I expect that as John Roberts considers how to respond to the White House’s display of contempt for the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Abrego Garcia matter, he will take into account public opinion on the Supreme Court and Trump’s immigration policies.

When asked whether immigration helps or hurts the country, almost uniformly more people say helps rather than hurts. But this has been a long run softball question that obscures much harder feelings both right and left. At this moment, public opinion about the Supreme Court and challenges to trump is most instructive.

A Marquette Law School of March 13-27, poll released on April 3. shows strong support for the Supreme Court. Persons were asked, “If the Supreme Court rules against the president in a case, does the president have the power to ignore that ruling, or is the president required to do as the ruling says?”  Per the poll results, “A large majority of the public, 83%, say the president must obey a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, while 17% say the president has the power to ignore such a ruling. The percentage saying he must obey a ruling has increased slightly from 79% in December to 83% in March…. Among Republicans, 78% say the president must obey the Court, as do 82% of independents and 90% of Democrats.”

Per a March 22 -25 poll posted on YouGov on March 26 (some 11 days after the El Salvador flights, the public supported the White House in general, was quite mixed on specific issues pertaining to the Abrego Garcia case, and Republicans fiercely supported him throughout. Here are some excerpts from its report:

51% of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of how Trump is handling immigration, and 44% disapprove. That’s Trump’s highest approval out of 10 issues asked about in the poll — higher than approval for Trump’s handling of crime (47% approve / 38% disapprove), taxes and government spending (46% / 46%), or jobs and the economy (43% / 47%) Trump’s +7 net approval of his handling of immigration is also higher than at almost any time during his first term.

53% of Americans think the Trump administration is making many or some mistakes in who it is deporting, while 20% think it has made only a few mistakes and 14% think it has made no mistakes. Only 33% of Republicans think the Trump administration has made no mistakes in its deportations.

While only 41% of Americans believe that immigrants facing deportation have the right to challenge their deportation in court, 51% believe immigrants facing deportation should have this right.

64% of Americans believe the Trump administration should obey court orders when deporting immigrants, while 18% believe it should not obey them. 88% of Democrats believe the administration should obey orders and only 6% think it shouldn’t. Republicans are more divided: 40% think the Trump administration should obey immigration orders and 33% think it should not.