A CBS News/YouGov poll found that a majority of registered voters, including a majority of Hispanics, would support a national plan to deport illegal immigrants from the United States.
In opinion polls, Published In a survey conducted Sunday, 62% of registered voters said they supported “a new national program to deport all illegal immigrants currently in the United States illegally.” Thirty-eight percent of voters said they opposed such a program.
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Fifty-three percent of Hispanics support mass deportation of illegal immigrants, while 47 percent oppose it.
Majorities of Republicans (88%) and independents (60%) would support large-scale deportation efforts, as would a sizable minority of Democrats (38%).
Notably, former President Donald Trump, who is trailing Biden by one point nationally in opinion polls, is a strong supporter of a massive deportation operation. Last September, Trump vowed to launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” if elected, and in a speech in Phoenix on Thursday said that while Trump wants “deportations,” “Biden wants an invasion.”
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The poll found that if a national deportation program were to take effect, a majority of respondents would support empowering local law enforcement to try to identify illegal immigrants in their area. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they would support “local police and law enforcement trying to determine who is a U.S. citizen and who is an illegal immigrant.” Nearly four in 10 voters opposed the idea.
Majorities of independents (57%) and Republicans (84%) would support police working to identify illegal immigrants if a nationwide deportation operation were conducted, as would a majority of Hispanics (57%) and nearly half of Democrats (45%).
Voters are divided on “establishing large detention centers, transporting and holding people there, and allowing the government to decide whether to deport them.” A majority, 52 percent, opposes large detention centers, while 48 percent support them.
Hispanics are evenly divided on jails, but a majority of independents, 56%, oppose jails.
The poll was conducted June 5-7 among 1,615 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. The sample for questions relevant to this article was 1,345-1,346 registered voter respondents.
