Propelled into office on a pledge to deport undocumented immigrants in record time, President Donald Trump quickly overreached on immigration. After just 100 days, a majority (53%) disapprove of Trump’s handling of his signature issue, according to an AP-NORC poll.

The administration’s harsh deportation tactics make little distinction between legal immigrants and people who entered the U.S. illegally, or between immigrants with criminal records and travelers with visa problems. Those blurred lines are alienating Americans, eroding the president’s support and overshadowing one of his central accomplishments — securing the southern border.

As agencies come under more pressure to fill Trump’s unrealistic deportation goals, they have turned from removing dangerous criminals to targeting the immigrants who are the easiest to find. The unlikely list now includes international students, green card holders, tourists, cancer researchers, doctors and others.

The tactics are ugly and often skirt the law. A Turkish student snatched off a street corner and tossed in a van by masked agents. Mothers and their citizen children detained on the spot when they show up to mandatory immigration check-ins. The wife of an active-duty Coast Guardsman arrested over an expired visa. A four-year-old deported while being treated for stage four cancer. Few have gotten the hearings that are their right under the Constitution.

In one of the most egregious examples, Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent resident and Palestinian refugee, showed up earlier this month for his last interview before earning full citizenship — a decade-long pursuit. He was arrested at the interview by Homeland Security agents. (This morning, he was freed by a judge.)

None of this is sitting well with American voters. They expected mass deportations of undocumented immigrants they’d been told were stealing jobs and committing crimes — not nursing mothers.

Some of Trump’s more aggressive moves aren’t even popular with Republicans. For example, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, 73% of all voters, and 56% of Republicans, object to sending U.S. citizens to prisons in El Salvador. Yet Trump has said his Justice Department is already working on such a possibility.

Such actions violate the principles of fairness that run deep in the American psyche. The bait-and-switch nature of some of the arrests punishes those who are trying the hardest to comply with the law. Skipping an immigration check-in means ICE can hunt you down and arrest you; cooperating now yields the same result.

Similarly, Trump has taken aim at those admitted under President Joe Biden’s expanded refugee and asylum programs, which allowed several million refugees into the country. Although the programs helped shrink illegal border crossings, Trump has contended they were illegitimate. Because those immigrants followed the guidance of the government, and filed the necessary paperwork, the new administration now knows exactly where they are, making them easier to deport.

Trump has attacked immigration with all the vigor he can muster, reaching across federal agencies, challenging the courts at every turn, demanding an end to birthright citizenship, detaining visa holders for the smallest infractions, and sending alleged (though not proven) gang members to that Salvadoran prison. A more targeted approach could have kept public opinion on his side while still achieving a drop in border crossings.

And border crossings have plunged. At a recent briefing, Border Patrol officials said they had arrested 7,200 people in March. In December 2023, the monthly figure was 250,000. “We have the most secure border in the history of this nation and the numbers prove it,” said border czar Tom Homan.

But the same could have been achieved with more humanity and more respect for the rule of law — and without snaring legal residents in a merciless dragnet.

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This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.

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