Gallup: 80% of Voters View Immigration as Important Issue

Immigration is as hot a political issue in 2016 as abortion, according to a new Gallup poll.

The latest Rasmussen survey also shows that eighty percent of voters view illegal migration as a serious problem, including 50 percent who describe it as a “Very Serious” issue.

The Gallup poll says that 20 percent of registered voters will only vote for a candidate who meets their demands on the issue, which Gallup described as “immigration” but could also be called “migration.” Sixty percent say the issue will be “one of many important factors.”

That’s on a par with an issue that’s been a hot topic for years now, abortion.

Earlier this year, one in five registered voters told Gallup they will only vote for candidates who agree with them on abortion, and only 46 percent said it would be “one of many important factors.”

Gallup’s poll does not say whether Americans favor or disfavor additional “immigration” — but a growing number of polls show increased public opposition to the establishment’s push to increase migration into the United States.

Most Americans want to like immigrants, and most applaud the idea of people immigrating into the U.S. to become Americans.

But many polls show lopsided and strong bipartisan opposition to economic migration, to illegal migration, to companies’ use of foreign workers in place of Americans, and to the vague notion of more “immigration.”

That suppressed public sentiment has helped push Donald Trump to the head of the GOP primary field.

A poll released Sept. 8 shows Donald Trump picking up 41 percent support among GOP voters, including second-choice votes.  None of the establishment candidates come near that score, according to the survey of 2008 registered voters, including 772 registered Republicans. Gov. Jeb Bush — who favors increased use of lower-wage foreign white-collar professionals, and who endorses amnesty for illegals — only gets 17 percent in first- and second-choice votes.

The public’s  growing pro-American attitude was highlighted by a new Sept. 1 Rasmussen poll. It shows 80 percent of likely voters describe “immigration” as a serious problem, including 50 percent who describe it as a “very serious” problem.

The Rasmussen poll shows that 72 percent of conservatives and 40 percent of “moderates” believe it is a “very serious” problem. Seventy-seven percent of conservatives and 51 percent of “moderates” say that “getting control of the border” is more important than “legalizing” the illegals. Sixty-three percent of conservatives and 44 percent of “moderates” say amnesty — dubbed “a pathway to citizenship” — will spur more migration.

Those Gallup numbers – but not the Rasmussen numbers — were possibly pushed up by the European migration crisis, in which hundreds of thousands of Muslim economic migrants are shoving past Europe’s weak border guards to grab residency in Europe’s placid, ordered and wealthy neighborhoods, which are already suffering from high unemployment. Worldwide, many millions more migrants are expected to come northwards, largely at the invite of German officials, who are offering homes to the first 2 million migrants who get into the country.

In 2014, U.S. public opposition spiked as President Barack Obama allowed roughly 130,000 unskilled economic migrants from Central American to cross the U.S. border and fan out to cities around the country. One poll showed that 45 percent of registered voters, and 52 percent of independents, even said that so-called “unaccompanied children”  should be sent home “as soon as possible.”

In 2014, Obama’s deputies officials characterized his inflow of migrants as asylum applicants, just as European officials are describing the Europe’s migrants are who leave poor but safe refuges in Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria and many other places for better economic and welfare opportunities in Germany and Sweden.

Gallup polling data collected in 2009 to 2011 shows that “more than 640 million people say they would like to leave their country permanently [and] roughly 150 million of them say they would like to move to the U.S.” The data was collected from 452,000 adults in 151 countries.

Currently, the United States accepts roughly 1 million legal immigrants, plus 1 million migrant workers, plus roughly 300,000 illegal immigrants each year. These foreign workers compete for jobs sought by the roughly 4 million young Americans who enter the workforce each year, driving down wages, increasing taxpayers’ costs, but also boosting profits and Wall Street stock values.

The established media rarely publishes these numbers. A 2013 poll by Rasmussen showed that only about 10 percent of Americans know that the country accept 1 million legal immigrants per year.