The post went up Monday at 9:17 in the morning, with no words at all - just a graphic, the kind meant to speak for itself. It showed a poll: '56% support and 44% oppose' mass deportation, credited to Harvard Harris, a survey of 1,725 respondents fielded 'May 29-31' [1]. The message, uncaptioned, is that the country is behind the crackdown.
The graphic dates itself, if you look. The protest signage inside the image - 'Mass Deportation Now!' - carries the year 2024 [1]. The survey it names, a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll of 1,725 people fielded in late May, is the May 2024 poll [3]. What Trump posted on July 13, 2026 as the state of public opinion is a snapshot from roughly two years earlier, presented with nothing to mark it as old.
The reason the date matters is that opinion has moved, and moved against the premise. The most recent major survey on this question, from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist, was fielded January 27-30, 2026. It found that 65 percent of Americans think ICE's actions have 'gone too far' - up from 54 percent in June 2025 [2]. The party breakdown is its own headline: 93 percent of Democrats, 71 percent of independents, and even 27 percent of Republicans [2].
Data
| Support deportation (Harvard/Harris, May 2024) | 56% |
|---|---|
| ICE has gone too far (Marist, Jan 2026) | 65% |
The two numbers are not measuring the exact same thing - one asks about supporting a deportation plan in the abstract, the other about whether ICE has gone too far in practice - and that distinction is worth keeping. What they share is a direction of travel. In 2024, before the second-term enforcement surge, a narrow majority backed the idea; by early 2026, after watching it operate, a larger majority says it has overshot. Other surveys point the same way: Gallup in July 2025 recorded 62-35 disapproval of Trump on immigration, and the Wall Street Journal found 51 percent saying deportation efforts had gone too far.
There is a legitimate poll behind the 56 percent; nobody invented it. The misleading part is the calendar. Posting a 2024 number, over 2024 protest imagery, on a July 2026 morning, with no date and no caption, presents the country's mood from before the crackdown as its verdict on the crackdown - at the exact moment the newest polling says the verdict has changed [1][2].
