South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds, running for reelection this year, has urged the administration to focus deportations on unauthorized immigrants who have broken laws besides immigration rules. He said those with court permission to remain should be left alone and ICE should target people now damaging communities, as most Americans prefer pursuing other lawbreakers for fairness.

Rounds has long supported millions of unauthorized immigrants staying and increasing immigration. In 2019 he pushed a bill easing EB-5 green cards, parole, and citizenship for Chinese real-estate investors and opposed Mike Lee’s legislation lest it hinder South Dakota dairy farmers hiring mostly unauthorized Mexican workers. Texas Senator John Cornyn, who lost his primary, and outgoing North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis have criticized the plans, Cornyn citing divided views on long-settled residents and Tillis calling them politically unwise and ethically wrong.