America's Voice Blog

Posted 08/17/10 at 02:07pm By Mahwish Khan

Fox Gets it Right on Immigration Polling… CNN, Not So Much.

Nope. That was not a typo.

A new poll from Fox News finds that 68 percent of voters, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, say efforts to secure the border should be combined with reform of federal immigration laws by Congress.  What do voters mean by reform of federal immigration laws?  Sixty-eight percent “favor allowing illegal immigrants who pay taxes and obey the law to stay in the United States.”

In short, voters want a “both/and” approach to immigration reform, which is the essence of comprehensive immigration reform.  Here’s their short analysis:

While more voters think the government should secure the border first (21 percent) than pass new immigration laws (7 percent), most -- 68 percent -- say both should be done at the same time.  That includes majorities of Democrats (72 percent), independents (67 percent) and Republicans (65 percent).

The Fox poll also found that “a 61 percent majority of voters think it is ‘impossible to seal the border’ so there will always be illegal immigrants….  About two-thirds of voters (68 percent) favor allowing illegal immigrants who pay taxes and obey the law to stay in the United States, little changed from 67 percent who favored doing so in 2007.”

Let's compare that to polls that were conducted by CNN in May and July that presented an “either/or” choice.

Click here to read more.
Posted 06/02/10 at 09:04am By Frank Sharry

Shocker: Most Backers of Arizona Law Support Humane Immigration Reform

Cross-Posted at Huffington Post.

With national polls showing majority support for Arizona’s harsh immigration law, you probably think these voters are hard liners determined to rid the country of immigrants and deny a path to legal status for all of the undocumented immigrants in the U.S., right?

Wrong.

Here’s a shocker: four out of five voters who support Arizona’s new “papers-please” law also support comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented. On the flip side, a paltry one in five support rounding up and deporting everyone here illegally.

In a bipartisan survey sponsored by America’s Voice Education Fund and conducted by Lake Research Partners and Public Opinion Strategies of 800 registered voters nationwide, with an oversample of 300 Latino registered voters, we sought to understand the motivations and sentiments underlying the top line support for Arizona’s tough immigration law.  Here is what we found:

  • Three out of five voters nationwide do indeed support the Arizona law.  Not surprisingly, a majority of Latino voters oppose the law.

  • At the same time, four out of five of the voters who support the Arizona law also support comprehensive immigration reform with a path to legal status for undocumented immigrants.  Only one out of five support deportation as the preferred policy option when asked what to do about the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country. 

  • In addition, strong majorities believe that illegal immigration is a national problem, prefer comprehensive reform to Arizona-style laws in their state, and want the problem of illegal immigration acted on now.

Here are the numbers.  Like other polls, our latest shows that 60% of voters support the Arizona law nationwide, while 23% oppose it.  No news there.  But consider this finding:  Fully 78% of all voters supported comprehensive immigration reform.  Moreover, a whopping 84% of those who supported the Arizona law also supported comprehensive immigration reform. 

This bears repeating:

More than 4 out of 5 voters who support the Arizona law support comprehensive reform with a path to citizenship.  And 67% of them strongly support comprehensive immigration reform. 

Click here to read more.
Posted 05/07/10 at 03:53pm By Jackie Mahendra

Latest Research 2000 Poll Reveals “Gaudy” Level of Support for Immigration Reform, Near 80%

Via Kos in "The overwhelming support of immigration reform:"

Does the country agree on anything else, the way they agree on immigration?

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/3-6. Registered voters. MoE 2.8% (7/6-9/2009 results)

Do you favor or oppose Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform?

Favor 78 (69)
Oppose 15 (25)

One version of immigration reform that people have discussed would do the following if passed into law; it would secure the border, crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require illegal immigrants to register for legal immigration status, pay back taxes, and learn English in order to be eligible for U.S. citizenship. Do you favor or oppose Congress passing this version of immigration reform?

Favor 81 (74)
Oppose 14 (18)

These numbers are impressive, but they are hardly surprising, given how hungry voters across the political spectrum are for real solutions on immigration (they are tired of politicians looking to score cheap political points by flogging the issue, instead of dealing with illegal immigration in a firm but fair manner). A roundup of recent polling by America's Voice shows consistent support across party lines.

