Voters of all stripes rejected cruel mass deportations and high costs
A Warning to Republicans and Democrats: Deliver legal pathways and solutions—not indiscriminate and cruel deportations
Executive Summary: Stephen Miller’s mass deportation agenda delivered a historic defeat to Republicans in the November 3 midterms. Democrats won control of both the House and Senate. Miller’s agenda directly helped Democrats win 19 House seats and flip seven Senate seats as of early Wednesday November 4, including sweeping every statewide race in Texas from Senator and Governor down, handing Democrats their first victories for these positions in decades. Kansas, which recently saw harsh enforcement activity in the southwestern part of the state that brought economic activity to a halt, elected its first Democrat Senator since 1932.
This shellacking directly resulted from targeting long-term immigrants with no criminal record, driving up costs, costing American jobs, disrupting businesses, and terrorizing communities. Farmers, ranchers, builders, restaurant owners and other business leaders lost essential, long-term workers to raids or to the termination of legal work permits.
Rural, suburban and independent voters who supported President Trump in 2024 rejected enforcement that clearly went beyond targeting the “worst of the worst.” 80% of deportees in the first 18 months of Trump’s second term had no criminal conviction.
Many Hispanic voters who backed President Trump in 2024 were themselves profiled by immigration enforcement agents or saw relatives, colleagues, friends, employees and community members detained and deported. This factored heavily in their votes.
Congress and the Administration have everything they need to take action now:
With the border already secure, the new Democratic majority and President Trump have a historic opportunity to pass work permit protections and legal status for long-term immigrant workers who have worked and contributed for years.
The American Business Immigration Coalition Action (ABIC Action) and our 2,200 CEOs urge Congress and President Trump to act immediately in the lame-duck session by passing one or all of the common-sense bipartisan solutions currently awaiting congressional action.
These include in the U.S. House the American Dream and Promise Act (Garcia/Salazar) currently being proposed via a discharge petition; the Dignity Act of 2025 (Salazar/Escobar); the American Families United Act (Salazar/Escobar); and the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act (Thompson). In the U.S. Senate bills include the Dream Act of 2026 (Murkowski/Durbin); the State-Sponsored Visa Pilot Program Act (Curtis/Kelly); Haitian TPS Extension (Markey); the SECURE Act (Van Hollen); and the Fairness for Immigrant Families Act (Cortez Masto).
Hispanic voters were clear. No more mass deportations: Provide protections to long-term immigrants
ABIC Action and Comité de 100 warned in February 2026 that Latino voters would decide control of the House, and that the Republican majority was most exposed in heavily Latino districts. These predictions followed the 2025 governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, where Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won Latino voters by approximately two to one. September 2026 polling forecasted Latino voters would be strongly motivated by opposition targeting law-abiding immigrants and support for legal status for long-term immigrants.
In Texas, James Talarico (D) won a Senate seat in a state Trump carried by 14 points in 2024. Republicans won this seat by 10 points in 2020; Talarico won it by 12.3 points. In bellwether, high-Latino population Cameron County, the southernmost district in Texas, Talarico won by 38 points. Latinos are about a third of eligible voters in Texas.
Latino voters in South Texas, where builders say a house now takes a year to build instead of four and a half months, appear to have overwhelmingly moved toward Talarico. As Benny Melendez, a Rio Grande Valley homebuilder and three-time Trump voter, explained
“Construction trucks with ladders are regularly tailed and stopped by ICE, arresting our long term skill workers. I’m tired of seeing 40- and 50-year-old men weeping with fear. ICE removed the Valley’s hallmark of low cost of living and family unity.”
The Republican-led legislature redrew four South Texas districts, TX-15, TX-23, TX-28 and TX-34 last year so that Trump would have carried each by 10 to 18 points, and Latinos are 54 to 87%of eligible voters in all four. They lost every one of these races.
- In TX-15 Bobby Pulido defeated Rep. De La Cruz by 24.6 points in a district where 75% of eligible voters are Latino and local communities have seen tens of thousands of detentions over the last two years. Trump had carried the district in 2024 by 18 points.
- In TX-23 Republican Brandon Herrera lost an open race for a seat Trump carried by 15 points in 2024, in which 54% of eligible voters are Latino. Herrera consistently aligned himself with mass deportations. Democrat Katy Padilla Stout (D) won by 7.9 points.
- In TX-28, a district Republicans redrew so Trump would have carried it by 10 points and in which Latinos are 87% of eligible voters,Rep. Cuellar (D) won by 36.2 points.
- In TX-34, whichTexas Republicans redrew TX-34 so that Trump would have carried it by 10 points,Representative Gonzalez (D) won by 15.8 points. Latinos are 72% of eligible voters in the district.
In South Florida, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate since 1988 to carry Miami-Dade County, and an exit poll found he won 56% of Florida’s Hispanic vote. South Florida Representative Maria-Elvira Salazar (R) has just barely survived a challenge. Salazar has been the most outspoken Republican lawmaker urging solutions that allow long-term immigrants to work and live legally. She is the lead sponsor of the bipartisan Dignity Act and warned President Trump in a September ad that some of his immigration enforcement had gone too far. Voters in her Miami district, where 71% of eligible voters are Latino, recognized this and re-elected her by 0.46 points.
In southern Arizona, Republican Juan Ciscomani lost a border district where 21% of eligible voters are Latino. Representative Ciscomani declined to support any of a number of bipartisan efforts that would have provided protections to long-term immigrants, as his opponent JoAnna Mendoza pointed out repeatedly. Mendoza beat Ciscomani with roughly 53% of the vote.
Representative Mackenzie (R) lost the Lehigh Valley, where 15% of eligible voters are Latino and Trump won by three points in 2024 Central Pennsylvania experienced repeated enforcement targeting long-term community members with no criminal record.
