President Trump’s demand for tougher border enforcement has strong support from Americans who are now demanding immigration reform that is further right that Washington realizes and they also want the wall built, according to a survey from a bipartisan group.
The centrist Bipartisan Policy Center on Tuesday released a Luntz Global survey that revealed a conservative shift in the public’s view of immigration reform.
[Trump: Democrats want illegal immigrants ‘to pour into and infest’ the US]
The bottom line in the report, said BPC, “suggests the consensus set of immigration policies that Americans support is more to the right than many realize. Large majorities of American voters want the federal government to tackle immigration reform in a way that creates a controlled legal immigration system that is both fair and consistent, while prioritizing the characteristics of prospective immigrants. Reform efforts will need to include strong support for enforcement, a merit-based system that emphasizes an individual’s work-ethic and language capability in addition to family relationships or skills, and a path to legal status for the undocumented.”
Key findings directly from the report:
- Americans support the construction of a border wall, they also believe that technology and personnel, as well as border barriers, are critical to improving the nation’s border security.
- Voters strongly believe that people living illegally in the United States should have a path to legal status, but it shouldn’t be ‘for free.’
- Concerns were highest over immigrants competing with U.S. citizens for government benefits and lower on job competition.
- Nearly two-thirds of Americans find it very or extremely important that immigrants be able to hold a basic conversation in English, but only 11 percent believe immigrants should be fluent.
- Voters define merit broadly in an immigration system, suggesting that the United States should admit people who share its values, abide by the law, have family members here, and can meet job vacancies, whether high-or low-skilled.
- The public wants President Trump and Democrats to work out a compromise, not to leave immigration reform to states.
The report, survey and series of roundtables with state and local officials around the nation were part of a year long effort by the Center to find a path forward on immigration reform, which it was to discuss during a conference Tuesday morning.
The Center calls their findings “the new middle,” and further to the right than many in Washington have been advocating for.
“This new middle on immigration rests on a comprehensive solution: a controlled system with clear criteria for admission, that combines strong enforcement with a path to legal status for those currently in the United States illegally. If we want to reach a viable solution, legislators will need to craft a new blueprint that addresses these policy priorities,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, BPC’s director of immigration and cross-border policy.
