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State immigration group finds fault with national policy

Poll shows Alabamians want crackdown on immigration

MONTGOMERY, Ala. A new poll shows Alabamians are not satisfied with President Bush's immigration plan and want fencing and National Guard troops stationed at the Mexican border, a new poll shows.

The Press-Register/University of South Alabama poll randomly surveyed 401 Alabama adults by telephone June fifth through the eighth and has a margin of error of five percentage points.

64 percent of poll respondents rated Bush's job performance on illegal immigration as "only fair" or "poor." A national survey last month found that about half of Americans disapproved of the president's work on the issue.

According to the new poll, 55 percent of Alabamians favor fencing the border and 56 percent said they would support an effort to identify and deport all illegal immigrants back to their home countries, while 31 percent would be opposed.

Vince Gawronski, a political science professor at Birmingham-Southern College, said the poll results might have been different if people were asked about "undocumented migrants" instead of "illegal immigrants."

Most respondents to the Press-Register/U-S-A poll said that hiring illegal immigrants should not be considered a serious crime. Only two out of five said it should be a felony.

Gawronski said it would be interesting to know how many of the poll respondents had ever hired an immigrant.

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