A recent poll has shown that Americans strongly support several changes that President Donald Trump is looking to push through for tightening immigration in the country including building a border wall, eliminating the visa lottery system and curtailing the chain of family migration, although they continue to favour giving the ‘Dreamers’ a pathway to citizenship.
Survey Results Goes Against Democrat Deal
The Harvard-Harris Poll, conducted prior to the government shutdown, has found that there is widespread support for slashing the level of legal immigration, currently at over 1 million a year, to less than half that.
These findings challenge the Gang of Six immigration deal that Democrats along with support of some Republicans had tried to get through the Senate last week, which was however derailed by Trump.
Authored by Sens. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, and Richard Durbin, a Democrat, the plan sought to offer a generous legalization for Dreamers, as well as a small downpayment on Mr. Trump’s border wall but no significant changes to chain migration.
This plan would have removed the visa lottery, but pushed the visas back into the legal immigration system for use in a new amnesty scheme for people from countries that have suffered natural disasters.
Graham had commented that senators would have not be interested in accepting a deal that cuts down overall immigration levels, but the new poll shows that that’s what Americans desire.
Americans Support Lower Immigration Levels
The key survey results are
- Nearly 35 percent said legal immigration should be 250,000 a year or less
- Around 19 percent said it should be between 250,000 and 500,000
- Another 18 percent said they want to see between 500,000 and 1 million
- Only 19 percent said they want to see an increase over 1 million.
President Trump has not yet indicated the legal immigration level he supports, but has been vocal on changing the way the U.S. chooses immigrants.
He has said that skills and ability to assimilate in the U.S. must be given more weightage over extended family ties. The new poll reveals support for this view with voters favouring it by a 79-21 margin.
This margin is even greater than the 77-23 margin support for the legalization of Dreamers.
Over 60 percent of voters have said current border security is “inadequate,” while 54 percent have said that they support “building a combination of physical and electronic barriers across the U.S.-Mexico border.”
The poll was held between Jan. 17-19, and covered 980 adult Americans.
