Brian Kilmeade Says GOP Fears ICE Arrests Put Hispanic Votes 'in Jeopardy'

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said Monday that worries about how aggressively immigration agents have made arrests could cost President Donald Trump the Hispanic support Republicans are counting on in November, though he put the concern in other people's mouths and then defended the arrests.

He spoke on The Brian Kilmeade Show four weeks before the midterms. New polling shows Latino voters, who moved sharply toward Trump in 2024, are moving back toward Democrats.

"A lot of people feel as though the Hispanic votes in jeopardy for the President of the United States to capitalize on the redistricting because they said an overzealousness in arrests on the illegal immigrants," Kilmeade said.

Brian Kilmeade on ICE Arrests and Hispanic Voters

Kilmeade said the worry was coming from the right. "That's what people are saying that people worry about on the right that they went too far," he said, adding, "I think that there was some incidents that go on, I think it's a combination of things."

He then defended the approach. "When you see someone's illegal and they're a criminal, you go get them. And when they're hanging out with other people here illegally, you grab them too," he said, adding that people who skip their immigration hearings are also targeted. "They're getting out by the thousands."

Earlier in the show, Kilmeade said Hispanics and voters without college degrees were Trump's "biggest improvements" in 2024, adding: "if I'm to believe the polls, I think he's hurting on them right now."

What the Latino Polling Shows

Kilmeade attributed to CBS a 27 percent approval figure for Trump among Hispanic voters and 59 percent for Democrats. Those figures are not from CBS. They come from an NBC News/Telemundo poll of 800 Latino registered voters conducted Sept. 21-28. In that poll, 27 percent approved of Trump, and 59 percent said they wanted Democrats to control Congress, against 35 percent who wanted Republicans in charge. NBC says that lead is double the one Democrats held among Latino voters at this point in 2024.

A CBS News/YouGov poll showed a similar picture: CBS found Republicans' share of the Hispanic vote running behind Trump's 2024 showing.

That is a steep drop from the last election. The NBC News exit poll found that Trump won 45 percent of Latino voters in 2024, up from 32 percent in 2020. A Pew Research Center study of validated voters put his share at 48 percent, against 51 percent for Kamala Harris.

Across all voters, Trump's approval stands at 37.5 percent in PolitiKool's polling average. Democrats lead by 8.1 points in PolitiKool's generic ballot average.

Enforcement or the Economy?

Lawrence Jones, who joined Kilmeade on the show, argued that enforcement was only part of the story. "It wasn't just the ICE enforcement. It was the economy as well," he said, pointing to Venezuelan and Cuban communities in Miami.

The polls back him on both points. In the NBC News/Telemundo survey, 33 percent of Latino voters ranked inflation and cost of living as their most important issue. Disapproval of Trump was 78 percent on the cost of living, 74 percent on the economy and 69 percent on immigration, and two-thirds said his enforcement measures had gone too far. CBS found Hispanic voters ranking the economy and inflation much as other voters do, while more of them said Trump was focusing too much on deportations. Hispanic voters also said they think Hispanic people are subjected to more ICE deportation searches.

"If we don't break some of that when it comes to the Hispanics, then the Dems will win the midterms, at least for the House," Jones said.

Where the Hispanic Swing Matters

The redistricting Kilmeade mentioned is mostly in Texas. There, Republicans redrew the congressional map in 2025 at the urging of Trump's political team. The GOP's first draft targeted five Democratic-held districts, and four of them would be majority Hispanic as redrawn, the Texas Tribune reported, though the Houston and Central Texas seats are almost exactly 50 percent Hispanic.

The Senate race is in play too. Democrat James Talarico leads Republican Ken Paxton by 3.6 points in PolitiKool's Texas Senate average. CNN's Harry Enten has called Paxton the least popular Texas GOP Senate nominee this century.

What Happens Next

Neither he nor Kilmeade said what Republicans should change on enforcement to win those voters back.