New Poll Shows Majority Say US Immigration Policy on ‘Wrong Track’

A majority 62% of Americans believe that US immigration policy is on the “wrong track,” according to a new poll from The Economist and YouGov.

The new poll, which was conducted between May 21-24 among 1,500 adult U.S. citizens, also indicated that number slightly increased to 64% among registered voters.

The poll was comprehensive in terms of the responses from various demographic groups.

Across different political ideologies, 83% of conservatives, 59% of moderates, and even 44% of liberals registered the “Off on the wrong track” response.

The party breakdown showed that 82% of Republicans, 68% of independents, and 45% of Democrats also registered this response.

A great writeup and analysis of the poll from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) mentioned a salient point about the potential liberal respondents.

“While right direction/wrong track polling is common, this is the first one that I have seen that is immigration-specific. Given the fact that the Biden administration has adopted a “no border/no enforcement” stance, one can assume that respondents didn’t conclude there was not enough immigration happening.”

The CIS writeup did mention one potential bit of good news for the Biden administration.

“The one bright spot for those White House advisors who are crafting the president’s border policies is that fewer respondents are identifying immigration as the “most important” issue to them: Just 8 percent identified it as such, trailing “jobs and the economy” (18 percent), “health care” (15 percent), “climate change and the environment” (11 percent), and “taxes and government spending” and “abortion” (tied at 9 percent).”

With recent events, this isn’t entirely surprising, especially after Title 42 was extended.

Issues like inflation, the war in Ukraine, monkeypox, and Roe v. Wade have all been put into the spotlight and likely crowded out immigration as a top priority issue.

While “priority” issues fluctuate with the news cycle, what’s been consistent is the American people’s recent concern about immigration.

As recently as March, concern over immigration was polling at a two decade high.

What’s obvious is that everyone regardless of political identification seems to recognize something is wrong. This is especially true among those likely to vote.

We’ll be watching closely to see how this affects the rhetoric and proposed policies in this upcoming midterm election.