Kos continues by pointing out how "gaudy" the level of support is (love it):

The numbers were gaudy last June, and they've only gotten gaudier since. There is near-universal support, and it cuts across all lines. In fact, independents (85/12) are more likely to support comprehensive immigration reform than even Democrats (79/16). Republicans are just a hair behind (77/14). Support is strong across all age, race, and geographic groups.

There is no reason to delay immigration reform past this year. The vocal outrage of a xenophobic minority isn't reason to thwart the will of the American people on this issue, and it's certainly the right thing to do policy-wise, and morally. In fact, Arizona seems to have lit a fire under people, making reform even more popular than before. EVERYONE wants action.

There's no reason to wait.

So there you have it, comprehensive immigration reform: pushing the envelope on gaudy. Politicians, waiting at their political (not to mention moral, policy) peril.

The question is, where's the courage to lead?

Posted 05/06/10 at 07:16am By Jackie Mahendra

President Obama, Arizona, and Immigration Hardball

Last night President Obama weighed in again on the immigration debate and Arizona's controversial new law, according to Scott Wilson of the Washington Post:

President Obama told a White House reception Wednesday that he wants "to begin work this year" on comprehensive immigration reform, warning the audience that securing the legislation will be difficult but possible.

Addressing an audience celebrating Cinco de Mayo in the Rose Garden, Obama said, "America's diversity is America's strength." That, he added, is why he has spoken out against Arizona's recently passed immigration law, which has raised concerns of racial profiling.

"We can't start singling out people because of who they look like," he said to applause. "That's why we have to close the door on this kind of misconceived action by meeting our obligations here in Washington."

The Arizona law has given more urgency to the push for immigration reform, as have the imperatives of election-year politics.

The President has come under fire from Latino and immigrant advocacy groups in the past weeks and months for a perceived lack of concrete action on his promise to overhaul the nation's dysfunctional immigration system in a fair way. This is epitomized by mounting criticism against the Administration's ratcheted-up enforcement policies in the absence of federal reform. Right now there's no way for undocumented immigrants to get into the system and get legal, and unscrupulous employers continue to be able to exploit workers.

According to the AP:

Latino groups have been calling for Obama to deliver on his campaign promise of making immigration reform a top priority, with some activists and lawmakers in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus complaining he wasn't doing enough.

Obama clouded the issue last week by saying "there may not be an appetite" in Congress to deal with another hot-button issue immediately after grueling fights over health care and financial regulation.

In fact, these concerns, mixed with outrage over Arizona's new immigration law, boiled over on Saturday, May 1st. Hundreds of thousands of protesters in over 100 cities across the country took to the streets to peacefully but firmly put their foot down against Arizona's SB 1070 and stand up for immediate, federal action on immigration. In Washington, D.C., these protests included escalated calls for action. Irish Central characterized Chicago Congressman Luis Gutierrez' act of civil disobedience at the DC immigration rally a wakeup call for the Administration, in terms of how serious the Latino and immigrant communities are on this issue.

Watch the video of Rep. Gutierrez being arrested in front of thousands of supporters at the White House, to get a sense of the mood:

But it is not just Latino and immigrant communities who think a fair fix to immigration is long overdue.

Click here to read more.
Posted 03/31/10 at 02:35pm By Lynn Tramonte

Powerful Latino Voting Block of 2008 May Stay Home in 2010 Without Reform

New polling of Latino voters reveals that 1) this group is among the least energized heading into the 2010 elections; and 2) progress on comprehensive immigration reform is key to re-energizing these voters.

Latino Decisions researcher and Stanford University professor Dr. Gary Segura highlighted and analyzed the findings:

Among all the key constituents in the 2008 Obama victory, Latino voters appear to be among the least enthusiastic about voting in the 2010 midterm.

The poll found that just 49% of Latino registered voters who say they are very enthusiastic about voting, an all time low.  In the 2006 mid-terms, 60% of Latinos turned out, and their self-reported enthusiasm prior to the election was 77%.

Dr. Segura’s conclusion? 

For Latinos, there will have to be a genuine attempt on the part of the administration and Democrats in Congress to act on immigration.  Even if it fails, an honest effort (and the inevitable, ugly, GOP response) will help close the yawning enthusiasm gap between Latinos of 2010 and Latinos of 2006.  And should it pass, as it ought to, the rewards will be palpable.

