Americans Overwhelmingly Support Components of Immigration Reform

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Americans Overwhelmingly Support Components of Immigration Reform
By: Jon Walker Wednesday February 6, 2013 6:58 am	Tweet1

While most Americans don’t think immigration reform is a top concern at this time, they do overwhelmingly support all the basic components of a potential deal. The vast majority of Americans support creating a way for undocumented immigrants already here to stay, as well as measures to slow undocumented immigration in the future. From Gallup:

Next, suppose that on Election Day you could vote on key issues as well as candidates. Would you vote for or against a law that would -- [RANDOM ORDER]? January 2013 results

Support for these proposals is not only strong overall but broadly trans-partisan. Gallup found a majority of Democrats, Republicans and Independents support every one of the five proposed changes. Even 59 percent of Republicans support a pathway to legal residency or citizenship.

President Obama has substantial leverage to try to force House Republicans to act on a broad immigration reform law. Failing to do so would not only continue to hurt the party with Hispanics but would also risk alienating a large swath of voters. Being seen as the party that block reform would be a really bad political move for the GOP as a whole.

5 Comments

5 Responses to “Americans Overwhelmingly Support Components of Immigration Reform”

diogenes February 6th, 2013 at 9:37 am

I’m good with 4 out of 5. I take issue with point 4, because the problem is not, as Bill Gates would have it, that there are insufficient citizens with STEM skills. The problem is, Bill and company do not want to pay market wages, so they want to dilute the market for these skills with people willing to work for less.

It’s not just immigrants that get exploited – citizens do too.