Poll: Trump’s Migration Reform Plan Gets 66 Percent Support

Presidential Candidates Stump At Iowa State Fair
Win McNamee/Getty Images

A new poll shows that two-thirds of Iowa caucus-goers believe Donald Trump’s popularity is boosted by his pro-American immigration reform that would return migrants to their home countries.

The high score was revealed once pollsters reassured respondents that they could not be accused of being mean to foreigners.

Nearly all polls ask individuals to say if they personally favor one policy or another. But those direct questions warp the responses whenever the individuals worry their preferred answer might be disliked by the questioner or by influential people.

This time, the new Iowa poll of 400 GOP likely caucus-goers instead asked respondents what policy their fellow caucus-goers would prefer. That indirect question allowed the respondents to freely project their personal preferences on their neighbors, without any worries about criticism.

Without those worries, 66 percent of respondents said they “think it would be more of a strength… for Donald Trump… [to be] dealing with illegal immigration.”

Only 29 percent thought Trump’s policy would be a weakness, said the poll.

The poll had a second question on immigration which demonstrated the impact of pollster pressure on respondents.

The pollsters’ second question said “some candidates favor rounding up 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally and sending them to their home country. Do you think this is a good way or a bad way to address the situation?”

That “rounding up” phrase portrays declared supporters of Trump’s reform as participants in a police-state dragnet, and it would deter many people from announcing their support.

Unsurprisingly, Trump’s support fell in the second question — although it remained at a near-majority. Forty-seven percent said that the “rounding up” option was a a “good way” to deal with the migration problem.

That 47 percent indicates the passionate support many Americans have for proper enforcement of immigration laws.

Currently, the federal government does little to enforce popular immigration laws, and does much to boost the annual legal arrival of even more foreign workers.

As a result, the four million Americans who enter the workforce each year face job-competition from roughly three million new legal immigrants, temporary visitors and guest-workers, plus the competition from the growing population of roughly 1 million employed white-collar guest workers and 8 million employed illegal immigrants .

Unsurprisingly, Americans’ wages have been flat since at least 2000. Correspondingly, profits and stock values have soared, boosting the wealth of political donors.

The Iowa poll also showed that 84 percent of respondents believe that Trump’s plans would improve economic conditions for the middle class.

Overall, the poll showed that 23 percent of respondents preferred Trump to be the GOP’s 2016 candidate. Only 6 percent favored Jeb Bush, who has promised to boost economic growth by importing many foreign college graduates for white-collar jobs.

Bush’s 6 percent score was only one-third of the 18 percent support won by former surgeon Ben Carson.

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