More Americans say US is no longer welcoming to immigrants, according to new survey

Donald Trump ’s aggressive and wide-reaching immigration-enforcement agenda has convinced increasing numbers of adults that the US is no longer a welcoming country for outsiders, a new poll has found. About six in 10 respondents to the Associated Press-NORC poll , conducted last month, say the country used to be a great place for immigrants, but no longer is. Another one-third said they or somebody they knew personally had been affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown in the previous 12 months, rising to about 60% of Hispanic adults. Almost half of the Hispanic adults who responded said they had started carrying proof of their US citizenship or permanent residence for fear of being detained or deported by federal immigration agencies. The wide-ranging poll paints a damning portrait of how opinions have changed in the 14 months since Trump returned to the White House and embarked on his long-threatened “ largest deportation operation in US history”. Trump surged thousands of immigration agents, sometimes backed by the US military, into several cities and states to round up and detain those in the country illegally, often with violent results. In separate incidents in Minneapolis in January, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two unarmed US citizens protesting against the government’s actions, were shot and killed by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers. …