Americans Swing Strongly Against Immigration Reform Proposal

Shockingly, public polling conducted during debate over the Senate immigration reform bill found majority support, but now the particulars of immigration reform are not particularly popular.

Although most voters —  64 percent — still view legal immigration as good for America, a new survey conducted by Rasmussen Reports found 51 percent of Americans oppose the Senate immigration reform plan that would triple immigration over the next 10 years. In fact, when actually told the particulars of the plan, one-in-three favor cutting the number of legal immigrants to this country, even if the border is totally secured to prevent illegal immigration.

The number of Americans who view immigration within the boundaries of the law favorably is down a tick from 68 percent measured in March of last year, with 23 percent viewing legal immigration as bad for the United States. Also, a new Quinnipiac University poll found both independent and Republican voters have swung strongly against an immigration reform amnesty since last May, despite falsely posing to respondents a choice that referenced “a path to citizenship.”

A recent column from Ann Coulter noted the questionable methodology used by liberal public pollsters on the issue of immigration, which we have hammered here at PPD. As with the survey conducted by the liberal Brookings Institute, for instance, the wording of the survey was misleading, at best. The pollster asked the respondents to choose which proposal they viewed to be the most favorable to deal with the issue of immigration, with the options being:

• “The best way to solve the country’s illegal immigration problem is to secure our borders and arrest and deport all those who are here illegally”

or,

• “The best way to solve the country’s illegal immigration problem is to both secure our borders and provide an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S.”

Of course, those who are opposed to the Senate immigration reform bill are not proposing to round-up illegal immigrants and deport them, even though a whopping 60 percent of the American say we are not aggressive enough with deportation. But the idea that the Democrats are proposing “to both secure our borders and provide an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S.” in the Senate immigration reform bill, is equally preposterous.

Those of us who remember 1986, which include all but 5 percent of Americans who foolishly believe Democratic promises would be kept, are hearing “if you like your border secure, you can keep your border secure. If you like your path to citizenship, you can keep your path to citizenship, period. No one is talking about taking that away from you.”