According to Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice:

Just as the hope of genuine immigration reform motivated Latino voters to vote for Barack Obama and Democrats in 2008, the lack of hope threatens to keep them at home in the pivotal 2010 elections.  Latino voters may hold the keys to the congressional kingdom through their influence in many key swing races, but leadership on immigration reform will be needed to ensure an enthusiastic and mobilized Latino vote in 2010.

Click here to read more.
Posted 02/26/10 at 06:51pm By Jackie Mahendra

CIS-Zogby Polling FAIL: Cooking the Books on Latino Support for Mass Deportation

RecipeThis week the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the “think tank” of the anti-immigrant lobby, announced the results of a new CIS-sponsored Zogby poll purporting to show that people of color, including Latinos, support their mass-deportation, anti-immigrant agenda.

Coming from the same group whose leader, Mark Krikorian, recently argued that Judge Sotomayor should change her name to sound more “Anglo,” and who has previously blamed immigrants for global warming, CIS' viewpoints and strategies are clearly far from mainstream. Still, this latest effort to muddy the waters about public opinion on immigration ventures into the realm of the absurd.

CIS argues that people of color actually prefer enforcement-only approaches over comprehensive immigration reform. They claim that their “poll of Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American likely voters finds some support for legalization.  But overall each of these groups prefers enforcement and for illegal immigrants to return home.”  The CIS “poll” amazingly found that 52% of Latinos “support enforcement to encourage illegals to go home; 34 percent support conditional legalization.” 

That's right, CIS has cooked up a plan to try to convince us that a majority of Latinos support the mass deportation of the 12 milllion immigrants living and working in the U.S. without authorization. Half-baked polling and research is nothing new for these folks, after all.

What's really going on: the questions in the CIS-sponsored Zogby poll are engineered to produce anti-immigration responses and rely solely on input from online respondents, rather than a random sample of the general population (i.e. a true random digit dial telephone poll).  The findings are a dramatic departure from the results of numerous other (credible) polls of Latino voters (see below). 

Here's a quick Public Service Announcement from FiveThirtyEight.com's Nate Silver, who has called CIS' polling firm, Zogby, the "Worst Pollster in the World":

Zogby International conducts two types of polls. One type are conventional telephone polls. Zogby's telephone polls, while prone to somewhat wild fluctuations and subject to their share of erratic results (such as predicting a 13-point win for Barack Obama in the California primary; Obama lost by 9 points), are actually not terrible, and did fairly well on November 4th.

Zogby, however, also conducts Internet-based polls. These polls are conducted among users who volunteer to participate in them, first by signing up at the Zogby website (you can do so yourself here) and then by responding to an e-mail solicitation. These Internet polls, to the extent they rely on voluntary participation, violate the most basic precept of survey research, which is that of the random sample. And as you might infer, they obtain absolutely terrible results. 

Onto the real research. A May 2009 poll of Latinos nationwide conducted by Latino Decisions found that:

“...over 80% of Latino voters said they supported Obama’s plan that included increased border security, fines for undocumented immigrants, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants meeting certain requirements – just 14% of Latinos opposed the president’s plan.”

Click here to read more.
Posted 02/02/10 at 02:06pm By Jackie Mahendra

Warning to Democrats on Immigration Reform

Yesterday, Rep. Luis Gutierrez sent a political warning to his fellow Democrats: If immigration reform doesn’t pass, as promised, Latinos won’t vote.

Without progress, the congressman warned that many Latinos would stay home from the polls.

According to exit polls, Obama received 70% of the Latino vote in 2008, boosting him to victory in the swing states of Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Florida.

A poll last December by Latino Decisions, a research team specializing in the Latino vote, found that significant numbers of Latino voters would defect without passage of immigration reform.

"Democrats have to be very careful that they don't push Latinos from frustration to an active attitude of punishing them for inaction," said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonpartisan public policy analysis organization.

America’s Voice has been saying the same thing for months. The reason Barack Obama won states like Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Florida was because of heightened Latino turnout and support. As a candidate, President Obama promised to pass immigration reform during his first year in office, winning him strong support among Latinos that continued through 2009. A poll conducted by Bendixen and Associates last May showed that 72% of Latinos trusted the president to keep that promise to pass reform, and 83% trust that he will ultimately "do the right thing" on immigration.

