A poll by the Pew Research Center found that support for comprehensive immigration reform has dropped among Democrats, further explaining why President Obama has delayed any unilateral executive action on the issue until after the upcoming elections. Acting now would not only anger Republicans and turn off moderates, but it also could cause a portion of the Democratic base to stay home.
The poll, released last week, found that Democratic support for a policy that legalizes existing immigrants and increases border security — that is, comprehensive reform — has fallen from 52 percent last year to 45 percent now. Support for a policy that focuses on “creating a way for illegal immigrants already here to become citizens” has risen from 32 percent among Democrats in 2013 to 33 percent now, within the poll’s margin of error of 5.2 percent among the Democrats surveyed. But it’s down from 38 percent in 2012.
Meanwhile, support for a policy of just tighter border security rose from 14 percent to 19 percent. That indicates that some former supporters of a comprehensive policy have switched to a security-only one.
Overall, support for a policy that includes some form of legalization among Democrats was 78 percent, down from 84 percent the previous year, though it is not clear how many of those now favoring the comprehensive approach would support anything short of that. Or if any of those favoring just legalization would accept stepped-up border security.
The decline follows months of attention focused on the issue, as well as a surge of young illegal immigrants from Central America that has created chaos in Southwestern border states.
Democratic leaders and pro-immigration activists have pointed to the surge as proof that a comprehensive policy is necessary and scorned Republicans as “obstructionists” for resisting an overhaul. Obama has repeatedly said the situation has risen to a level where he is justified to circumvent Congress and enact his own policy.
On Saturday, though, the White House said that Obama would not announce any unilateral policy changes until after the November midterm elections. Several Democrats are running in tight Senate races in moderate or Republican-leaning states, and a major immigration policy change could hurt their chances in an election in which control of the Senate is at stake.
“The reality the president has had to weigh is that we’re in the midst of the political season, and because of the Republicans’ extreme politicization of this issue, the president believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and to the long-term prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to announce administrative action before the elections,” a White House official said Saturday.
The Pew poll also found that support among independent voters for comprehensive immigration is also slipping. The percentage backing a comprehensive policy fell from 47 percent to 41 percent over the last year, outside the poll’s margin of error of 4.9 points for independents. Support for a legalization-focused policy declined from 26 to 24 percent, while support for a border security-focused policy rose from 25 percent to 33 percent.
That still leaves overall support among independents for a policy that includes some form of legalization at 65 percent, a nearly two-to-one margin over those who want only border security. The overall support for some form of legalization has fallen from 73 percent last year, though.
Meanwhile, Republicans have become even more hawkish on immigration policy with an outright majority of 53 percent — up 10 points from last year — favoring just border security and just 9 percent favoring legalization only, down 2 points from last year. Support for comprehensive legislation among Republicans has dropped from 43 percent last year to 36 percent now.
That puts overall GOP support for a policy including some form of legalization at 45 percent, down from 54 percent last year. The poll’s margin of error among Republicans was 5.8 percent.
The poll was based on live telephone interviews of 1,501 adults, including 382 Republicans, 473 Democrats and 534 independents, conducted over Aug. 20-24.
