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Fox News Poll: Disapproval of ICE on the rise

Fox News Poll: Disapproval of ICE on the rise

An increasing number of voters disapprove of the job the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, is doing, with nearly half wanting Congress to reduce its funding. That’s according to a new Fox News poll conducted before President Trump announced on Thursday that he will nominate Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., to replace Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. The survey finds nearly 6 in 10 voters disapprove of ICE’s performance, while about 4 in 10 approve. This is the highest disapproval rating recorded, up 7 points since last fall and 17 points since the question was first asked in 2018. FOX NEWS POLL: VOTERS GIVE POOR MARKS TO ECONOMY, CONGRESS AND TRUMP Nearly twice as many voters strongly disapprove as strongly approve. The increase in disapproval can mostly be attributed to voters under age 30 (+17 points more disapproving than in September), independents (+13), men (+11) and Democrats (+8). “This isn’t a complicated story,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who helps run the Fox News Poll with Democratic counterpart Chris Anderson. “ICE’s tactics in Minneapolis, along with negative news coverage, have caused a sharp drop in approval, especially among independents and members of the out-party.” Meanwhile, large majorities of MAGA supporters (94% approve), very conservative voters (87% approve) and Republicans (83%) back ICE. When asked about funding the agency, nearly half (46%) said reduce it. The other half wants to increase funding (20%), keep at current levels (18%) or fund at current levels but with new restrictions (16%). FOX NEWS POLL: VIEWS ARE DIVIDED ON US ACTION AGAINST IRAN Majorities of Democrats (77%) and independents (59%) want to defund ICE while Republicans would prefer to at least keep it at its current level (37%) if not increase it (43%). Today, voters are slightly more likely to feel the Trump administration’s immigration policies have made the U.S. safer (42% safer vs. 37% less safe) than they did last June, when they were split on the matter (39% each). Overall, 2 in 10 say the policies don’t make a difference to safety. But when looking at immigration from an economic lens, more voters think the administration’s policies are hurting the economy (49%) than helping it (33%). Two in 10 (17%) say they haven’t had an effect on the economy. Majorities of Republicans are more likely to say the immigration policies have made the U.S. safer (82%) and helped the economy (66%), while it’s the opposite for Democrats (62% less safe, 83% hurt). A majority of independents think the economy is being hurt (57%) but are more divided on safety: 27% safer, 40% less safe, 33% no difference. Views on what to do about illegal immigration remain nuanced. Two-thirds favor allowing illegal immigrants who have jobs in the U.S. to stay and apply for legal status (67% favor, 33% oppose). On the other hand, 6 in 10 favor deporting immigrants who are here illegally back to their home countries (59% favor, 40% oppose).  Among voters favoring deportation, 53% would support immigrants who live here illegally but have jobs to stay and apply for legal status. Majorities of Hispanic voters favor allowing illegal immigrants with jobs to stay (74% favor), disagree with deportations (56% oppose) and disapprove of ICE (58%). CLICK HERE FOR CROSSTABS AND TOPLINE Big picture, border security and immigration remain President Trump’s best issues. Border security continues to be his only net positive job rating with 52% approving and 48% disapproving. While his handling of immigration stands at 47% approve and 53% disapprove, it is a slight improvement since the last recording in January when it was 45-55%. The president’s ratings on other issues remain underwater: jobs (43% approve, 56% disapprove), taxes (40-59%), foreign policy (40-60%), economy (38-61%), healthcare (38-61%), tariffs (36-63%), and cost of living (32-67%). Conducted Feb. 28 to March 2, 2026, under the direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News survey includes interviews with a sample of 1,004 registered voters randomly selected from a national voter file. Respondents spoke with live interviewers on landlines (104) and cellphones (642) or completed the survey online after receiving a text (258). Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points. Sampling error for results among subgroups is higher. In addition to sampling error, question wording and order can influence results. Weights are generally applied to age, race, education and area variables to ensure the demographics are representative of the registered voter population. Sources for developing weight targets include the most recent American Community Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis and voter file data.

What is Indian connection to Iranian ship attacked off Sri Lanka by US Navy?

What is Indian connection to Iranian ship attacked off Sri Lanka by US Navy?

