics wanted abortion decisions left “to the woman and her doctor.” The limits of church influence were seen in the first presidential election after the Roe ruling. The 1976 Republican platform united with an ardent effort by the bishops and endorsed a Constitutional amendment to overturn Roe. Though the Democratic Party opposed an amendment, its nominee, Jimmy Carter, held 57% of the Catholic vote.
By 2024, Pew Research found that, similarly, only 39% of Catholics think “all” or “most” abortions should be illegal, little different from 35% of adults overall. However, 61% of weekly Mass attenders favor legal restrictions, suggesting exposure to church teaching has an impact.
As Catholics began shifting Republican, prominent political scientist John C. Green observed that they were not changing because of abortion as such. Rather, their church’s strong belief on the issue helped Catholics feel free to rethink their traditional Democratic loyalty if they liked Republican candidates and policies on issues totally apart from abortion.
Come November, we’ll learn whether church teaching makes some Catholics so queasy about deportation, or other Trump actions, that, abortion aside, they’ll revert to their heritage and decide close races for the Democrats.
Richard N. Ostling was a longtime religion writer with The Associated Press and with Time magazine, where he produced 23 cover stories, as well as a Time senior correspondent providing field reportage for dozens of major articles. He is a recipient of the Religion News Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. He has interviewed such personalities as Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI); ranking rabbis and Muslim leaders; and authorities on other faiths; as well as numerous ordinary believers. He writes a bi-weekly column for Religion Unplugged.