Thread: Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigrants is based on a very shoddy poll

Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigrants is based on a very shoddy poll

By Philip Bump December 7 at 5:06 PM

At 4:16 p.m. Monday afternoon, Donald Trump reached an inevitable new nadir in his campaign's fixation on the Islamic State and Muslim immigrants. In a statement released to the press, Trump demanded "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" -- refugees, visitors, anyone.

There are a variety of ways to critique Trump's proposal, including the simple logistics of the thing. Identifying people of the Muslim faith at the border — and assuming that a terrorist would necessarily fail that test – seems essentially impossible and a remarkable demonstration of confidence in a government agency by the Republican front-runner. But let's focus instead on the purported justification Trump uses to bolster his probably-political-popular idea.

In the statement outlining his proposal, Trump notes two bits of data. Here's a direct quote:

According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing "25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad" and 51% of those polled "agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah."

We'll start with the Pew data. Trump doesn't link to it, so it's not clear what exactly he's looking at. The polling firm has found that Muslims across the globe are overwhelmingly opposed to the Islamic State and in 2007 that Muslims were much less likely to view suicide bombings as justified than five years prior. Pew also found a partisan split in which Republican Americans were far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than Democrats. In 2011, they learned that U.S. Muslims almost never consider suicide bombings to be justified.

Since Trump simply said that "large segments" of the "Muslim population" hate the United States, it's hard to tie that to a number. (If we missed something, by the way, we're happy to add it.) But that second set of data, from the "Center for Security Policy," is more important — and it's possible that Trump simply overlaid those findings onto Pew's estimates of the number of Muslims in the United States.

The Center for Security Policy is an organization run by Frank Gaffney, who is identified as an anti-Muslim extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The survey Trump cites was conducted earlier this year on behalf of the organization.
CONTENT FROM BP Delivering energy to America
Learn more about how one company buys and sells the energy needed to power the country. By BP

And now all of the various caveats.

1. This was an online survey of 600 people. The only available information about how the poll was conducted indicates that it was conducted online; Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative has reported that it was conducted using an opt-in Internet survey. That makes it less reliable as a national bellwether than more traditional polling methods where all members of a population have a chance of being selected.

2. The questions asked were agree/disagree, which can favor an "agree" response. Our pollster Scott Clement points to research suggesting that people answering poll questions are more likely to agree than disagree with a provided statement. The key questions -- on a) having a choice of being governed by Sharia and b) whether violence against America is justified -- were asked in that agree/disagree format, leading more people to say they agree than might be accurate.

3. Many U.S. Muslims are first generation immigrants, who may speak English as a second language. According to Pew, 63 percent of U.S. Muslims were born in another country, suggesting that their ability to read and write English may be limited. In which case a nuanced survey question may be more difficult to navigate.

4. The organization conducting the survey matters. There is no question that the results of the survey — which would certainly bear re-testing if accurate — were influenced by the organization that paid for it. The Center for Security Policy likely sought poll numbers showing that a significant number of Muslims were supportive of violence against the United States, and the center got what it paid for.

And now, the ace in the hole:

5. That survey is of U.S. Muslims. Meaning that even this already questionable survey has absolutely no relationship to the people from overseas that Trump hopes to restrict.

There is, in fact, no reliable evidence that a large percentage of Muslims in the United States — or, for that matter, Muslims hoping to travel to the United States — support doing harm to the country or plan to commit acts of violence. Trump has learned over the course of the past few months that railing against Mexican immigrants and Muslim migrants pays political dividends. He, like Gaffney, is happy to seize on questionable numbers to make his point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...at-its-center/

3. Many U.S. Muslims are first generation immigrants, who may speak English as a second language. According to Pew, 63 percent of U.S. Muslims were born in another country, suggesting that their ability to read and write English may be limited. In which case a nuanced survey question may be more difficult to navigate.

And now, the ace in the hole:

5. That survey is of U.S. Muslims. Meaning that even this already questionable survey has absolutely no relationship to the people from overseas that Trump hopes to restrict.

Hmmmm .... does anyone else see it?

Philip, your so-called "ace in the hole" isn't your ace, it's Trump's. You've just quoted Pew research stating that 63% of US Muslims weren't born here and don't even speak English well enough to take the poll, that means they came in through immigration channels, so assuming they took the poll because they do have enough English to recognize the words "Jihad" and "Shariah" beliefs they support, then these ARE IN FACT the same people Trump's ban on Muslim immigration will keep out of the country.

The father of Farook has been here in the US for at least 30 years and his wife is one of these "conservatives" and he himself hates Israel and believes it will be gone in 2 years so he told the Italian newspaper .... after which the "family" attorneys said he was on medication and doesn't remember having said it ... right ....

But I commend the author of the NYT article for including the word "immigration" when talking about Trump's plan, because it only applies to immigrants and many other news media sources are calling it a travel ban when it isn't, it's a ban on Muslim immigration for national security reasons, and these are the people we need to keep out of the country because we don't need them to begin with just as we don't need any more immigrants for many years, and with respect to Muslims, we don't want them until at least their Jihad and Shariah crap exists no more anywhere in the world. Their people, their religion, their culture, their choice to end it or not. If not, they will not be entering the United States. That's the way it should be. And under a Trump Presidency, that's the way it will be.

Mayor bans Trump after candidate suggests blocking Muslims

Mayor of St. Petersburg tweets that candidate’s not welcome

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. A Florida mayor says he’s banning Donald Trump from his city after the Republican presidential candidate called for the U.S. to stop Muslims from entering the country.

Playing off of Trump’s earlier words, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman tweeted Monday that he was banning Trump “until we fully understand the dangerous threat posed by all Trumps.”

The Tampa Bay Times reports the mayor’s jab was retweeted more than 1,200 times in about an hour.

Trump’s proposed ban is in response to what he called hatred among “large segments of the Muslim population” toward Americans.

Trump said the ban should be implemented “until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses.”

Trump’s proposal was quickly condemned by other Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

Read more here: Mayor bans Trump after candidate suggests blocking Muslims | The Charlotte Observer

Rick Kriseman on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Kriseman

LOL!! A Jewish Democrat Lawyer barring a Presidential candidate from his city because the candidate wants to ban Muslim immigration until our representatives in Congress figure out what is going on with terrorism and national security.

I guess he doesn't understand that a soon to be majority of the American People, already support a ban on All Immigration until there is evidence that we need immigrants for some useful no-risk purpose that benefits US citizens and doesn't cost us jobs, educations, money, welfare, businesses, lives.

Step it up, Trump. Go For the Gold and call for a 10 to 20 Year Moratorium on All Immigration. (You already have in your immigration position posted on your website, so just shout it from the roof-tops so your whole plan is out there for the pundits and morons to scrap over.)