Thread: Poll: Immigration enforcement divide

Poll: Immigration enforcement divide

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By JAMES HOHMANN | 2/3/11 8:26 AM EST


A poll out Thursday finds a strong partisan divide over how law enforcement should handle immigration. Democrats and Republicans disagree over whether federal authorities or local officials should take the lead on such issues, but the poll’s respondents seemed to all agree that the government currently does a poor job of handling immigration issues.

An already polarizing subject has become even hotter in the wake of an Arizona law signed in 2010 that cracks down on illegal immigration, the most controversial parts of which have been put on hold pending a court challenge from the Justice Department.

Transatlantic Trends, a project to study public opinion in Europe and North America, polled eight countries for the third year in a row about national attitudes toward immigration. The United States had the highest percentage of respondents — 67 percent — who said they would base their vote at least in part on a political party’s immigration stance, up 11 percent from last year.

Among Democrats, 66 percent think enforcement should be handled primarily by the federal government. A majority of Republicans — 53 percent — meanwhile, believe state and local authorities should take the lead.

Of the eight countries surveyed, the U.S. and Spain tied at 67 percent for the highest number of citizens who believe immigrants gain more benefits from the government than they pay in taxes.

The weak economy has swelled anti-immigrant sentiment. A narrow majority now says immigrants drive down wages for American citizens, and 56 percent think immigrants take jobs from natives. One-third of those polled said immigrants drive up crime in the U.S., up 10 percent from 2009. Half of Americans think only citizens and legal immigrants should have access to public schooling.

There was a correlation between those who said their personal economic situation worsened in 2010 and those who expressed a fear of immigration.

The study was sponsored by the influential German Marshall Fund of the United States, along with three other foundations. The German Marshall Fund is a nonpartisan public policy institution that focuses on promoting cooperation between North America and Europe.

Craig Kennedy, the fund’s president, called the findings “a wake-up callâ€

The United States had the highest percentage of respondents — 67 percent — who said they would base their vote at least in part on a political party’s immigration stance, up 11 percent from last year.

The Mass Firings will continue in 2012 and clean up in 2014 .. People are tired of this shit and man has it gotten old

I see the the article ignored a number of findings in the poll and left out some major gaps. Read any poll and you see each question will have a number undesided but yet they call it a close bet when over 50% favor one way leaving a false assumption the entire rest disagree. Common fraud in pollings to keep it from looking bad for whoever they support.