The Epoch Times
Democrats Aligning With Trump’s Immigration Plans: Survey
The poll results are a warning to President Biden that ‘efforts to shift responsibility for the issue to Trump are not going to work.’
By Naveen Athrappully
Former President Donald Trump’s strict immigration policies are finding bipartisan support among Americans, with a significant portion of Democrats backing such measures, along with saying the problem is real—not something conjured up by conservative media.
President Trump has vowed to end birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants and conduct a large-scale deportation of illegal immigrants once reelected.
During his administration, President Trump instituted stringent immigration policies that were severely criticized by Democrat politicians.
This included a 2017 travel ban that prohibited foreigners from eight nations from entering the United States due to security concerns. After President Biden came into power, he instituted policies that immediately led to massive illegal immigration into the United States.
As part of his 2024 election campaign, President Trump has promised to institute the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in U.S. history and to end birthright citizenship for illegal aliens.
More Democrats appear to be aligning with such Trump policies.
According to a recent Axios/The Harris Poll survey of 2,217 Democrats, 53 percent said there was a real crisis at the border rather than it being a media narrative. In addition, 59 percent called “illegal” immigration an actual problem facing the United States.
Forty-two percent supported “implementing mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.” Thirty-eight percent back “implementing travel bans on people from certain countries.”
Another 35 percent want to shut down the southern border entirely, and 30 percent support “ending automatic citizenship for children born in the U.S.”
Illegal immigration is a key issue in the upcoming elections. According to a Gallup poll from February, “significantly more Americans name immigration as the most important problem facing the U.S. (28 percent) than did a month ago (20 percent). Immigration has now passed the government as the most often cited problem.”
This is the first time since 2019 that immigration was cited as the most important problem.
Moreover, the survey found “a record-high 55 percent of U.S. adults, up eight points from last year, saying that ‘large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally’ is a critical threat to U.S. vital interests. The prior high was 50 percent in 2004.”
In key swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, illegal immigration is a critical topic. According to a survey by Emerson College Polling, immigration was cited as a top issue by 31 percent of voters in Arizona. In Pennsylvania, immigration was the third most important issue.
The House of Representatives passed a resolution in March denouncing the Biden administration’s immigration policies. In addition to 212 Republicans, 14 Democrats voted for the resolution.
The measure asked the administration to “end the catch-and-release policy; reinstate the Migrant Protection Protocols; enter into asylum cooperative agreements; end abuses of parole authority; detain inadmissible aliens; use expedited removal authority; and rein in taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens.”
Majority of Citizens Want to Expel Illegals
A majority of U.S. citizens now back expelling illegal immigrants from the United States. A survey by Axios/The Harris Poll found that 51 percent of Americans supported “mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.”
Politically, 68 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of independents, and 42 percent of Democrats approve of the idea. In terms of race, 56 percent of whites, 45 percent of Latinos, and 40 percent of blacks support it.
The Boomer generation was most supportive of deporting illegal immigrants, followed by Gen X, Millennials, and lastly Gen Z.
“I was surprised at the public support for large-scale deportations,” said Mark Penn, chairman of The Harris Poll and a former pollster for President Clinton.
“I think they’re just sending a message to politicians: ‘Get this under control.’”
The poll results are a warning to President Biden that “efforts to shift responsibility for the issue to Trump are not going to work.”
The number of illegal immigrants coming to America has surged since President Biden took office. According to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 1.73 million illegals were encountered at the southwest land border in fiscal year 2021.
This rose to 2.37 million in fiscal year 2022 and then to 2.47 million in 2023. For the first six months of this fiscal year, 1.34 million encounters have already been registered.
Between October 2021 and March 2024, the total number of encounters was more than 7.9 million illegal immigrants.
During an April 10 press conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he estimates that nearly 16 million illegal immigrants have entered the United States under the Biden administration.
“Since Joe Biden went into the Oval Office, it began on day one, they began to open that border wide,” he said.
The administration has taken more than 60 executive and agency actions, he said, to “open the border wide and send the welcome message to everybody around the globe, including violent criminals and terrorists and foreign nationals ... coming here to do us harm.”
In February, the House approved two articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, charging him with failing to protect the nation’s borders.
The first article accused him of having “willfully and systematically refused to comply with federal immigration laws.” The second article alleged that he “breached the public trust by lying to Congress and hindering investigation” into the department.
On April 17, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) criticized Democrats for suppressing Mr. Mayorkas’s impeachment trial.
“Senate Democrats insulted the United States Senate as an institution and, more importantly, the American people by suppressing the impeachment trial for Secretary Mayorkas and denying the right of every American to hear the evidence,” she said.
“Let’s be clear, they wanted this trial stopped because it would have been politically inconvenient for them. We all see what’s going on at the border. There’s no hiding Secretary Mayorkas’ blatant failure to enforce our laws and protect the American people by securing our borders.
“There’s no hiding the more than 9 million illegal immigrants allowed into our country under his watch, and the growing costs to taxpayers who are forced to provide services for them.”