(RNS) — Support for President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration has dropped across all religious groups over the past year, with approval plummeting among white nonevangelicals or mainline Protestants, according to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.
Conducted in February and released on Thursday (March 26), the PRRI survey of 5,479 adults found majority support for Trump’s signature immigration policies is now limited to only two religious groups — white evangelicals and white Catholics. Even there, support has eroded since March 2025: White evangelical support fell from 78% to 69%, and white Catholic support sunk from 63% to 53%.
The most dramatic shift was among white nonevangelical Protestants; their support for Trump’s immigration policies plummeted nearly 20 points, from 64% approval to just 46%. PRRI defines this group as generally including white mainline Protestants, who make up about 13% of the U.S. population, as of 2024 — the same share as white evangelicals.
The shift among white nonevangelicals follows a year of mainline Protestant leaders voicing passionate opposition to Trump’s mass deportation efforts. The pushback began the first full day of Trump’s second term, when the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, preached a sermon with the president in the pews, asking him to “have mercy” on immigrants. Since then, a growing number of mainline Christian denominations and groups have filed lawsuits c …