A massive Public Religion Research Institute survey consisting of 40,000 interviews in all 50 states finds that only 16 percent of respondents like popular vote loser Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan, with not one single state showing majority support for his nativist vision. At 17 percent approval, even the dreadful Trumpcare plan is more popular:
The poll—conducted as part of PRRI’s 2016 American Values Atlas (AVA) survey of 40,000 interviews spanning all 50 states—found only one in ten young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 and one in nine seniors over the age of 65 support an immigration system to “identify and deport” undocumented immigrants. White Americans were twice as likely, at 20 percent, to support mass deportation than other racial groups. Along the political divide, deportation was more supported by Republicans (28 percent) than by Democrats (8 percent)
What Americans do support, however, is putting undocumented immigrants on a path to citizenship, with 64 percent saying they should be allowed to become a part of this country on paper “provided they meet certain requirements.” The survey doesn’t clarify what those requirements are, but under the 2013 immigration bill that House Republicans refused to take up, they included paying their taxes and passing a background check—something many of the immigrant families targeted by Trump already do and would certainly pass.
“Lost amid the current rhetoric surrounding immigration reform is one fact,” said PRRI. “Very few Americans prefer deporting the 11 million immigrants currently living in the country illegally. Even majorities of Republicans and those living in the reddest states favor allowing these immigrants a chance to become citizens.”
As America’s Voice said earlier this year in noting all-time high support for immigration, “it seems the more American people listen to Donald Trump and his Administration rail against immigrants, the more they support the immigrants.”