Public polling: Twin Cities metro vs. greater Minnesota on immigration enforcement tactics

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (KTTC) – The Trump administration’s immigration policies have divided Minnesotans even more sharply than adults nationwide.

That’s according to a recent NBC News Decision Desk/KARE 11/Minnesota Star Tribune poll powered by SurveyMonkey.

The polls were conducted after federal immigration officers shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti and before the Trump administration began to pull immigration officers out of Minneapolis.

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in Minnesota were also consistently likelier to support the actions of ICE than Republicans across the country, according to the findings.

But there was a notable geographical split in the data. Republicans living in Minneapolis, St. Paul and suburbs of the Twin Cities—the most Democratic-leaning part of the state—were at times warier of the Trump administration’s crackdown than those in the rest of the state. For example, Republicans in the Twin Cities area, who were closer to the immigration enforcement operation, the protests and the response, were three times likelier than Republicans in the rest of Minnesota to say ICE and Border Patrol tactics had gone too far.

Just under half of Minnesota adults identified themselves as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, and they were incredibly skeptical about ICE’s actions after the shootings. And independents in the state—about 15% of the adults in the poll who self-identified that way—frequently agreed with Democrats.

The NBC News Decision Desk/KARE 11/Minneapolis Star Tribune Poll powered by SurveyMonkey surveyed 1,229 Minnesota adults online from Jan. 27 to Feb. 6 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Percentages may not add up to 100 because of rounding.

NBC News contributed to this report.

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