Pew poll: Americans divide on partisan lines on immigration

A plurality of Americans believe that the government should focus on both a stronger border and a pathway to citizenship, according to a Pew Research poll out Thursday, which also found the nation divided on party lines on what should be the priority in dealing with the issue.

The survey found that 45% of Americans felt the government's focus of immigration reform should be on both “creating a way for immigrants already here illegally to become citizens if they meet certain requirements” and “better security and stronger enforcement of immigration laws.”

A third of those surveyed (29%) said the priority should be on a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and 24% said better border security and enforcement should be the focus.

The numbers also skew along party lines. Sixty-nine percent of Republicans say stronger law enforcement is the most important aspect of immigration reform when asked to choose one approach or the other, while 79% of Democrats say granting legal status to undocumented immigrants should be the priority.

The analysis found that 76% of those surveyed felt undocumented immigrants are “as hard-working and honest as are U.S. citizens,” and 67% said they were “no more likely than citizens to commit serious crimes.”

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And despite Donald Trump saying that he will build a wall along the Southern border if he’s president, the majority of Americans (61%) don’t support the proposal. Just over one-third (36%) backed the idea of a wall.

The telephone survey was conducted Aug. 9-16 of 2,010 adults. The margin of error of the total sample is 2.5 percentage points.