Majority of Americans now see illegal aliens as detrimental to the economy

April 10th, 2011 4:21 pm ET

Dave Gibson
Immigration Reform Examiner


A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that 61 percent of Americans believe that if immigration laws were enforced, a result would be less poverty in this country. (The telephone survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on April 2-3, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports, with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.)

In July 2007, Rasmussen asked the same question and found that only 45 percent of Americans held that belief.

The large increase may indicate that Americans are becoming more aware of the impact illegal aliens are having on the high rate of unemployment in this country.

A 2010 study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that while every demographic of native-born workers has lost millions of jobs during this deep recession, foreign-born workers have actually increased their employment numbers.

Since June 2009, immigrants (including illegal aliens) have gained 656,000 jobs, while U.S. born workers lost 1.2 million jobs during that same period.

The Pew study found that 57 percent of those that they refer to as “immigrantâ€