An under-reported development in 2008 was also the swing within the Latino immigrant vote (foreign-born, naturalized citizens who are Latino) – which swung from 52-48 Kerry-Bush to 75-25 Obama-McCain.  Not only is the Latino immigrant vote a highly volatile segment of the Latino electorate, but immigration reform with a path to earned citizenship is a top issue priority for these voters.

In other words, Latino immigrant voters, are the group that Democrats need to consolidate and that Republicans can potentially0020chip away at (they can call it a “reconquista”).

Click here to read more.
Posted 01/27/10 at 09:16am By Mahwish Khan

After TPS Granted for Haitian Immigrants, Groups Rush to Demonize, Demagogue

Earlier this month, President Obama and a bipartisan group of members of Congress did the right thing by granting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Haitian immigrants already in the United States. Granting TPS was a welcome and timely move that reinforced American values at a time of great international turmoil.

It was a move that we, and many other organizations, applauded with the advertisement to the right, which appeared in Roll Call last Thursday, January 21st.   

Since then, as Andrea Nill at the Wonk Room points out, anti-immigration policy organizations and anti-immigration legislators began spouting nonsense like, "Haiti’s So Screwed Up Because It Wasn’t Colonized Long Enough" and "Undocumented Haitians Should Be Deported, Haiti In ‘Great Need Of Relief Workers" immediately following the tragedy. Blogger Duke at The Sanctuary quotes the anti-immigration "think tank" director, Mark Krikorian, in "Krikorian: Problem with Haiti- slavery ended too soon."

Click here to read more.
Posted 01/19/10 at 10:07am By Jackie Mahendra

Center for American Progress: Public Strongly Backs Immigration Reform

The Center for American Progress has a great snapshot of public opinion on immigration today. The piece begins:

There’s no doubt the politics of immigration reform are very complicated and that getting a bill through Congress will not be easy. But it’s important to be clear that the public is quite supportive of immigration reform, especially reform that is comprehensive and does not simply focus on punitive measures. This has been true of the public for some time and a new Benenson Strategy Group poll for America’s Voice demonstrates that it is still true today.

That's right, when it comes to public opinion on immigration, the numbers have it. According to the latest research, a whopping 87 percent of people support three of the major elements of comprehensive immigration reform, which includes creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who register with the government, meet requirements, pay taxes, and study English.

In addition, when asked push-button questions on immigration, most Americans respond that we'd be better off turning unauthorized immigrants into full taxpayers, instead of sending them home to free up jobs for Americans (the argument many anti-immigration pundits are making). Check out the chart:

View the rest of their snazzy graphs here.


Posted 01/15/10 at 12:22pm By Frank Sharry

Don’t Leave it to the Pundits, Even Palin Proves Them Wrong on Immigration

Inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom, which is usually wrong, is way off on immigration reform. 

Pundits and unnamed politicos have long been arguing that Congress won’t deal with reform in 2010. But, according to an article in today’s Politico, not only is immigration reform in the mix, it’s got a pretty fierce champion in the Senate:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is heading for a collision with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) over whose pet issue will get top billing in the Senate later this year.

Schumer is taking a lead role in immigration — and is pushing Democrats to prioritize a potentially toxic issue leading up to the November elections. Kerry is a lead negotiator on climate change and is demanding that a climate bill get pushed to the front of the line.

Kerry and Schumer — who have a history of competitive tensions — are maneuvering behind the scenes to get White House and Senate leadership to promise to give their respective issues time this spring.

At America’s Voice, we don’t know if the premise of the article – a conflict between two leading Democrats on two crucial progressive priorities – is true. We do know that Chuck Schumer has taken the lead on pushing comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

And, that should capture the attention of pundits.

Schumer is well-known for his political acumen. He helped lead the Democrats from a caucus of 45 in 2006 to the majority of 60 they now have.  Last year, one of the geniuses at FOX News regurgitated the blatantly inaccurate, yet widely held, assessment of the issue:

This radioactive topic always lights the Republican fires as well, a dangerous political weapon against Democrats.

But, since that “fire” was lit back in 2006 Schumer led the Democrats into their majority, Democrats took control of the House and Barack Obama was elected with the help of a huge Latino turnout in formerly red states of Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. Some fire. But, that’s what D.C. insiders – and Fox News -- think.

Click here to read more.

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