Analysis: ICE is Becoming America’s Most Hated Agency

From Pew to Quinnipiac, Americans now say the masked raiding has gone too far. Meanwhile, Trump seems unaware of his steep decline in immigration favorability.

WASHINGTON — The numbers are not subtle. In February, half the country said they had a favorable view of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with only a third against. By June, that equation had collapsed (one, two): 52% unfavorable, 39% favorable, and nearly 40% saying “very unfavorable” — the political equivalent of being booed out of your own stadium.

In the August Pew survey, ICE stood in the basement of American institutions, ranked alongside the IRS as one of the least-trusted federal agencies.

For a government office built to stalk factories and airports, ICE has now become the bogeyman in polling crosstabs. Seventy-two percent of Republicans like them; thirteen percent of Democrats do. Independents — the people presidential campaigns write love letters to — disapprove by margins of nearly two-to-one.

And yet Donald Trump, the agency’s patron saint and paymaster — who tripled ICE’s budget this year to nearly $29 billion, who handed them detention camps with more beds than some st…