Thread: Fox News Publishes Push Poll, Pushes Amnesty

Fox News Publishes Push Poll, Pushes Amnesty

By Jon Feere,
January 24, 2014

Nearly all of the polls allegedly showing public support for amnesty suffer from the same defect: they are designed to "push" respondents towards a certain answer. In other words, they are written in a way designed to elicit a pro-amnesty result with the use of tired pro-amnesty talking points that are meant to make the "pro-enforcement" option seem less attractive.

The latest flawed poll comes from Fox News, and many other pro-amnesty news outlets have jumped to report the results. Conducted January 19-21, the poll alleges that 68 percent of registered voters support amnesty (specifically, option 3 below). But a closer look at the way the options are worded suggests that the poll was designed to advance a pro-amnesty agenda, rather than to measure public opinion on legalizing illegal aliens and doubling legal immigration.

The question and available responses are worded as follows:

Which of the following comes closest to your view about what government policy should be toward illegal immigrants currently in the United States? Should the government ...

1) Send all illegal immigrants back to their home country2) Have a guest worker program that allows immigrants to remain in the United States to work, but only for a limited amount of time
3) Allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country and eventually qualify for U.S. citizenship, but only if they meet certain requirements like paying back taxes, learning English, and passing a background check

4) Don't know

The pollsters found that 15 percent support option 1, while only 13 percent support option 2, and 68 percent support option 3. Three percent answered "Don't know".

Of the answer options, the poll really attempts to frame illegal immigration as a choice between Option 1 (enforcement) and option 3 (amnesty). The guestworker option and the "Don't Know" option received the least support.

Of course, even the guestworker response is flawed in that it explains guestworkers will only remain in the country "for a limited time" when, in reality, there is nothing more permanent than a temporary guestworker.

The first option, which might be described as the pro-enforcement option, is a nine-word-long response: "Send all illegal immigrants back to their home country." It's simple, straightforward, and does not leave anything to the imagination. But it also may come across as harsh and lacking enough nuance to some respondents. If you are a pollster that does not want respondents to pick option 1, such attributes are a good thing.

Option 3, the pro-legalization option, is quite different. If the pollster were interested in it paralleling option 1, it would been shortened to read, "Allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country." The rest of the response would have been eliminated. That would make the answer choice just as straightforward as option 1, it would be similar in length, and it would have had a similar lack of nuance.

Instead, option 3 is 32 words long — over three times the length of the pro-enforcement option — and includes squishy language that lets the respondent fill in the blanks with whatever he can imagine, allowing him to eliminate any perceived harshness or lack of nuance. It also includes references to popular ideas (like paying back taxes and learning English, even though those provisions are not in the Senate amnesty bill).

This construction ultimately makes the pro-legalization option appear to be "the right choice".

The pro-legalization response includes two very problematic open-ended clauses, and most polls purporting to show wide public support for amnesty suffer from similar defects. The phrase "eventually qualify" could mean anything, and each respondent will assume what he feels is best, making the answer choice more palatable. Some respondents might hear that phrase and assume one year, while others might assume 15 years. If the pollsters were to include an estimate, it might have a significant impact on the poll results. Without specificity, there is no way to determine what the respondents were thinking.

The second problematic clause is "meet certain requirements". The poll gives the two examples that have never existed in any amnesty proposal ("pay back taxes" and "learn English"), but the wording leaves it to the respondent to imagine any type of "requirement" that he needs to justify the idea of legalizing illegal aliens. Again, this makes the response very attractive. Some respondents may think, "Yes, I'd support legalization but only if one of those requirements is proving that the person has never stolen someone's Social Security number for a job." Obviously, that would disqualify millions of illegal aliens. Another respondent might think, "Yes, but only if one of those requirements is paying $100,000 to legalize." Again, that's never going to happen in the real world. The point is that even though the results are being sold as indicating public support for the Senate amnesty bill, in actuality the poll may indicate something quite different.

And why not some nuance in the first option? Instead of the simplistic "Send all illegal immigrants back to their home country", why not "Send all illegal immigrants back to their home country if they have engaged in ID fraud, have used a stolen Social Security number to obtain work, or are likely to end up on public assistance"? It would be similar in length to the pro-legalization option. And it would make respondents think about the issue a little more and likely discourage some from choosing the pro-legalization option, fearing that support for legalization would indicate support for ID theft. Obviously this is problematic for pollsters creating a push poll.

It seems that amnesty advocates and their pollsters cannot ask straightforward questions. They know that if they were to do so, public sentiment against doubling legal immigration and legalizing illegal aliens would become obvious. So they resort to writing the same push polls with problematic wording over and over and over.

A good poll — like this one, conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies — keeps the language simple and looks at the immigration issue from a variety of angles. Polling of this nature indicates the public supports enforcement over legalization and believes the government is not doing enough to enforce immigration laws, among other things.