The recent US attack on Iran’s IRIS Dena warship in the Indian Ocean is a significant development, marking a major naval incident in the region since World War II. The warship was hit while returning from the Indian Fleet Review and Exercise MILAN in Vishakhapatnam, February 2026. The attack has resulted in 87 deaths, with survivors being treated in Sri Lanka, and two Iranian warships seeking refuge in Colombo.

‘Under siege’: Inside the growing radical Islam threat critics say is hiding in plain sight in deep red Texas

‘Under siege’: Inside the growing radical Islam threat critics say is hiding in plain sight in deep red Texas

A shooting in Austin, Texas, over the weekend that left three innocent people dead and is being probed as a terror-related incident is putting a renewed focus on the potential spread of radical Islam in the United States, particularly in deep red Texas where concerns about Islamic fanaticism are hitting a fever pitch. The deceased shooting suspect, identified as Ndiaga Diagne, was a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Senegal and lived in Pflugerville, Texas, after entering the country in 2000. Diagne was wearing a shirt that said “Property of Allah” and another shirt underneath that depicted the Iranian flag. The FBI said the shooting, which came shortly after the U.S. and Israel’s attack on Iran, was “potentially an act of terrorism.” The likelihood that Diagne was motivated by religious ideology, bolstered by a CBS News report on his social media presence, has prompted widespread alarm about the rise of radical Islam in Texas along with the heightened scrutiny of possible Iranian sleeper cells activating in the United States in response to recent U.S. military strikes on Iran.  MAGA HARDLINER PUSHES BAN ON IMMIGRATION FROM ISLAMIC COUNTRIES, US ADVERSARIES IN WAKE OF TEXAS SHOOTING “Texas is currently under siege by Islamists who want to reshape our state and America as a whole,” Republican Congressman Chip Roy, running for attorney general in the state, told Fox News Digital.  “The tragic shooting over the weekend in my home of Austin, Texas, is another example of why we need to pause immigration until the system is fixed. We need to stop bringing people into our country who want to kill us.” Social media have been littered with examples in recent days of accounts voicing concern about possible radicalization in mosques throughout Texas.  “330 mosques in Texas… and an average of 2 new ones per month,” conservative influencer account End Wokeness posted on X.  “These mosques are popping up all over the place,” a former Austin police officer told Fox News Digital. “I have no doubt in my mind that there’s radicalization going on in these mosques. There has to be.” While it is unclear what mosque Diagne attended in Texas, if any, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has released dozens of sermons and lectures from Texas and has published a compilation video of extremist imams in Texas from 2018-2025. The compilation video shows imams from cities across Texas praising Khamenei, leading “down with Israel” chants, saying “Muslims will kill the Jews,” promoting “jihad,” and highlighting what MEMRI describes as examples of radical ideology. TEXAS DEMOCRATIC SENATE CANDIDATES SIDESTEP ISLAMIC TERRORISM CONCERNS FOLLOWING DEADLY AUSTIN ATTACK “There is a great deal of troubling activity from many influence groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood, pro-Hamas organizations, and Shi’ite organizations, who express open support for Iran and have pledged allegiance to Khamenei,” MEMRI Executive Director Steven Stalinsky told Fox News Digital.  Last year, MEMRI highlighted the Islamic Center of Pflugerville, led by Mufti Umer Farooq Saleem, who hosted a children’s story night where he told attendees that Israel “is the illegal state of the Jews.” Fox News Digital reached out to the Islamic Center of Pflugerville for comment.  Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the Muslim man who rammed a white truck into a crowd full of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans last year and fired shots at police officers killing 14 and injuring more than 30, was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas. Jabbar lived in Houston before committing the crime, inside a mobile home just about a seven-minute walk from the Masjid Bilal Mosque and Darul Arqam Islamic school. Shortly after the attack, that mosque sent congregants a message to direct FBI inquiries to a special-interest group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and avoid speaking to the media. Fox News Digital reached out to Masjid Bilal for comment.  Roughly 30 miles south of Masjid Bilal Mosque, the Islamic Education Center of Houston has drawn the attention of MEMRI, which posted a video showing children pledging allegiance to Khamenei in 2022, along with a 2019 video of young boys pledging allegiance to the now-deceased leader. Fox News Digital reached out to the Islamic Education Center of Houston for comment.  Similar allegiance to the fundamentalist Iranian regime and hardline Shiite ideologues can be found all across the country and a Fox News Digital investigation published earlier this week analyzed hours of sermons and scores and found that precepts shaping Tehran’s worldview, from its clerics to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are also being preached on American soil by proxies for Iran’s propaganda. “What we’re seeing is years of deliberate investment by the Islamic Republic inside the United States,” Andrew Ghalili, policy director at the National Union for Democracy in Iran, told Fox News Digital.  TEXAS GOV GREG ABBOTT CALLS FOR CAIR TO BE STRIPPED OF NON-PROFIT STATUS “This is happening on American soil, and it’s just another way in which the regime poses a direct threat to the United States, this time not with missiles but through infiltration,” he said. Texas has been in the news in recent years as some residents push back on a proposed 400-acre community known as “EPIC City” that critics say is marketing itself as a Muslims-only community. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton recently sued the developers of that project, alleging the defendants raised tens of millions of dollars while violating securities laws, misleading investors about the project’s nature and location, and misrepresenting how funds would be used. Concerns about potential Iran-linked sleeper cells are rising as the Department of Homeland Security remains unfunded and Tehran and its proxies threaten retaliation over U.S.-Israeli strikes that American officials say killed nearly 50 top Iranian leaders. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told FOX Business that sleeper cell threats need to be taken seriously after the Austin attack. “There are other details that will be coming out about the shooter and his connections to terrorism that will make clear [that] this was a lone wolf activity where this shooter intended to wreak havoc here in Texas, here in the United States, because of

