ICE’s approval rating has plummeted 17 points since Trump’s first term, and a majority of Americans now think the administration has “gone too far” with deportations.

CNN data analyst Harry Enten delivered the grim assessment Wednesday: “ICE and Trump are losing the argument when it comes to the American people.”

WHAT’S GOING ON: The numbers collapse comes in the wake of ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shooting Renee Nicole Good, a widowed Minneapolis mother of three, in the street last Wednesday.

Trump and his allies have pushed narratives “wildly at odds with available video evidence,” trying to paint Good as a “violent rioter” and claiming Ross acted in “self-defense.”

Americans aren’t buying it.

THE DETAILS: According to Enten’s research, ICE now sits at a negative 17-point approval rating—a staggering drop from the agency’s standing during Trump’s first term. The findings align with a separate poll this week showing 46 percent of Americans now support abolishing ICE entirely.

It gets worse for the White House: 51 percent of respondents believe ICE enforcement is making cities less safe, not more. And 52 percent say the administration has “gone too far in deporting undocumented migrants.”

“Americans, at this point, do not like ICE,” Enten told CNN. “They don’t like this immigration enforcement, and it is costing Trump political points at this time.”

BUT BUT BUT: The backlash isn’t just coming from the left. Even Trump’s own supporters are getting squeamish. Joe Rogan—who endorsed Trump in 2024—compared ICE tactics to Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo this week.

“[Americans] don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people—many of which turn out to be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said on his show Tuesday. “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo? ‘Where’s your papers,’ is that what we’ve come to?”

When you’ve lost Joe Rogan on immigration enforcement, you’ve lost the plot entirely.

WHY IT MATTERS: Trump built his political brand on immigration hardlinery. It was supposed to be his winning issue—the one that united his base and peeled off moderates scared of “border chaos.” But killing a mom of three in broad daylight, then lying about it when video evidence exists, turns out to be a terrible political strategy.

The administration is now facing something they clearly didn’t anticipate: Americans are watching ICE agents operate like an occupying force, and they don’t like what they see. The polls show it. The protests sweeping the nation show it. Even MAGA’s favorite podcaster is invoking Nazis.

The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment. (Surprise: nothing yet.)

BOTTOM LINE: Trump wanted his deportation crackdown to be a political winner. Instead, an ICE agent shot a widow in the street, the administration lied about it, and now a majority of Americans think the whole operation has gone too far. That’s not a messaging problem. That’s a killing-people-in-the-street problem.