Amid economic turmoil, Trump leans into deportation fight as 'battle they can win'
After Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen met with a wrongly deported resident of his state in El Salvador, President Donald Trump's White House promoted an image of the exchange on social media.
“We are not the same,” the White House X account wrote, juxtaposing a picture of Van Hollen meeting Kilmar Abrego Garcia against a picture of Trump with the mother of a Maryland woman who was slain by an undocumented immigrant.
In case anyone missed the post, the White House pinned it at the top of its X account to ensure it maintained a place of prominence. Then Trump followed it up with a social media blast against Van Hollen and later slammed Abrego Garcia while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office. The Republican president's message was clear: Immigration is an issue his administration is eager to engage on and believes it has the high ground politically.
“Of all the areas of his emphasis, that’s where his marks are the best,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayers, noting Trump would much rather be talking about immigration issues than the economy right now.
By pushing the deportation debate, Trump is keeping the focus away from the negative economic news that has dented his approval rating thanks to the shaky rollout of his tariff plans and the ensuing roller coaster results in the stock markets. It's also raising questions about whether Democrats are miscalculating politically at a time when their base is protesting in the streets and party figures jockey to fill the leadership vacuum left by losing the White House last year and not being in control of either chamber of Congress.
Democratic strategist James Carville said the fate of Abrego Garcia is a fight worth having with the Trump White House.
Famous for exhorting Democrats to focus on the economy, Carville coined the phrase "it's the economy, stupid" as Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign strategist. But he said on his Politics War Room podcast that “you can’t pivot to an economic” message in this debate.
Carville acknowledged questions about whether Democrats should “really fight on this turf or should we fight more on ordinary people.”
But Abrego Garcia’s situation - the Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the Maryland man's return after it admitted to wrongfully deporting him to his native country of El Salvador - speaks to fundamental issues that define the United States, Carville said.
“We gotta keep fighting this," he said. "I think this is worthy of being on a top agenda of things we’re going to fight over, is get this guy back home."
Trump distracting from economy?
A big part of Trump’s appeal to voters in 2024 was his promise to reduce inflation and turbo charge the economy. But inflation is projected to increase as tariffs are implemented and economic growth is expected to slow.
As the economic outlook darkens and approval of how Trump is handling the economy drops, dragging down his overall approval rating, immigration is an issue where Republicans believe they still have an advantage. So the White House has leaned in hard on the deportation debate.
"So far, the White House strategy seems to be to go as fast and far as practicable,” said University of California Irvine political science professor Matthew Beckmann. “The president is daring people to try and stop him - particularly judges or legislators - and he does not seem especially concerned about negative news stories or fading poll numbers."
The deportation issue exploded in recent weeks as a series of controversial cases gained attention, including Abrego Garcia. Trump’s team has been defiant in the face of its losing court record, and Attorney General Pam Bondi said this week of Abrego Garcia that it's "up to El Salvador if they want to return him."
Enter the Democrats, who have seized on the issue to portray Trump as flouting the legal system, none more than Van Hollen, who met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador on April 17.
The senator's trip has been fodder for regular White House attacks. In addition to slamming him on social media, the White House staged a press conference to criticize Van Hollen. It featured the mother of the slain Maryland woman.
The fact that White House is digging in on this issue shows “they believe it is a public opinion battle they can win,” Ayers said.
Democrats are fighting for fundamental rights such as legal due process, Ayers said, but that can be a hard sell when the people involved don’t have the public’s sympathy.
“It is a tough fight to have if your measure is popular support,” Ayers said.
The Trump administration has worked to make Abrego Garcia a less sympathetic figure and shift the narrative to focus on immigration in general, rather than the specifics of his case.
“You’re talking about Abrego Garcia, is that the one?” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question in the Oval Office on April 18, before calling him “an illegal alien MS-13 gang member and foreign terrorist” and highlighting everything from his driving record to a temporary protective order requested by his wife.
"This is the man that the Democrats are wanting us to fly back from El Salvador to be a happily ensconced member of the USA family. Isn't it a shame?" the president added.
A federal judge said the administration has "offered no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or to any terrorist activity." Abrego Garcia's wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told Paste BN that she filed the temporary protection order "out of caution" after being the victim of domestic abuse in a previous relationship.
“Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process," Vasquez Sura said.
This 'really isn't popular'
While Trump has talked about how important his hardline immigration position was to his 2024 victory, saying in the Oval Office on April 17 that it's "one of the primary reasons I was elected," the details are important when measuring public opinion.
"The public often supports general goals more than specific policies," Beckmann said of the deportation debate. "The reason: the closer things get to the ground, the clearer the tradeoffs become."
A YouGov survey from March 28-31 found that 61% of people oppose "deporting immigrants without criminal convictions to El Salvador to be imprisoned, without letting them challenge the deportation in court."
Lakshya Jain with the group Split Ticket, which analyzes political data, shared the YouGov survey on X in pushing back against the argument that Democrats should focus less on Abrego Garcia and more on the economy.
When the economy is bad it's "always on everyone's minds, whether you talk about it or not," Jain said, adding that Democrats now have a chance to ding Trump on immigration, traditionally one of his strengths.
"Because *this* action really isn't popular," Jain said.
Contributing: Eduardo Cuevas, Francesca Chambers