CBS poll shows Trump underwater on Iran as ICE targets Haitians

Americans described the Iran conflict mainly as "uncertain" and "frustrated" in a CBS News poll updated July 26, and most said the war had become more difficult than Donald Trump expected. A separate CBS News poll on April 12 found few Americans thought U.S. goals in Iran were being met yet, with worry, stress and anger running through responses. Together, the numbers point to a public still waiting for a clear aim before it grants patience for a drawn-out conflict.

That label matters politically because uncertainty is not the same as disagreement. A president can survive criticism over a military decision, but frustration signals that voters are not seeing a path to results. The July poll suggests many Americans were not reading the Iran fight as a decisive show of force, but as a conflict whose costs and endpoint remained unclear.

The same administration was moving on another front with Haitian migrants. Internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement plans called for ramping up arrests and deportations of Haitians, including in Ohio, and for putting migrants quickly on deportation flights to Haiti. More than 300,000 Haitians were preparing to lose deportation protections as Temporary Protected Status was set to end, and the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on March 11 to clear the way to end TPS for more than 350,000 Haitian immigrants.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, called the deportation plan a "mistake" and said it could send people "back to hell." Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, and South Florida have been living with deportation uncertainty, and the pressure reaches beyond immigration enforcement. In South Florida, health care could be threatened as TPS expiration looms, a reminder that the policy affects patients, workers and the systems that depend on them.

The history of U.S. enforcement against Haitians is already stark. In August 2021, border officials stopped Haitian migrants more than 7,500 times, a 37% increase from July, and nearly 4,000 were expelled in nine days, including hundreds of families with children. The new deportation push lands in that same backdrop of recurring crisis, where military uncertainty abroad and immigration crackdowns at home both test how long the public will tolerate policies without a visible end point.