Honest pollsters would also ask whether citizens want to double legal immigration, which is the main thrust of the Senate bill. But it is quite telling that of the dozens and dozens of pro-legalization polls conducted over the past two years, next to none of them inquire about public opinion on the current level of legal immigration. These pollsters know that if it were revealed that a majority of the public wants less legal immigration it would conflict with the pollster's claims that Americans support the Senate bill. So pollsters stick to the same tendentious language.

If legalizing illegal aliens were so popular, politicians would be happy to push an amnesty during an election year. Really, these pro-amnesty polls are written for the very purpose of persuading politicians that the average voter wants amnesty and mass immigration. But politicians know that the idea is wildly unpopular — and that these polls are inaccurate — which is why they are largely avoiding the issue in 2014.

Interestingly, the Fox News poll also found that only 2 percent of respondents listed "immigration" as the most important issue for President Obama and Congress to be working on right now. This was behind the economy and jobs, the federal deficit, health care, terrorism, and Social Security. Predictably, the generally pro-amnesty media is not making that the headline.

http://cis.org/feere/fox-news-publis...pushes-amnesty

This whole poll is completely bogus and there is no way that 68% of Americans support option 3 "path to citizenship" with conditions, otherwise we would not have such a large collection of polls showing Americans feel the opposite way. And why would two thirds of Americans oppose the bills from 2006 and 2007 and 2013 that mimic option 3 if this were the case?

Lies, lies, lies from Fox News and the other invasion supporters.

Sixty Eight percent of Americans are not dumb enough or suicidal enough to support citizenship for illegal aliens!

W

It is unfortunate that FOX News has decided to use language and biased polling to mislead viewers on amnesty. Roger Ailes is apparently siding with those who intend to wreck our nation with out of control immigration and the push toward amnesty.

Chamber of Commerce, Fox, RINO's have an agenda just as the liberals do and it never seems to support or help the American worker/taxpayer, why that is I cannot understand I can only guess it is simply greed in terms of cheap labor, high profits on stocks, I do know it hurts America.

Added to Homepage--

http://www.alipac.us/content.php?r=2...Pushes-Amnesty

The other day Fox had two people on debating amnasty. Problem was they were both for it but had different ways to give it. Sorry I can't remember who the debaters were. I switched the channel immediately.

A good poll — like this one, conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies — keeps the language simple and looks at the immigration issue from a variety of angles. Polling of this nature indicates the public supports enforcement over legalization and believes the government is not doing enough to enforce immigration laws, among other things.

Americans Prefer Illegal Immigrants Head Home

Results of a National Survey

By Steven A. Camarota

February 2013

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Steven A. Camarota is the Director of Research at the Center for Immigration Studies.

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A new poll using neutral language — and avoiding the false choice of conditional legalization vs. mass deportations — finds that most Americans want illegal immigrants to return to their home counties, rather than be given legal status. The findings also show a very large gap in intensity, with those who want illegal immigrants to head home feeling much stronger about that option than those who would like to see illegal immigrants receive legal status.

• Of likely voters, 52 percent responded that they preferred to see illegal immigrants in the United States go back to their home countries, compared to just 33 percent who would like them to be given legal status.
• There is an enormous gap in intensity between the two views on immigration. Of those who want illegal immigrants to head home, 73 percent indicated that they felt “very strongly” about that view, while just 35 percent of those who want illegal immigrants to get legal status said they felt very strongly about this view.
• One reason the public may prefer that illegals head home is a strong belief that efforts to enforce immigration laws have been inadequate — 64 percent said that enforcement of immigration laws has been “too little”, while just 10 percent said that it had been too much, and 15 percent said it was “just right”.
• When asked why there is a large illegal population in the country, voters overwhelming (71 percent) thought it was because we had not made a real effort to enforce our immigration laws. Only 18 percent said it was because we were not letting in enough immigrants legally.
• Another reason for skepticism about legalization is that most voters (69 percent) agreed with the statement that “giving legal status to illegal immigrants does not solve the problem because rewarding law breaking will only encourage more illegal immigration.” Just 26 percent disagreed.
• When asked if they had confidence that immigration laws would be enforced in the event of a legalization, just 27 percent expressed confidence that there would be enforcement, while 70 percent indicated that they were not confident immigration law would be enforced.
• Enforcement remains politically very popular. Of likely voters, 53 percent indicated that they would be more likely to support a political party that supports enforcing immigration laws vs. only 32 percent who said they would be more likely to support a party that supports legalization.

The poll was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research and is a national survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted January 23-24, 2013. The margin of error for questions is +/-3%. Question wording is provided in the table.


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http://cis.org/americans-prefer-illegal-immigrants-head-home-results-of-national-survey