It’s hard to get 86 percent of Americans to agree on much of anything these days. But yet:
A staggering 86 percent of Americans say they support a right to residency for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll, which indicates support is crossing the political spectrum.
Those who were polled said they support that type of program if the immigrant has completed high school or military service and has not been convicted of a serious crime, which are all elements of DACA, established by former President Barack Obama by executive order in 2012.
Support spanned demographic groups, including three-quarters of Republicans and conservatives, 86 and 87 percent of independents and moderates and 97 and 96 percent of Democrats and liberals.
“Two-thirds back a deal to enact such legislation in tandem with higher funding for border control,” notes ABC News. But, it’s important to note the federal government already spends more on federal immigration enforcement than on all federal law enforcement agencies—including the FBI and Secret Service—combined. And by large numbers, the poll also finds Americans oppose other key planks and deplorable beliefs from Trump’s nativist agenda.
Only 12 percent of those polled believe that undocumented immigrants commit more crime than U.S.-born Americans (they don’t, sorry, Jeff Sessions), 62 percent oppose Donald Trump’s racist border wall that Mexico will never pay for (and that barely 24 percent of congressional Republicans endorse), and 55 percent oppose his proposal to cut legal immigration in half, recently floated by the ghoulish Stephen Miller.
With the clock ticking and 800,000 immigrant youth living in anxiety, there’s no reason why anything as universally agreed upon—allowing immigrant youth to stay in the only country they know as home—should continue being delayed. This is an American and human rights issue, and continuing to delay a vote on a clean, bipartisan DREAM Act reeks of sheer politics. Give them a vote and let them stay.
