Immigration Announcement Falls on Receptive Ears

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's announcement Friday that the children of illegal immigrants who meet certain qualifications would "...be considered for relief from removal from the country or from entering into removal proceedings..." appears to fit in with our latest data on U.S. attitudes toward immigration.


Those data, analyzed here by my colleague Jeff Jones, show that Americans are now more focused on dealing with the issue of illegal immigrants in this country than they are on preventing the flow of illegal immigrants into the country to begin with.


In fact, the shift was fairly strong in the poll. This was the first time in our history of asking the forced-choice question that Americans shifted toward the "developing a plan to deal with immigrants who are currently in the U.S." alternative. Coupled with that were trends showing more positive responses on two other questions asking about immigration in a general sense.


Thinking that the government should focus more on the illegal immigrants in this country rather than sealing the borders doesn't in and of itself mean that Americans approve of the Obama administration's newly announced plan. But it does suggest that, taken as a whole, Americans are sympathetic to the idea of focusing on doing something about the situation -- which is what President Obama and the DHS did.


We asked a question in December 2010 about the "DREAM Act." We explained it as follows: "...a law that would allow illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain legal resident status if they join the military or go to college." At that point, a majority of 54% of Americans said they would favor such a law; 42% said they would vote against it.


A Bloomberg News national poll conducted June 15-18 found that 64% of Americans agreed when asked the question phrased like this:


"President Obama announced that the U.S. would halt the deportation of some illegal immigrants if they came here before age 16, have been in the country for five years, have no criminal record, are in school or have a high school diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military. Do you agree or disagree with this new policy?"

The responses to these questions suggest that the majority of Americans think the new policy is basically a good idea.

Will the Policy Announcement Help Obama Among Hispanics?

Of course, from a political perspective, last Friday's announcement was most salient to Hispanics. Unfortunately, the two polls I referenced above didn't have large enough sample sizes to look at Hispanics' reactions to the new policy in isolation. But I assume that Obama campaign strategists assumed Hispanics would see the announcement in a favorable light. In turn, of course, the Obama team no doubt hope that the announcement will help Obama among this important voter segment come Nov. 6th.

All the evidence shows that Obama continues to do well with Hispanics.


Last week, June 11-17, Obama's job approval rating among Hispanics was 61%. Over the last four weeks, Obama's job approval rating among Hispanics averaged 12 percentage points higher than Obama's average among all Americans.

Indeed, Hispanics' job approval rating for Obama has averaged 12 points higher than the average among all Americans since Obama took office. In other words, Obama's position among Hispanics on this job approval measure now is exactly the same as it has been throughout his time in office.


On our trial heat ballot for the last three weeks, May 28-June 17, 66% of Hispanics said they would vote for Obama, compared with 24% who said they would vote for Mitt Romney. This 42-point Obama gap among Hispanics is also exactly at the average for our tracking overall since April 11.


Given Obama's strong position among Hispanics, observers opined that he was not so much trying to change Hispanics' minds about their choice for president, but to increase their motivation and propensity to turn out and vote in November. That's an important goal for the Obama campaign team. The evidence shows that Hispanics vote at a lower rate than members of other race and ethnic groups. Over the last three weeks, as an example, only 64% of Hispanic registered voters said they would definitely vote in November. That contrasts with 76% of non-Hispanic blacks and 81% of non-Hispanic whites.