Donald Trump's most controversial executive orders have proved to be his most popular, according to a new poll, suggesting that protests and their attendant media coverage aren't reliable indicators of what Americans expect of their new president.

Fifty-five per cent of registered voters support Trump's travel ban affecting seven Muslim-majority countries. The same number approve of his plan to deny federal funds to cities that shield illegal-immigrant criminals from deportation.

The numbers come from a new Morning Consult poll conducted for the Washington, D.C.-area Politico newspaper.

Also winning the approval of an American majority is the president's demand that bureaucrats freeze new federal regulations until his administration can review them and assess their impacts. That measure has 54-percent approval.

President Donald Trump's two most controversial and protest-generating decisions so far have turned out to be his most popular, according to a new national poll of registered voters

The president's travel-ban order affecting people from seven Muslim-majority countries and his plan to de-fund 'sanctuary' cities both have 55-percent backing nationally

Trump's national security and border-control orders have generated lawsuits and mass protests, but those points of view appear to be in the minority

The travel ban, which Trump signed a week after taking office, led to immediate airport protests as refugees and would-be immigrants from some nations were questioned at U.S. airports and stopped from boarding planes overseas.

The order suspended the entry of all refugees for 120 days and made the pause 'indefinite' for Syrians. It also paused the entry of nearly all travelers from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen for 90 days.

Trump's executive order on 'sanctuary' cities makes them ineligible for most federal grants. It also promises a weekly list of 'criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor' federal requests for help holding them for immigration proceedings.

That move, too, has created outcry, with San Francisco's municipal government vowing to stand its ground and some California officials talking about turning the Golden State into a giant sanctuary jurisdiction for illegal immigrants.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security, can issue 'detainer' orders to city and county jails, directing them to hold people on behalf of the federal government for up to 48 hours past the time when they would otherwise be released.

Sanctuary cities disregard those orders. Some go further, refusing to tell ICE who their illegal-immigrant prisoners are.

Trump himself tweeted a graphic from the Morning Consult poll on Wednesday, crowing that what pollsters are calling an 'immigration ban' is more popular than previously thought

On Wednesday a pair of Boston-area suburbs sued the federal government, saying Trump's order can't be enforced.

'It's an unconstitutional effort to commandeer local resources to do the job of the federal government,' attorneys for Chelsea and Lawrence, Massachusetts wrote in their lawsuit.

The towns say they can choose to ignore federal law, in the interest of setting policies that lower tensions and increase cooperation between local police and people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Despite the visible uproar, however, the Morning Consult poll shows only 33 per cent of Americans oppose that measure.

The travel ban has attracted the disapproval of just 38 per cent.

Trump's signature on the 'travel ban' order led to a long weekend of protests like this one at Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport

The remaining eight executive orders in the new poll won support from between 46 and 49 per cent of registered voters.

None of them is 'under water' – political-speak for having more disapproval than approval.

Those measures include Trump's moves to complete the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, his withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and his decision to end the use of taxpayer dollars to support overseas groups that perform abortions.

Near the top of that pack is the president's much-heralded move ordering Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to start work on a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Morning Consult poll found 48 per cent of registered voters approve of the wall order, with 42 per cent opposed.

A Quinnipiac University poll released later on Wednesday came to a dramatically different conclusion, finding the wall loses voters' support by a 38-59 margin.

On Friday a CNN/ORC poll determined that six in 10 Americans oppose the wall and half don't like Trump's travel ban.

Trump fired back on Twitter, writing: 'Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.'

On Wednesday morning the president told a police convention that 'the wall is getting designed right now.'

'A lot of people say, "Oh, oh, Trump was only kidding with the wall." I wasn't kidding. I don't kid,' he said.

'Nah. I don't kid. I don't kid about things like that, I can tell you.'