A new Fox News poll on immigration shows something surprising; two-thirds of voters favor mass deportation of illegal aliens. The surprising part? That the percentage is that low.
At rallies across the country, former President Donald Trump has pledged to enact mass deportations of illegal immigrants, something he vowed to do during his first term but never fully realized.
The latest Fox News Poll, released Thursday, finds two-thirds of voters favor such a policy – exactly where it was last December and up 15 points since the question was first asked in 2015. Nearly one-third opposes mass deportations.
Since 2015, support for deporting those living in the U.S. illegally is up across the board, but most notably among nonwhite voters (+24 points favor), Republicans (+21 points), rural voters (+20), urban voters (+19), and men (+16). Democrats are also more likely to favor this now but by a smaller 8-point margin.
Fox News' Bill Melugin weighed in on X, and the replies are revealing.
The political implications? This is an issue that is a positive for the Trump/Vance ticket. Kamala Harris has been trying to sound tough on this issue, but it was the Harris/Biden administration, in which she served as Border Czar to try to find the "root causes" of this problem who are to blame for this crisis. Oh, they are proposing policy solutions, but those proposals mostly have to do with expediting the "processing" of these illegals - that is, to expedite moving them through the border.
While support for allowing those with jobs to stay and apply for legal status is down among most demographics, Republicans are the driving force behind the dip – down 28 points from a decade ago. Democrats are the opposite; they are more likely to favor allowing them to stay by 4 points.
There's little or no reason to take Harris seriously on this issue. On Thursday, my colleague Nick Arama informed us of one beautiful takedown of Kamala Harris on this issue:
Scott Jennings Scorches Kamala's Twisted Response on Border
A nation without borders is no nation at all, and Americans are clearly growing more concerned with the masses who have come across the border unchecked. As I've been repeating, we have little idea where many of these people are coming from, and they are largely young, unaccompanied, military-age men; we have little or no idea where they intend to go or what they intend to do when they get here.
According to Pew Research, about 61 percent of voters say immigration is "very important" to their vote. That's a tad ambiguous; the specific question asked isn't given in the article, and it's unclear if illegal immigration is the topic. Regardless, immigration is a key issue in this presidential election, and it does not bode well for the Harris/Walz campaign.
As of 2022, there were an estimated 11 million illegal aliens in the United States. That number is certainly higher today, and even the 2022 number feels like a serious underestimation. A mass deportation of that many people will be a massive undertaking. Public support for that massive undertaking, though, is increasing - and is likely to keep increasing.