From the June 2007 Idaho Observer:

Public wants illegals to go home

WASHINGTON—New polling shows a strong preference for enforcing U.S. Immigration laws that cause illegal aliens to go home. Advocacy groups and even some media outlets have released surveys showing support for legalizing illegals. However, those polls often gave voters a very limited choice between large-scale deportations or "earned legalization," or simply asked about conditional legalization without any alternative. When given the across-the-board enforcement option, with the goal of causing illegals to go home, the public strongly favors the enforcement approach over legalization with conditions.

Most Americans want less and not more immigration. When told the number of immigrants here and the number coming, 70 percent of voters said the level is too high, 19 percent said it is about right, and 5 percent said too low. A further breakdown shows that

a. 75% of Republicans said immigration is too high, 5% said too low.

b. 69% of Democrats said immigration is too high, 6% said too low.

c. 71% of self described moderates said immigration is too high, 4% said too low.

Public prefers that illegals go home, rather than be legalized.

Of those polled, 58 percent said they wanted illegals to go home, compared to 30 percent who favored legalization. The public still overwhelmingly supported enforcement over legalization even if conditions such as those proposed by the Senate, which include paying fines, learning English and undergoing background checks, were imposed on them.

Americans support enforcement to make illegals go home. When presented by itself, 79 percent of the public said they supported reducing the illegal immigrant population by increasing border enforcement, penalizing employers, and increasing cooperation with local law enforcement, while 15 percent were opposed. No other proposal had near this level of support.

"Many polls give only the false choice of legalization or mass deportations. Some even give legalization as an option in isolation without other alternatives. But when given across-the-board enforcement that causes illegals to go home as an option, the public overwhelmingly supports it rather than legalization with conditions," said Jessica Echard, Executive Director of Eagle Forum. "This poll shows why Senators who support the Kennedy-Kyl amnesty are facing such a firestorm of opposition from constituents."

This National Survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC on May 15, 2007. The margin of sampling error for the survey is 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Pulse Opinion Research, LLC is an independent public opinion research firm using automated polling methodology and procedures licensed from Rasmussen Reports, LLC.