US voters split but slightly in favour of immigration, poll finds

The US electorate is fairly evenly split on many issues surrounding immigration but when asked whether immigrants are beneficial for the US overall, only 35% of those asked in a recent poll said they thought that they are harmful while 45% said that they believe that immigrants have been good for the US.

The poll was conducted for the largely anti-immigration Fox News and was conducted between 4th and 6th February 2013. The last time Fox carried out a similar poll in 2010, 41% thought immigrants were beneficial so the country appears to be becoming less worried by the idea of immigration.

Party split

The poll found that Democrats tended to be more in favour of immigration than Republicans. 56% of Democrats thought immigrants were beneficial compared to only 31% of Republicans.

The poll also found that the numbers of American voters who consider immigration to be one of the things that worries them most is falling. In 2010, 71% of voters surveyed said they were either 'extremely concerned' or 'very concerned' about immigration. In the survey conducted last week, only 60% were either extremely or very worried. Voters are much more worried about the economy (89%) health care (85%), education (85%) and jobs (84%).

Border secure

The poll also found that a higher percentage of the sample said that they believed that the Mexican border is 'secure' than did so the last time the poll was conducted in 2010. Perhaps this is unsurprising given that figures recently released show that the US now spends $18bn annually on border security. This is more than it spends on all other law enforcement activity. Even so, only 27% of Americans think that the border is more secure now than it was five years ago. 21% think it is less secure. 46% of Americans think that the massive increase in spending has had no effect on the level of security at all and think that there has been no change.

President doing a good job

The poll found that 47% of voters think that President Obama is doing a good job on immigration. 46% think he is doing a bad job. This is the first time, Fox says, that the president has had more voters approve of his performance on immigration than disapprove.

The President has said that he wants to see comprehensive immigration reform legislation passed by Congress within the next six months if possible. He used his annual State of the Union address on 12th February 2013 to call again for a 'responsible pathway to earned citizenship' for most of the estimated 11m illegal immigrants currently living in the US.

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