Senator Jim Justice and other Republicans are showing concern over President Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Justice said, "You're dragging people away that have lived on your street corner for 15 years." While some party members seek distance, Trump heads to Texas as polls show many voters disapprove of his immigration strategy.
The latest signal of Republican discomfort with the president's mass deportation campaign came from a loyal Trump ally in one of the most heavily Republican states in the country.
Senator Jim Justice, a West Virginia Republican, suggested in an interview with Politico on Tuesday that he was concerned about aspects of the immigration crackdown -- which has accelerated this summer, particularly in Republican-leaning states.
"You're dragging people away that have lived on your street corner for 15 years," Mr. Justice told Politico, "and I don't know that we need to be doing that stuff."
By Wednesday, Mr. Justice appeared to be backpedaling.
"Let me be crystal clear: I support President Trump's immigration strategy, full stop," he said in a statement, claiming that some people were "twisting" his words to "score political points."
Still, the earlier words of caution from Mr. Justice -- who was tough on immigration as a governor, represents a state Mr. Trump won by more than 40 percentage points in 2024 and is not on the ballot this year -- showed the extent of Republican concern about the president's far-reaching deportation campaign.
Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, who is in a re-election fight in a deep-red state targeted by recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, issued a statement last week saying, "When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement."
And two weeks ago, Representative María Elvira Salazar, a Republican in a battleground district in South Florida, released an ad in which she addressed Mr. Trump directly and said "some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far." The commercial appeared to anger the president, who in recent days has circulated a series of social-media posts criticizing Ms. Salazar. One post suggested that Republicans replace her on the ballot.
A national New York Times/Siena poll last month offered bracing data points for Republicans.
A majority of likely midterm voters, including 64 percent of independent voters, said they disapproved of the president's handling of immigration, according to the poll. Nearly half of all likely voters in the poll said they strongly disapproved. And 52 percent of voters said they trusted Democrats more on the issue, compared with 45 percent who said they trusted Republicans more. The issue ranked as one of the top six most important to voters.
Two years ago, as Mr. Trump ran for the presidency, he put calls for an immigration crackdown at the forefront of his campaign, saying the Biden administration had left the country with a chaotic and porous border. He later said immigration was the issue that won him the White House.
But what was once a strength for Republicans may now be a liability ahead of the midterm elections on Nov. 3, as voters have recoiled at the scale and style of the president's deportation efforts.
The Homeland Security Department did not respond to a request for comment on Republican criticism of its deportation efforts.
Some of the recent ICE raids have focused on traditionally conservative, sparsely populated Prairie States such as Kansas and Oklahoma, whose cattle ranching industries have been squeezed by the deportation push.
Industry groups have predicted ICE actions will threaten animal welfare and cascade far beyond individual businesses, driving up beef prices.
"These ICE operations are having a massive chilling effect on the legal, documented, skilled workers that put beef on the table and keep the cattle supply chain moving," the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Kansas Livestock Association and Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association said last week in a joint statement.
As Mr. Justice delivered his warning from West Virginia, some Republicans in Kansas and other conservative states seemed to be in little hurry to defend the president's approach to immigration.
Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is vacating his swing-district seat, argued the United States had gone from one extreme under Democrats to another under Republicans.