Thread: Poll Shows Big Immigration Support

Poll Shows Big Immigration Support

April 20, 2007

NEW YORK -- Americans seem to favor giving a shot at citizenship to immigrants in this country illegally, a poll indicated.

That's the view of 78 percent of the respondents to the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll.

"As with so many issues, the American people are ahead of Washington on immigration reform," U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is drafting legislation to grant illegal immigrants an opportunity to stay in the United States, told USA Today.

Disagreements over the fate of the estimated 12 million illegal aliens in the United States helped block an immigration bill last year.

Also, many conservatives strongly oppose the idea because, as U.S. Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., put it, "You'd be rewarding them for breaking our laws."

Source: Copyright 2007 by United Press International

http://www.hispanicbusiness(dot)com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=62198&cat=Headlines&more=/news/more-news.asp

Here are comments and analysis of above poll:

Poll: Public Favors “Giving Illegals A Break”
Thursday, April 19, 2007
A USA/Gallup poll says that 78% of Americans favor “giving illegals a break”:

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend found that 78% of respondents feel people now in the country illegally should be given a chance at citizenship.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is drafting legislation to grant illegal immigrants an opportunity to stay in the USA, said: “As with so many issues, the American people are ahead of Washington on immigration reform. They know that only a plan that offers a path to earned citizenship will fix our broken system.”

Disagreements about the fate of the nation’s illegal residents were a major factor in the deadlock that kept Congress from enacting an immigration bill last year, despite the support of key Democratic and Republican leaders, as well as President Bush. The president and members of his Cabinet, including Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, have said it would be prohibitively expensive to deport all the nation’s illegal residents.

But many conservatives strongly oppose to putting illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. “You’d be rewarding them for breaking our laws,” said Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif.

Read the rest of the article and then answer a question for me. Do you see any poll data/results anywhere? Questions asked? Who they asked? No, you don’t…and there’s a reason.

Looking at other recent polls on the Gallup webiste, you can clearly see that, if the trend has held steady, as it likely has, then this article is misleading readers as to what the actual results of this new poll are.

In a March 2-4, 2007, poll, people answered this question:

Which comes closest to your view about what government policy should be toward illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States? Should the government – [ROTATED: deport all illegal immigrants back to their home country, allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States in order to work, but only for a limited amount of time, or allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States and become U.S. citizens, but only if they meet certain requirements over a period of time]?

In the following way:

Deport all: 24%
Remain in US in order to work (for a limited time): 15%
Remain in US and become citizens (after meeting certain requirements): 59%
No opinion: 2%

So clearly they’re combining those two (the 15% and the 59%) to get their result. But in the USA article, they fail to mention these two “buts” asked in those questions, which I can only assume was asked in this latest poll they’re talking about. That’s an important part of the question, and leaving it out of the article makes it look like Americans are caving on illegal immigration. They aren’t.

I’ve said myself that I would have no problem with granting amnesty IF we knew we weren’t going to have a repeat in ten or twenty years. In other words, if we secure the border and enforced the laws. If USA/Gallup were to report me in this poll, I’d clearly fall into the “Remain in US and become a citizen” part, but my “IF” is very, very important to the overall results of the poll.

I suspect that a majority of people polled feel about the same, that we shouldn’t just give them amnesty, and that steps should be taken to prevent it in the future. But without mentioning that fact in the article, they are misleading their readers.

Other polls show the about the same thing, that Americans don’t have a problem with illegal immigrants IF other steps are taken to crack down on it (see the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll. April 5-9, 2007, poll). And that’s the issue we face today.

Currently, we’re putting the cart before the horse. We’re talking about implementing a guest worker/amnesty program without dealing with the root cause of why we need it (that is, an unsecured border and lax immigration enforcement). Unless we deal with those causes first, we’re not going to solve the problem. In fact, it will make the problem worse.

When word gets around that we’ve passed a guest worker/amnesty program, what do you think is going to happen? Yes, they’ll all make a “run for the border” so they can get in on it. And without a secured border and poor enforcement of the current laws, do you honestly think that we’re going to be able to deal with this new tidal wave? Of course not. So a plan that was passed to deal with the 12-20 million illegals currently in the country now becomes a plan to deal with far more than that.

So it’s important that before we even begin to discuss immigration reform, we have to take the necessary steps to stem the tide. We can’t even think about granting amnesty to those that are here when there are literally thousands crossing each day. Until we solve the problem at the border and crack down on the employers that draw them here, it makes little to no sense to even be considering reform.

Misleading people and trying to skew the debate is not going to help us solve this problem. Conservatives support immigration in general and will happily allow people to come here and become citizens, provided they follow the law and do it legally.

http://www.iowavoice.com/2007/04/19/pol ... s-a-break/

LOL 78 percent!

LMAO!

They really over did it this time!

What a bunch of idiots! They expect people to believe that horse crap?!?!? What are these people smoking?

W

What are these people smoking?

Something imported from Mexico via a mule.

Dixie

Where did they do the poll Mexico City??

Where did they do the poll Mexico City??

I wonder if it was taken by the hispanic business website members?

Isn't it funny how Gallup polls always seem to contradict what the truth is?
This is the only poll I've ever seen which actually says Americans allegdly want to give illegals a shot at citizenship. Every other poll I've taken or seen always shows the opposite of these BIASED crap gallup polls.

Excerpt:

C. Data Contradict Other Polls Showing Support for Legalization.

Several advocacy groups and even some media outlets have released polls showing support for legalizing current illegals. However, those polls often gave voters a very limited choice between large scale deportations or earned legalization. This survey also finds some support for earned legalization. However, when given the third choice of across-the-board enforcement with the goal of causing illegals to go home on their own (which is the basis of the bill passed by the U.S. House), the public strongly favored this "attrition strategy" over mass deportations or earned legalizations.

http://www.cis.org/articles/2006/back906.html

This poll is laughable. If the poll were taken in the heart of Los Angeles, home to more illegal immigrants than anywhere in the nation, the figures wouldn't have been that high.

pjr40 wrote:

This poll is laughable. If the poll were taken in the heart of Los Angeles, home to more illegal immigrants than anywhere in the nation, the figures wouldn't have been that high.

I believe they would have been worse, pjr. The poll was taken in Spanish and English which means the poll takers had no reservations about polling none English speaking folks. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that 1/3 of those polled were not American citizens or that they had parents or a spouse that was illegal. Furthermore, I realize those polled were supposedly registered voters, but what guarantees do we have of that? I'm hesitant to take the word of the folks that conducted this poll - can you blame me?