Who would have thought..........

Posted on Mon, Jun. 11, 2007

IMMIGRATION POLL
60 percent in Florida say legalize immigrants


Ofelia Aguilar, center, surrounded by her four American-born children, listens as immigration issues are discussed Sunday in Homestead.

Three in five likely Florida voters say they back legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants largely along the lines of a controversial measure now stalled in the U.S. Senate.

The findings of the Zogby International statewide poll, conducted for The Miami Herald and WFOR-CBS4 in association with The Palm Beach Post and WPEC-CBS 12, mirror other polls' national results. The Senate compromise measure crashed into a wall of opposition raised by liberals and conservatives who dislike parts of the bipartisan bill for different reasons.

The poll's findings come as President Bush scrambles to try to get the support of Republican senators who view the measure as undeserved amnesty for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

On Tuesday, Bush will meet with conservative Republican senators in an attempt to persuade them that the bill is tough on border enforcement and far from amnesty. It would extract heavy fines and long waits for immigrants to legalize their status.

Some of those requirements -- among them fines of $5,000 and a proposed point system that puts the nation's employment needs above family unification for immigrants -- are opposed by Democrats, who say the fines are too hefty and the waits too long.

In Florida, however, there's strong support for the Senate bill from voters of every political persuasion, race and ethnic group.

John Zogby, president of Zogby International, joked that Florida is not a ''Lou Dobbsian state,'' a reference to CNN host Lou Dobbs, who has become a leading opponent of illegal immigration.

BLACK VOTERS

Zogby said one of the surprising results was that a majority of black likely voters contacted statewide expressed support for legalization, even taking into account the margin of error of eight percentage points for that subgroup. As the debate has unfolded, some black leaders have voiced concern that foreign workers might take jobs and depress wages for blacks.

The statewide poll of 801 likely voters, conducted June 4-6, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Zogby also oversampled in South Florida, polling 407 likely voters in Miami-Dade, Broward, Monroe and Palm Beach counties, and those findings have a margin of error of five percentage points.

In South Florida, 61 percent of all likely voters polled agreed that immigration revisions should include a path to citizenship for most illegal immigrants who have no criminal record, pay a $5,000 fine and wait their turn behind legal immigrants to apply for permanent U.S. residency. Statewide, 60 percent agreed.

''I don't think anybody should be excluded,'' said one voter polled, Luis Torres, a 35-year-old Miami resident born in Chicago of a Cuban mother and an Ecuadorean father. ``We all came from somewhere.''

Two in five of those polled in Florida and almost half of voters contacted in South Florida took issue with another feature in the bill that would give preference to skilled foreign immigrants over those with extended U.S. families. They prefer that immigrants with U.S. family ties remain a priority.

The Senate bill would enable undocumented immigrants, including about one million in Florida, to obtain a Z visa, which after several years would allow them to apply for residency and eventually citizenship.

Asked if undocumented workers take jobs that no one else wants, 58 percent statewide and 54 percent in South Florida said they agreed or strongly agreed.

Ilene Schlesinger, a former office manager who lives in Monroe County, said today's undocumented immigrants deserve a chance -- just as her grandparents had more than a half-century ago.

Schlesinger said her grandparents arrived illegally during World War II, fleeing from Nazi persecution in Poland and Hungary.

''They did not have proper papers, but they were able to escape the Holocaust that way,'' said Schlesinger, 53.

James Causa and Caridad Monzón, both Cuban Americans and longtime Miami residents, summed up the feelings of most Florida respondents about undocumented immigrants.

''They should be given a chance, as long as they don't have a criminal record and don't want to destroy the government,'' said Causa, a 74-year-old teacher. ``They gave it to me.''

IDENTIFY WITH THEM

Though Cubans qualify to stay under the Cuban Adjustment Act, Causa said he identified with undocumented immigrants because the visa he used to enter the United States in the 1960s was ``probably fake.''

Monzón, an 89-year-old retired seamstress, echoed Causa's position.

''They should legalize them because they come to this country to seek better opportunities that they don't have in their country,'' she said.

Monzón broke ranks with the majority who disagreed with the idea of giving priority to skilled immigrants -- even though she entered the United States in 1946 on an immigrant visa requested by a brother in New York.

''The ones with employment skills should be the priority because they are educated and they can contribute more to society,'' she said.

Not all immigrants or children of immigrants backed the legalization plan.

''I applied for a green card and waited years to get into the country,'' said Canadian-born Alfredo Ronca, a 44-year-old manager at an electronics company who lives in Pompano Beach.

''I don't have a problem with immigrants -- my parents were immigrants from Italy,'' he said. ``But if you are here illegally, that means you broke the law. I did everything legally, so why should we give them a free pass?''

Tony Samra, the child of a Central American father and an American mother, agreed.

''My father came to the United States in 1947 from Tegucigalpa, Honduras,'' said Samra, 58, a professor of computer science and information technology who lives in Delray Beach.

''He got in line and applied for an immigrant visa and went through the legal process, served in the Army . . . did everything by the book,'' he said. ``These people should do things properly, like my dad did.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/135496.html