Americans are adamant about wanting stricter enforcement about the border — and also adamant about favoring a guest worker program, a Time magazine poll has found:=
Americans polled by TIME magazine show strong support for a guest-worker program and a process for undocumented workers to become citizens, but they take a tough stance on securing the borders. And most do not want illegal immigrants to have access to health care, public education or driver’s licenses.
In the telephone survey of 1004 adults, conducted Wednesday and Thursday, 79% say they favor a guest worker program that would allow illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. for a fixed period of time — the main provision of the bill proposed by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy that is now under fierce debate in Congress. Only 47% of those polled say they support the tougher measure backed by some House conservatives, deporting all illegal immigrants back to their home countries.Although Americans want to give illegal immigrants the chance to work in the U.S. temporarily and even earn citizenship—78% say illegal immigrants who learn English, have a job and pay taxes ought to have a chance at it—they also want better enforcement both at the border and inside the country. A large majority, 71%, favor major penalties for people who hire illegal immigrants; 62% want the U.S. to take “whatever steps are necessary” to secure the border with Mexico, including posting military forces; and 56% favor a 2,000-mile-long fence. That two-pronged approach to illegal immigration is the same one favored by President Bush, who wants both a guest worker program and tighter border security.
The biggest concerns over illegal immigration center on financial concerns, Time finds.
In essence, this pits many of the GOP hard-liners against the bulk of Americans (similar to what happened in the Terri Schiavo case) with Majority Leader Bill Frist at the forefront, positioning to appeal to that segment of GOP voters in the primaries. But on this issue, Bush appears to be well within the American mainstream.
So that means his polls are going up? No:
While the President’s position on illegal immigration is clearly resonating with many voters, it hasn’t helped his sagging approval ratings. They sank to 37% in the poll, a new low.
That’s probably because Bush is continuing to be clobbered by questions about his and his administration’s credibility and competence.
This poll makes it more unlikely than ever that Congress will send the President an immigration reform plan that looks like the super-tough House version. Most likely: some kind of compromise closer to what Bush wants than what the House has proposed.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.