A massive new set of immigration polls administered by a bipartisan team of pollsters and sponsored by three pro-immigration “reform” groups appears to give the Gang of Eight exactly what it wants: numbers showing huge public support for its plan. As the @BarackObama Twitter account (run by Organizing for Action) proclaimed, “Big news: Polls across 29 states show huge support for the Senate #ImmigrationReform bill. Let’s get this done.” While significant numbers approve of what the poll says the Gang of Eight bill is, there is a considerable difference between the poll’s framing of the bill and the reality of the bill.
Here’s one of the questions the poll asks:
There is bipartisan immigration reform legislation being debated in Washington. The bill would secure our borders, block employers from hiring undocumented immigrants, and make sure that undocumented immigrants already in the U.S. with no criminal record register for legal status. If a long list of requirements is met over more than a decade, it provides eligibility for a path to citizenship. Would you support or oppose this proposal?
This description does not represent the Gang of Eight bill comprehensively. This question misses a huge part of the bill: guest-worker programs. The Senate immigration bill considerably expands these programs, but no mention of guest workers is made in this series of polls.
It’s true that this bill will allow illegal immigrants with no criminal record to register for legal status — but it will also allow many illegal immigrants with a criminal record to register for legal status.
It’s also not clear whether this bill will secure our borders; instead, it seems to require bureaucrats to talk about securing the borders. And questions have been raised about how effective this bill will really be at “block[ing] employers from hiring undocumented immigrants.”
The finding of these polls differs radically from the results of a set of polls commissioned by the (anti-Gang) Federation for American Immigration Reform, which looked at Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia. These polls, which more accurately described the details of the bill, found significant majorities in these states opposed to the Senate bill. They found overwhelming opposition to the size of the Gang of Eight’s guest-worker policies and its legalization-before-enforcement approach.
Perhaps it should concern fence-sitting senators that proponents of “reform” should be so afraid in this latest deluge of polling to explain all the details (or even all the major components) of this immigration bill.
— Fred Bauer is a writer from New England. He blogs at A Certain Enthusiasm, and his work has been featured in numerous publications.