Most Florida Hispanics believe we need stricter immigration enforcement, a new poll shows. But most also don’t believe this should be the highest priority of our lawmakers. And ultimately, Hispanics think stronger families is the biggest need our country faces today.
A bilingual survey of Hispanics in the Sunshine State Dec. 10 -15 (margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points), revealed the public view of the issue to be much more complex than either side would suggest.
The poll was conducted by OnMessage Inc.
On our nation’s immigration laws, 64 percent of Florida Hispanics believed we need stricter enforcement, with 29 percent believing we needed looser enforcement.
On nationalism, most agreed with a positive definition of it: “To me when people say they are nationalists, it usually means they are patriotic Americans who love their country, respect their flag and the principles it represents; freedom, individual responsibility, equal justice and equal opportunity for every American.” Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said that was closest to their position.
Thirty percent were closer to a less flattering understanding of the term: “To me when people say they are nationalists, it usually means they are racists who discriminate against people who aren’t like them because of race, religion or heritage and who don’t care about equal justice and equal opportunity for every American.”
The Hispanics immigration, the United States should expect immigrants to want to assimilate to American culture and not to create a separate culture within our country, with 69 percent agreeing and 27 percent disagreeing.
The second one was on identity asking them whether they agreed or disagreed with this statement: “I am proud of my Hispanic heritage but I think of myself first and foremost as an American.”
An overwhelming majority, 79 percent agreed, with 17 percent disagreeing.
And finally the survey asked about immigration policy and if it should be a priority for Congress in 2019. This is where gets dicey for Republicans and Scott as he took his oath this week in Congress. Only 35 percent of Hispanics believe Congress should pass immigration reforms that secure our borders and strengthen our laws, with 46 percent believing that Congress should instead pass laws that provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants currently living in the United States.
“So, these are folks that believe in American prosperity, believe in the American dream, and our ideals, and want to put that first. They just want know law and order Republicans are okay with people who look like them, that we’re not pursuing policies that unduly punish them,” explained OnMessage founder Wes Anderson.
The final agree/disagree question was on strengthening families: “We are not going to have a solution to the growing problems of inequality and poverty in America unless we do something to make families stronger. We must have policies to encourage and strengthen American families.”
A whopping 77 percent of Hispanic voters agreed with that, a number that consistently crossed all types of Hispanic voters.
“If you’re looking for a backbone of Latino culture, it’s the family. And, overwhelmingly, they say, ‘Yeah, you’re not gonna fix any of this unless you do things to help the family,’” said Anderson.
The sample was 35 percent Cuban, 21 percent Puerto Rican, and 44 percent other, which includes Colombians, Venezuelans, and people from other Latin American countries.
The partisan breakdown was 44 percent Democrat, 42 percent Republican, 11 percent independent, with 2 percent refusing to answer.
