A majority of Americans now back building a physical border wall on the US southern border as immigration continues to fester as a top hot-button issue in the 2024 presidential season.
The poll also found that Americans consider illegal immigration a “somewhat serious (23 percent) or “very serious” problem (61 percent), with the latter indicator up from 46 percent in 2019, and 45 percent in 2015. 91 percent of Republicans, 58 percent of independents and 41 percent of Democrats presently say they consider immigration a “very serous problem,” up from 66, 42 and 33 percent in 2015, respectively.
“Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year,” Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray said in a press release. “Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.”
A majority of Americans now appear to agree with the Trump administration’s Remain in Mexico program, which Biden scrapped in 2022, with Monday’s poll finding that 61 percent believe immigrants applying for political asylum should stay in Mexico while their claims are reviewed by immigration officials, compared to 35 percent who say they should be allowed to stay in the US.
32 percent of those polled admitted that they believe illegal immigrants are more likely than Americans to commit violent crimes, up from 17 percent in 2015, and 21 percent in 2019, while 24 percent think they are less likely to do so, and 39 percent saying serious crimes are just as likely by both groups.
62 percent think illegal immigrants tend to fill jobs Americans do not want, while 28 percent feel they take jobs away from citizens.
“These results illustrate why the border deal was dead on arrival,” Murray said, pointing out that “the vast majority of rank and file Republicans and many independents believe it is too soft on illegal immigration, even if they don’t know exactly what’s in the legislation. Senate GOP leadership could have tried to sell the bill, but that would have almost certainly been fruitless once Donald Trump weighed in against it.”
The Monmouth poll consisted of a telephone survey held February 8-12, querying 902 American adults, with an estimated margin of error of +-4.1 percent.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president in the 2024 election, has characterized Biden’s border and immigration policy as a “disaster,” and accused his rival of causing a “catastrophe of historic proportions.”
Both Trump and Biden are expected to travel to the border on Thursday, with the incumbent expected to stop over in Brownsville, Texas, while his rival will visit Eagle Pass, where state and federal authorities have bumped heads over efforts by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to independently shore up border barriers.
A recent estimate by Fox News estimated that some 7.3 million illegal immigrants have entered the US since President Biden took office in 2021 and proceeded to revoke a series of hardline Trump-era immigration directives, including the border wall. Fiscal year 2024 is on course to breaking FY2023’s record of 2.47 million encounters with illegals along the southern border.