Poll: Majority of Hispanics Support Deporting Criminal Illegal Aliens, Plurality Back Defunding of Sanctuary Cities



by KATIE MCHUGH
15 Feb 2017

A majority of Hispanic voters support President Donald Trump’s executive order prioritizing the deportation of criminal illegal aliens, with a plurality supporting the defunding of sanctuary cities, a poll released Monday reveals.

McLaughlin & Associates, which polled for Trump’s presidential campaign, found that the majority of Hispanic voters (56 percent) approved of prioritizing criminal illegal aliens for deportation. However, nearly one-third of Hispanic voters (31 percent) disagreed.

“Seven in 10 Americans… approve of President Trump’s executive order to end “catch and release” and make the deportation of illegal immigrants who are criminals a top priority,” pollster John McLaughlin wrote in a press release.

Overall, 69 percent of voters surveyed approved of deporting criminal illegal aliens. Enforcing immigration law is extremely popular with Republicans: 92 percent approve of Trump’s moves. A majority of Democrats, 50 percent, also approve, while 37 percent disapprove. Independent voters largely approved, 66 percent to 18 percent. Of those who voted for Hillary Clinton, 53 percent approved while 35 percent did not.

Another 59 percent of voters supported “cutting off federal grants to cities that break the law by refusing to turn in criminal illegal aliens,” including 46 percent of Hispanic voters. Another 43 percent of Hispanic voters disagreed with depriving sanctuary cities of federal funding.

The poll’s findings are consistent with other polls showing voters prefer immigration policies less extreme than the ones the U.S. has in place, which, according to former Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, operate on autopilot. Only 11 percent of voters want the U.S. to continue current levels of immigration that import over a million foreign nationals each year. Only 22 percent of Hispanic voters wanted to see immigration kept at current high levels or increased, Pulse Opinion Research found in November. Meanwhile, 52 percent of Hispanics wanted to see annual immigration into the U.S. reduced to 500,000 or fewer migrants. Another 49 percent said “they would support a policy of causing illegal immigrants to return home by enforcing the law,” and 51 percent believed the U.S. government did “too little” to enforce immigration laws.

As conservative author Daniel Horowitz writes, consultants and politicians who champion open borders policies claim Hispanic voters who vote for Democrats would otherwise vote Republican if the GOP would only support amnesty for illegal aliens. Yet Trump, with his support for law enforcement and normal immigration controls, improved on failed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Hispanic support in the 2016 election, winning 29 percent of Hispanic voters.

The poll, commissioned by Secure America Now, surveyed 1,000 likely voters online from Feb. 2 to Feb. 6 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, and a confidence level of 95 percent.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ctuary-cities/