http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...033001053.html

Study: D.C. Views Immigrants Positively
Area Divided Over Whether Illegals Should Stay or Be Sent Home

By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 30, 2006; 3:39 PM

People who live in the Washington area have a more positive view of immigrants than residents in the rest of the country do, but -- like most Americans -- are divided about whether those who are here illegally should be sent home or allowed to stay, according to a new poll released today.

The poll found that U.S. residents have a growing concern about the impact of immigration, and that many worry about the impact on jobs or believe today's foreign-born population is less likely to assimilate than in the past. But most consider immigration less serious than other problems, and in the Washington area it ranked well below traffic congestion and crime.


The release of the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and the Pew Hispanic Center comes amid a heated debate over comprehensive immigration legislation in Congress, and the survey was commissioned to play a role in that debate. Some lawmakers want to put emphasis on border security; others would create either a permanent path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants or a temporary guest-worker program.

The poll of 2,000 adults was taken between Feb. 8 and March 7. A separate survey was taken of 800 residents each in the Washington area and four other regions that are recent major immigrant destinations -- Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham, Chicago and Las Vegas. Only in Phoenix, located in a state where the governor has declared a state of emergency over illegal immigration, was immigration seen to be a dominant local problem.

The poll found that a growing majority of Americans hold positive opinions of immigrants as individuals, but that a rising share believe they are more burden than asset to the country. And there is no clear majority view for what to do about illegal immigrants.

"People are worried about the cost of immigration, but at the same time they view immigrants with some admiration," said Gabriel Escobar, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center. "That's what sets up the ambivalence."

Nationally, the poll found the country nearly evenly divided over what to do about illegal immigrants: Thirty-two percent think they should be allowed to stay permanently, 32 percent would create a temporary worker program that would require them to go home eventually and 27 percent want all of them told to leave.

Residents of the Washington area were less inclined to deport illegal immigrants than the rest of the country, but no one option won a majority: Thirty-seven percent would let them stay, 28 percent would create a temporary worker option and 21 percent would require them to leave.

People who live in this region, where at least one in six residents is an immigrant, also are more welcoming of foreign-born people than those elsewhere. Most people in the country say immigrants as a whole are a burden on the country, and the number is growing. In the Washington area, most people say that immigrants are an asset.

Similarly, people who live in greater Washington -- a region that stretches from southern Maryland to eastern West Virginia -- are more likely to say that immigrants take jobs that other U.S. residents would not do, that they pay their share of taxes and that they are not on welfare.

But Washington area residents do agree with the rest of the country on how to stem illegal immigration: Half say employers should be penalized for hiring them, a third want to expand the U.S. Border Patrol and less than 10 percent favor building more fences.