WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump is preparing for a more aggressive immigration crackdown in 2026 with billions in new funding, including by raiding more workplaces – even as backlash builds ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Trump has already surged immigration agents into major US cities, where they swept through neighbourhoods and clashed with residents.
While federal agents this year conducted some high-profile raids on businesses, they largely avoided raiding farms, factories and other businesses that are economically important but known to employ immigrants without legal status.
ICE and Border Patrol will get US$170 billion in additional funds through September 2029 – a huge surge of funding over their existing annual budgets of about US$19 billion after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a massive spending package in July.
Administration officials say they plan to hire thousands more agents, open new detention centres, pick up more immigrants in local jails and partner with outside companies to track down people without legal status.
The expanded deportation plans come despite growing signs of political backlash ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
Miami, one of the cities most affected by Trump’s crackdown because of its large immigrant population, elected its first Democratic mayor in nearly three decades last week in what the mayor-elect said was, in part, a reaction to the president.
Other local elections and polling have suggested rising concern among voters wary of aggressive immigration tactics.
“People are beginning to see this not as an immigration question anymore as much as it is a violation of rights, a violation of due process and militarising neighbourhoods extraconstitutionally,” said Mike Madrid, a moderate Republican political strategist.
“There is no question that is a problem for the president and Republicans.”
Trump’s overall approval rating on immigration policy fell from 50 per cent in March, before he launched crackdowns in several major US cities, to 41 per cent in mid-December, for what had been his strongest issue.
Rising public unease has focused on masked federal agents using aggressive tactics such as deploying tear gas in residential neighbourhoods and detaining US citizens.