A new poll finds for the first time that a majority of Americans support building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, while three-fifths of Americans support building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He views illegal immigration as a “very serious” problem.
of Monmouth University Survey A survey released Monday found that 53% of respondents support building a border wall, while 46% oppose it.
By contrast, in September 2017, a few months after former President Donald Trump took office, 60% of Americans told the same pollster that they opposed building a border wall, and only 35% said they supported it. %was.
At the most recent time the question was asked, in April 2019, support for a border wall among U.S. adults had risen to 42%, while opposition had fallen to 56%.
The last time Americans were more in favor of building a wall than against it was in September 2015, when 48% said they were in favor and 43% were against it.
Furthermore, 61% of Americans consider illegal immigration to be a “very serious problem,” and a further 23% say it is “somewhat serious,” while 23% say the problem is “not very serious.” Only 15% thought so. or “It’s not serious at all.”
A majority of Republicans (91%) and independents (58%) agree that illegal immigration poses a “very serious problem,” as do 41% of Democrats. ing.
“Illegal immigration has emerged as a defining issue in this year’s presidential election,” Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray said in a statement. “Other Monmouth polls have found this to be Mr. Biden’s weakest policy area, even among his fellow Democrats.”
But Democratic support for the southern border wall has fallen by 14 percentage points over the past nine years, even though it is the only Trump-era immigration policy that Biden has echoed in some form.
Since taking office, the president has rescinded his predecessor’s Remain in Mexico policy and Title 42, the pandemic-era mandate to immediately expel immigrants who entered the country illegally from Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. did. .
A Monmouth poll found that 61% of Americans support “remaining in Mexico.” Officially known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, asylum seekers are required to wait for their immigration court hearings south of the U.S. border.
Majorities of Republicans (86%) and Independents (60%) also support this policy, including a majority of Democrats (54%) who want asylum seekers to be able to enter the United States before returning home. Only 35% opposed it. court date.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) called on Biden to reinstate the policy.
The Senate failed to pass a new border security bill earlier this month as part of a broader $118 billion emergency funding bill that included military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
The Senate later passed a $95 billion bill with no border provisions and support from the Republican majority.
Prime Minister Johnson has so far rejected requests from the White House to bring a second bill to a floor vote, calling the larger bill “dead on arrival.” Meanwhile, the House of Representatives impeached Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on February 13 for failing to enforce federal immigration law.
The Senate border bill would give Biden Title 42-style authority to expel immigrants if more than 5,000 people cross the U.S. border per day in a week, and also overhaul asylum screening standards.
However, according to the Monmouth poll, 33% of people opposed the bill, while only 23% supported it (including nearly half of independents), and 45% had no opinion. There wasn’t.
Almost half (47%) of Americans said the bipartisan agreement negotiated by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) believed the bill was not tough enough on illegal immigrants. .
This group includes more than three-quarters of Republicans (77%) and about half of independents (48%), while a majority of Democrats (51%) say they are “about right” about border security. ing.
But only 41% of Democrats said they actually supported moving forward with the bill and passing it.
“These results show why the border agreement was invalid on arrival,” Murray said. “Most rank-and-file Republicans and many independents believe the bill is too soft on illegal immigrants, even if they don’t know exactly what it says.”
“The Senate Republican leadership may have tried to pass the bill, but if Donald Trump opposed it, it would almost certainly have been in vain.”
Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives are giving billions to non-governmental organizations to protect and resettle immigrants and provide legal advice for unaccompanied minors to apply for asylum after the border bill was announced. accused of offering dollar benefits.
They also noted that under the proposed law, the U.S. border would never be closed because Title 42 powers can be suspended at any time if the president determines it is in the “national interest.”
Almost half of Monmouth survey respondents (48%) said both parties are to blame for the bill’s failure, but 36% said Republicans were more to blame and 13% said Democrats were more to blame. I answered that there was.
The White House announced Monday that the president will travel to Brownsville, Texas, on Thursday to meet with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement and local elected officials and reiterate his call for a bipartisan border bill.
The pressure campaign comes as a Venezuelan national facing deportation on child endangerment charges in Queens last year faces new charges this week in the murder of a Georgia nursing student.
Since Biden took office, 7.2 million people have crossed the border and an additional 1.8 million have become “fugitives” who have evaded arrest upon entering the United States. This is amplifying concerns.
The poll found that 32% of respondents believe illegal immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes such as rape and murder, an increase of 11% from 2019 and 15% from 2015. did.
However, 39% said illegal immigrants are just as susceptible to violence as U.S. citizens.
Just 24% said they were less likely to commit such crimes than Americans.
The Monmouth University poll was conducted among 902 American adults between February 8 and 12, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
