STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Many voters have been telling pollsters they're opposed to the way that President Trump and his administration are enforcing immigration laws, especially after federal agents killed two Americans in Minneapolis. Rich Thau has been hearing the same thing from voters. He runs the Swing Voter Project and joins us in our studios here. Hi there, Rich.
RICH THAU: Great to be here, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK. So what is this project?
THAU: So each month, we conduct focus groups with about a dozen or so people in a given swing state - these are people who voted for Biden in 2020 who jumped to Trump in '24...
INSKEEP: OK.
THAU: ...To understand how they feel about various public policies and about politics.
INSKEEP: I appreciate hearing that there are such people because it's easy to imagine that everybody has dug in, but really, there are people who flip.
THAU: There sure are.
INSKEEP: And then you go into a Zoom call, basically, and just listen to these people for a long period of time.
THAU: Yeah. We do two groups of about 90 minutes each.
INSKEEP: And what did you hear about immigration when you talked with people from Arizona?
THAU: The folks in Arizona basically said something simple and straightforward. When it comes to ICE, mend it, don't end it.
INSKEEP: The old Bill Clinton slogan. OK. Go on.
THAU: They didn't use those words, but that's exactly what they argued for. They want to see ICE stay in place as an organization that deals with the immigration problems that they think are very severe, but they don't like how things are being executed right now, and they want significant changes to ICE's process.
INSKEEP: Let's hear a voter that you spoke with, and like others in these focus groups, he's going by only his first name. It's Ernie (ph), and he's uncomfortable.
ERNIE: There shouldn't be people getting killed. There shouldn't be people going after ICE agents. It goes both ways. But when they're shooting citizens, it's too far. That's the part that I have a hard time.
INSKEEP: Self-identified independent, and that's a type of voter that, in my mind, is a little more conservative and pretty comfortable with law and order, but he is not comfortable.
THAU: Exactly. He wants to make sure that he is protected, his community's protected, the country is protected, but they don't like the way it's being done. And, in fact, we see month over month with a lot of these Biden-to-Trump voters that they like the goals that are being pursued. They don't like the means that are being used to pursue those goals.
INSKEEP: Do voters have clarity in their heads about what mending they want?
THAU: Yes. So we asked about seven possible reforms. A number of them are ones that Democrats are putting forward right now. There was unanimity on a couple of them. One, for example, making sure that investigations are done after incidents of shootings like the Good one and the Pretti one. They also want to see that these ICE agents are wearing body cameras, for example. All 14 of the respondents in our two sessions in total want to see that implemented. The sad part, though, frankly, was that only two of the 14 think that Congress will actually implement laws to advance these reforms.
INSKEEP: OK, so not a lot of confidence in Congress. Again, we're talking about Biden-to-Trump voters, thinking about the situation now. And another is Nancy (ph), also independent, and she can't figure out the president's priorities. She likes some things, and then there's an ICE shooting, and then the president's talking about taking over Greenland.
NANCY: It's just so chaotic that all the bad stuff just kind of eliminates the good.
INSKEEP: This seems like a deliberate strategy of this White House, to bring the chaos, to be doing everything all the time. Is this not working for some voters?
THAU: Well, for the swing voters, which is the kind of people I'm talking to, this doesn't help the White House at all because they're half doing what people want. They want to see the implementation and the protection from ICE, but they don't like how ICE is doing it. So it's causing chaos for these folks, and emotionally, they're not comfortable with what's happening.
INSKEEP: Rich Thau, thanks for listening to voters for us.
THAU: Thank you.
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