Legal immigrants' surprising turnaround: they now trust Republicans more to handle immigration

The legal immigrants experienced a sharp reversal in recent years. After being a reliable vote for Democrats, they turned 40 points toward the Republican Party when it comes to talking about immigration. This was explained by CNN journalist Harry Enten, who assured that this demographic group was the one that shifted the most to the "right" between 2020 and 2024.

According to the poll shown by Enten, in 2020 legal, registered-to-vote immigrants trusted Democrats more to handle immigration issues. The difference with the GOP was 32 percentage points.

However, the situation is very different in 2025. According to data presented on CNN, that same group now trusts Republicans more, with a difference of eight points. That is a 40-point shift in just four years, from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration. 

"Republicans now lead on this issue by eight points over Democrats, more than any other group I could find," Enten stressed.

In addition, the journalist ran down the popularity of President Donald Trump with this demographic group, passing his 2016, 2020, and 2024 candidacies.

According to their statistics, the current president garnered 36% among immigrant citizens, rising to 39% in 2020. The upward trend skyrocketed last year, when he got 47% among this group. He even revealed that some polls he "looked at had him barely winning that vote."

The growth of Trump and Republicans among legal immigrants came on the heels of the immigration crisis of recent years. While there is no consensus on the number, it is estimated that between 11 million and 14 million people entered the country illegally during the Biden-Harris Administration. 

"There is no bloc of voters that shifted more to the right from 2020 to 2024 than immigrant voters,” Enten emphasized, “and Donald Trump, at least in some surveys, actually won that vote."

"And so, again, when we’re talking about this, at least from a political angle. This is why Donald Trump feels so comfortable, because, in fact, amongst the group that you would think would be most opposed to this, in fact, they become increasingly favorable, not just towards Donald Trump, but towards the Republican point of view on immigration and becoming distant from those immigrants who are here illegally," the CNN journalist concluded.