President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda has become too much even for some of his own long-time supporters.
Two people who voted for Trump in the last three presidential elections admitted to The New York Times that the scenes coming out of the administration’s deportation blitz have made them regret voting for the 79-year-old president, who ran on a campaign of launching the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
Chris Stinnette, from Lexington, Kentucky, and Carter Brown, from Atlanta, Georgia, told The Daily on Monday that they voted for Trump in 2024 because they were compelled by his messaging around thousands of foreigners “coming over in droves” to the U.S.
“I remember, they painted the picture that there was a large caravan. That’s what they called it. And it looked like there was 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people or more,” Stinnette said.
“They were like, ‘Oh, yeah, there’s all these Chinese people coming through the border.’ It was just random things you would hear. And you’re like, ‘Wait, what? What is going on?’” Brown added.
They were initially impressed with Trump’s swift and decisive move to close the border. But their minds began to change when they saw the National Guard and federal agents showing up at schools, offices, and courthouses.
“They’re grabbing kids or they’re grabbing U.S. citizens, detaining them and putting them in the back of a van and not giving them reasonable suspicion as to why they’re being taken away,” Stinnette said. “This is wrong. The way they’re going about this is inhumane. And I don’t support it.”
Brown said she was struck by instances of people reporting to their routine immigration check-ins or showing up for their oath ceremonies only to get detained.
“I did not know that things like that would happen,” she said. “I was like, I want to go and step up and do what I can and protest and be with my fellow humanity.”
But it was ICE agent Jonathan Ross’ killing of 37-year-old mom Renee Good that pushed them past their breaking point with Trump.
“The most recent situation that happened with Renee Good was an unbelievable eye-opener to what was going on and how this administration was going to handle things moving forward,” Stinette said, adding that his wife was similarly “very upset” because she was also a 37-year-old mom like Good.
Brown said it “broke” her and “scared [her] even more” when she found out that Good was white.
“People hate that I use the word ‘bamboozled,’ but that’s the best way that I can describe how I feel,” she said. “On the outside looking in, you’re like, ‘It was an open-book test. Everything was right there.’”
“The community that I just left, many of them have, ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flags flying,” she added. “But you know what their reply back to what happened with Renee is? ‘Just comply.’ So what is it, ‘Don’t tread on me’ or ‘Just comply?’”
Just days after the killing of Good, federal agents also fatally shot 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti.
Numerous polls have shown a resounding dissatisfaction with the Trump administration’s immigration operations. In an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, 65 percent of Americans said ICE has “gone too far” in enforcing immigration laws. A similar proportion, 63 percent, disapproved of ICE’s enforcement in a Quinnipiac University survey. But 56 percent of Republicans think ICE’s tactics have “been about right” in a New York Times/Siena poll.
“If we remove everybody, how many more people will die along the way?” Stinette said.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