For the first time ever, Democrats won a northern Nevada seat (NV-2) that Trump carried by 14 points, where about 17% of eligible voters are Latino after Representative Mark Amodei (R) retired. Teresa Benitez-Thompson (D) defeated Dave Flippo by 6.6 points.
Even Republicans who have been outspoken in their support for protections for long-term immigrants were not able to withstand the backlash from Latino voters, suggesting that absent measurable progress and a change in policy, individual members remain vulnerable regardless of their personal leadership on the issue.
Representative Gabe Evans (R) was an outspoken co-sponsor of the Dignity Act and the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act, warning that deportations would hurt Colorado farmers. Despite this, Stephen Miller’s immigration policies cost him a district where 30% of eligible voters are Latino. He lost by 14.7 points.
Representative David Valadao (R) spoke up for Central Valley employers and farmworkers when ICE escalated its presence in the Central Valley, but voters in a district where 59% of eligible voters are Latino rejected the administration’s mass deportation campaign and punished him for it. He suffered a double-digit defeat.
Asian Americans voters–the nation’s fastest-growing group of eligible voters–rejected mass deportation, too
Asian Americans are the fastest-growing group of eligible voters in the country, up 20% since 2022 to 13.7 million. They make up 9% of eligible voters in Nevada, 8% in New Jersey and New York, and 6% in Virginia.
Texas is home to about 1.1 million Asian Americans, the third most of any state and representing roughly one in 20 eligible voters. Asian Americans are also concentrated in the Houston and Dallas areas. In Fort Bend County, they make up about one-fifth of eligible voters, and in Collin County about one-sixth.
As a whole, the voting bloc moved toward Republicans in 2024, though Biden won their vote 70 to 30 in 2020, while Harris won them 57 to 40.
Texas followed the national pattern.
In majority-Asian precincts, Harris ran about 13 points behind Biden in Fort Bend County and about 8 points behind him in Collin County, though she still carried both. A year later, Republicans had lost those gains. About 8 in 10 Asian American voters backed Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, and Abigail Spanberger won them easily in Virginia.
The deportation campaign explains much of the reversal.
- 73% of Asian American adults view ICE unfavorably.14
- Approximately two-thirds say the administration has gone too far on deportations
- About half say they or someone they know was detained or deported, started carrying proof of status, or changed their routines out of fear
- 90% of Asian American registered voters planned to vote this year, up from 84% in 202216
- 68% called immigration very or extremely important to their vote
This data proves that neither party can count on these voters. They moved toward Republicans when the border looked out of control and turned away when enforcement reached their neighbors and coworkers. Their votes reward the party that pairs border enforcement with legal status for long-term workers.
Voters of all backgrounds made the connection: Stability for long-term immigrants is an affordability policy
America was already short 1.7 million workers before the raids began and the economic and affordability impacts have been felt broadly.
In July, 49% of Americans disapproved of ICE and 29% approved (AP-NORC). In June, 58% opposed deporting every undocumented immigrant (Gallup). In September, ICE arrests at meatpacking plants in Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal slowed beef processing in Kansas, and cattle groups warned that beef prices would rise. Homebuilders say the country is short about 300,000 construction workers, and they blame enforcement for keeping legal workers off job sites. Removing essential workers from key sectors directly gutted family budgets, forcing costs up by 15% in housing, 17% in senior care, and 4% in groceries.
- Senator Marshall (R) lost his Kansas Senate seat to Adam Hamilton in a state Trump carried by 16 points, the first time a Democrat won since 1932. The Kansas Livestock Association, which endorsed him in 2016 and 2020, declined to endorse in the race this year, and two former Republican governors backed Adam Hamilton (D). When ICE arrested workers around ranches and meatpacking plants in Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal in September, creating turmoil across rural communities, disrupting businesses and increasing beef prices, Kansans of all stripes saw what was at stake.
- Senator Susan Collins (R) lost her Maine Senate seat, which she won by nearly nine points in 2020. ICE’s January operation in Portland and Lewiston, which DHS said produced more than 100 arrests in its first week, brought mass deportation into Maine communities and into the race, and during which an ICE agent murdered immigrant father Johan Guerrero.
- Representative Derrick Van Orden (R) lost a western Wisconsin dairy district Trump carried by seven points. Dairy farms there rely on immigrant workers, and the administration’s deportation campaign put that workforce at risk as Rep. Van Orden himself warned on multiple occasions.
- Representative Scott Perry (R) lost a central Pennsylvania seat Trump carried by five points in a region where ag producers have seen their workers targeted for detention. .
The border is secure – Now, Americans want crucial protections for long-term immigrants
Some will say this election was only about the economy. It is clear that voters understood that immigration and the economy are inextricably linked. In Kansas, the Central Valley and South Texas, voters watched raids take workers out of plants, fields and job sites, and they saw the impact on jobs and their grocery bills. Voters want what America’s employers have asked for all along: a secure border, and a legal way for law-abiding immigrants who have worked here for years to keep working and paying taxes.
For more information, see our post-election press event.
About the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC): ABIC is a bipartisan coalition of over 2,200+ CEOs, business owners, and trade associations across more than 30 states. ABIC promotes common sense immigration reform that advances economic competitiveness, provides companies with both the high-skilled and low-skilled talent they need, and allows the integration of immigrants into our economy as consumers, workers, entrepreneurs, and citizens.
About ABIC Action: The American Business Immigration Coalition Action (ABIC Action) was created to mobilize the power of American businesses and the general public for sensible immigration solutions. ABIC Action develops and advocates for policies that promote common-sense state and federal immigration reform to benefit the people and economy of our country.