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By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A broad majority of Americans believe the U.S. president should always obey federal court rulings, even as President Donald Trump's administration criticizes judges who pause his efforts to swiftly remake the government, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
But respondents, particularly members of Trump's Republican Party, were ready to give him more leeway when it came to pursuing one of his top priorities - deporting people who the administration says are living illegally in the U.S.
The three-day survey, which closed on Sunday, found that 82% of respondents - including majorities of Democrats and Republicans - agreed with a statement that the "president of the United States should obey federal court rulings even if the president does not want to."
When questioned specifically about Trump's recent deportation of people under a wartime authority, which a court ordered halted, 76% of Republicans agreed with a statement that "the Trump Administration should continue to deport people they view as a risk despite the court order." Only 8% of Democrats backed the approach.
The survey results suggest that most members of Trump's party still believe the courts should generally be able to check the power of U.S. presidents, but that many Republicans would support Trump defying a court order in order to deport people seen as a threat.
In its biggest clash with the courts yet on immigration, the Trump administration invoked an 18th-century law to deport migrants it said were part of a Venezuelan gang, despite a judge's order temporarily banning the removal of people from the United States under that law.
The administration did not return two deportation flights already in the air at the time of the order, raising questions about whether the administration willfully violated the order.
Trump won the November presidential election after promising mass deportations of historic proportions. During his first month in office, deportation totals lagged his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. However, Biden faced much higher levels of illegal immigration and rapidly deported many of those people, increasing numbers. And Trump has opened new avenues for expelling people from the country, including by sending accused gang members to a Salvadoran jail.
Overall, 45% of respondents to the poll said they approved of his performance in the White House so far, compared with 44% who said so in a survey conducted March 11-12. Trump's approval rating remains higher than it was for much of his first 2017-2021 term in office, and above what Biden enjoyed during much of his administration.
Trump gets the highest marks on immigration, regularly winning the approval of about half of poll respondents, including 49% of people in the latest survey and 50% in the prior.
His ratings are considerably lower on other matters. Only 38% of poll respondents approved of Trump's stewardship of the U.S. economy. Thirty-four percent said he was doing a good job on the cost of living in America. Some 37% said he was doing well on foreign policy.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,030 U.S. adults nationwide. The poll was conducted online and had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