DOJ signals it’s still digging into Biden autopen use despite reports probe fizzled

DOJ signals it’s still digging into Biden autopen use despite reports probe fizzled

The Department of Justice indicated Thursday it is still investigating the legality of former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen despite reports that the probe has been shelved because prosecutors have been unable to identify any criminal charges to bring. Multiple sources told Fox News Digital that U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office was still looking into the Biden White House’s autopen use after the New York Times reported that the inquiry was recently tabled. Pirro responded to the report in an X post on Thursday, saying the DOJ “cannot comment on ongoing investigations,” signaling the investigation remained open. TRUMP TO VOID ALL DOCUMENTS ALLEGEDLY SIGNED BY BIDEN VIA AUTOPEN, THREATENS PERJURY CHARGE The New York Times reported Wednesday that the “inquiry was quietly shelved” because the DOJ failed “to build a criminal case against Mr. Biden and his aides.” Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor, previously said legal challenges to Biden’s autopen use would likely be unsuccessful. “Many are suggesting that the Biden pardons may now be challenged in light of the disclosures of Biden’s use of an autopen,” Turley wrote on social media in 2025. “The chances of such challenges succeeding are vanishingly low. Presidents are allowed to use the autopen and courts will not presume a dead-hand conspiracy.” While other presidents have used autopens, including Trump — who has said he used it on “unimportant” documents — Biden’s became a flashpoint as scrutiny of his mental acuity grew during his tenure. BIDEN’S ‘AUTOPEN SIGNATURE’ APPEARS ON MOST OFFICIAL DOCS, RAISING CONCERNS OVER WHO CONTROLLED THE WH: REPORT The Republican-led House Oversight Committee investigated the matter, interviewing several former Biden staffers. The committee alleged in a report that Biden’s use of the autopen amounted to a scandal and recommended the DOJ investigate further. “As President Biden declined, his staff abused the autopen and a lax chain-of-command policy to effect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized,” the report read. Trump has been eager to see accountability over the autopen, claiming on social media that any staff who used the autopen on behalf of Biden did so “illegally” and threatening the former president with perjury charges. Biden has forcefully denied the allegations, saying in a statement last year he was in charge of decision-making. “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden said. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.” The committee had homed in on Biden’s pardons, including five controversial pardons for his family members in the final days of his presidency, saying there was a lack of “contemporaneous documentation” to corroborate that Biden directly ordered the pardons. The committee asked the DOJ to investigate “all of former President Biden’s executive actions, particularly clemency actions, to assess whether legal action must be taken to void any action that the former president did not, in fact, take himself.” TRUMP RENEWS ATTACKS ON BIDEN AUTOPEN PARDONS, CLAIMS HE ‘NEVER GAVE THE ORDERS’ Asked for comment, the White House deferred to the DOJ.  DOJ headquarters declined to comment. Fox News’ David Spunt and Jake Gibson contributed to this report.